Monday 23 July 2012


On Base….
It’s hard to believe that not very long ago I was just arriving in the tiny town of San Francisco and being whisked off to Cano Palma for the first time. Since that time, it has almost been 2 months! Time does fly when one is having fun!

Estacion Biologica Cano Palma
Usually I am one to shy away from anything that involves stepping outside my comfort zone, so after the first day when I realized that in order to carry out my job each day I would be required to take a canoe, I was slightly uneasy. What made it worst was that I discovered that Juancho, the very sneaky spectacled caiman surfaces much too frequently for my liking. However, life is about embracing new experiences and facing our fears. So, while being the only one in a life jacket  despite the water not being very deep,I was ready go.


Juancho...the resident caiman at Cano Palma.


See also a video by Josh and Liam Feltham featuring Juancho: http://vimeo.com/46005705 
(Website: Destination Conservation Blogs)


What We Do
My job here at Cano Palma involves assisting with the turtle monitoring and conservation project as well as community education and engagement and helping Mariya with the large mammal monitoring program. Since I had never worked with turtles before, the first week involved much training from turtle coordinator Khrissy. 
  
Sarah, Kirstin and Khrissy making their night patrol outfits more funky!
Each day we leave the station at the break of dawn and/or at night to walk the length of the beach which is 3.5 miles in length.  By the time we have completed our back and forth trek we sometimes have completed from 6-14 miles a day. Talk about working out! However our role here is more than an exercise session, for on the North Beach that we survey, is the nesting site for 4 species of sea turtles, the leatherback  ( Dermochelys coriacea), the green (Chelonia mydas), the hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and less commonly the loggerhead (Caretta caretta).

These unique creatures that hatch on beaches and return to land only to nest, have been targeted for many years and have been subjects of much anthropogenic harm.  Despite the laws protecting sea turtles in Costa Rica and many other countries where these turtles nest, one of the biggest threats has still been high incidences of poaching (illegal trading of meat, eggs and shells).  This becomes a greater issue on the beach we survey due to the fact that Playa Norte falls outside the protected Tortuguero National Park. By maintaining presence on the beach, seeing nesting turtles off safely to sea as well as assisting with the collection of biometric data, the turtles have definitely been getting a second chance.

                            
                                                           A leatherback sea turtle.
[See ARKive for more information and pictures of endangered species including turtles]



Death on the Beach
 A picture of the dead green turtle...taken by Kirstin the following morning...
    


While many turtles get a second chance, unfortunately some are not quite as lucky. Recently our night patrol team discovered a deceased turtle on the beach. While we had been warned that this was a possibility...nothing prepared us for that moment of actually seeing it for ourselves. She was heavy laden with eggs and bloated-eyes bulging. Holes had been pierced through her flippers and tied together with ropes.               

Community members saddened by the event came out to show their concern and to offer any assistance possible. A resident explained that she had washed up on the beach since 5 pm, her decaying body confirmed his statement. We later discovered that this was possibly due to an illegal poaching boat at sea that had dumped turtles overboard presumably trying to get rid of evidence after being caught by coastguards. Helplessly still tied by the flippers and unable to breathe, this turtle and others had drowned at sea and washed up on the beach.  The following night there was another and recently yet another was discovered, this time without flippers and with exposed intestines. It is such brutality that conservation efforts all over try to deter especially for sea turtles which are disappearing gradually from our marine ecosystems.

In an effort to raise awareness and assist with protection against such incidences, Sarah recently created anti-poaching posters that have been put up around the community. These help to highlight the brutality of the matter, get more community members involved in the program and hopefully inspire some positive change. It all  becomes more real when people come to the realization that this is not a far-fetched issue but that it is happening in their very backyards. 

Also see blogs by:
 Sarah: http://roamingfrijole.blogspot.ca/2012_07_01_archive.html
 Kirstin: http://turtletimetortuguero.blogspot.ca/
 and Mariya:  http://mariapuravida.wordpress.com/  for more information.
Above: One of the posters Sarah made.

"Hunters are killing our future.
Do not give support for hunters.
Report with this number"



"Some people in the village will buy meat or eggs but do not see the turtles butchered on the beach. When people are removed from the process, it makes it hard to believe that it is happening not too far from them.  Since most of the people are employed by the tourism industry, their livelihoods depend on nesting turtles that draw in tourists by the thousands." (Sarah Bradley,July 6,2012)


Making the Connection
One of the most enlightening moments of this entire trip was when I discovered that the same species of sea turtles that nest on Playa Norte also nest in Jamaica and that these species too are under even greater threat in my home country. In fact, I discovered that sea turtles particularly the hawksbills and the greens which were most abundant, and have gone almost ecologically and functionally extinct, were once present in large numbers and nested on beaches including the Treasure Beach in my own home parish. However with beachfront development, overexploitation, predation and pollution, these species are almost completely non-existent on the island. It was truly life-changing when I realized that all this time I had to travel half way across the  world to finally become aware of issues that were always present right in my own back yard. However, it’s never too late to be the change we seek and so while not directly assisting with conservation efforts in Jamaica, the little done through the monitoring program in Costa Rica can create a ripple effect that can reach all borders. I have through this internship been able to take a bird eye’s view of the environmental factors affecting my own country and have therefore learnt much more about home even while being away from it.


A hawksbill sea turtle.
Conservation
Despite all I have learnt about conservation efforts in the past, none compares to the authenticity that comes from actually being able to put it all into practice. Being able to stand on a beach, watch and count eggs as a turtle lays, monitoring her condition and being present just to watch her take another swim of survival becomes more than just a textbook paragraph and transcends into meaningful action.

Being at Cano Palma has also played an advantageous role in opening my mind to embracing new perspectives. It is said that there are two sides to every story and so while we want to deter any incidences of poaching ,it is equally important to learn from the people who actually have lived in the surrounding communities and who know their environment best. It is easy to think we have all the answers but knowing comes with experience and so empowering the community instead of criticizing has been a key theme that our station manager Charlotte has tried to instill. For after our 3 months has expired, it is important that the people we leave behind were an active part in engaging in all we did and that we too have learnt from wealth of knowledge they can impart.
Sarah with baby leatherbacks!

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