LATEST NEWS

JUNE 2010

PACUARE

The Leatherback nesting season started more slowly than usual but as the beach built up so did the nesting numbers. Once again we are heading for an excellent season.

By early June we had counted over 900 nests at Pacuare. We may not reach the record numbers of last year but it will still be one of the best years ever.

We shall again be looking with great interest at the carapace measurement of the nesting turtles as we are hoping that a greater percentage of smaller turtles will indicate the arrival of new recruits that hatched in Pacuare in the early nineties. If that were happening, it would be the best possible reward for all the hard work of so many people during the last 20 years. However, we shall never be certain, as marine biologists have widely differing views about the age at which leatherbacks reach maturity. Recent opinion has been as high as thirty years.

Catharine Hart, with previous leatherback experience in Costa Rica, leads the coordinators and is supported by a wonderful team of nine Research Assistants -all girls but one and of eight different nationalities. Why is it that the best applicants are mostly girls? It will be the same for the second half of the season- June to September- when we shall have nine Research Assistants of whom seven are girls.

The new buildings at the South Station were completed by May. They are arranged in an attractive campus style semi-circle, about forty metres to the north of the existing buildings and the same distance inland from the beach (see photo). They have many improvements over the original buildings they replace.

As there were no destructive floods this year we are still able to use our old Baulas building overlooking the beach, and the Casa Grande continue as before. These were the two buildings most at risk from the floods and coastal erosion but we shall continue to maintain and use them as long as possible.

PANAMA

All four beaches in Panama are reporting excellent nesting figures comparable to last year. The three longest beaches, together comprising 20 kms. of leatherback nesting beach, all employ local men and women to patrol these beaches.
The final nesting numbers for leatherbacks will be known by the end of July and will be posted in Latest News.

Panama in 2009

All the Leatherback turtle projects we either manage or supervise had record nesting numbers this season, a wonderful turnaround from the recent years when the beaches were unprotected and littered with the carcases of slaughtered turtles.

Soropta beach counted over 550 nests, the highest yet. Poaching was less severe this year owing to the absence of The Prince, a famous poacher from further along the beach, who was drowned in the floods in the early part of the year. Managing Soropta on your own is a difficult and demanding job and we were fortunate to have such a good leader and biologist as Ana Maria Vasquez from Colombia. It is excellent news that she is coming back to Soropta in 2010. As usual, we employed guards from Finca 60, a nearby banana plantation, and 8 local people were employed by the project.

While we were being flooded at Pacuare, heavy rains were also causing floods in Panama. The Changuinola river, which reaches the sea near to our Soropta station, became so powerful that it washed away the big spit of sand which formed a large part of the nesting beach we protected. In order to cover the same length of beach, we had to patrol a further 3 kms to the East, making the patrols longer to cover the same length of beach.

Volunteers and visitors to Soropta come mainly from nearby Bocas del Toro, many at short notice for a night or two, but not long enough to be of support to the resident team. Soropta is a difficult project to manage. It is isolated, and bringing food or people from Bocas is very expensive but it is most important that we maintain it.

Soropta was the worst of the killing beaches until we set up the project to protect and patrol the beach in 2001. It led the way to the protection of the adjoining beaches San San and Sixaola, both of which are subsidized by Rainforest Concern and supervised by our Mexican biologist Cristina, though run by the local communities.

On the Sixaola beach, which is isolated and inaccessible, a good local man, Huascar, has been trained to work with turtles, and he has recruited and trained 6 other locals to work on the beach during the season. They are paid for every night they patrol and they are glad of the chance to earn a salary in an area where no work is available.

Huascar and his team counted 520 leatherback nests this season, the highest number since we started. San San recorded nearly 450 leatherback nests, making a total of over 1500 nests for the 20 kms of the three mainland beaches which stretch South-west from the Costa Rican border.

There is a fourth beach we protect, Playa Larga, quite separate from the others as it is on the island of Bastamentos. It is a lovely short golden beach facing onto the open sea and is visited by Hawksbill turtles as well as Leatherbacks. Isobel Petersen from the US ran the project this year, supported by a local Research Assistant.

Life is basic on Playa Larga. Unlike Soropta, there is no cook or flush toilets. Food is brought from Bocas once a week. Volunteers love this simple Robinson Crusoe life. They recorded 135 leatherbacks.

Panama continues to be a great success story and vital to the survival of the Leatherback. People reading this please think about making a donation via Rainforest Concern to help fund this work. If you want to get really involved, think about volunteering (see links under Costa Rica and Panama on the left) or just email Carlos Fernandez.

JULY 2009

A wonderful season for Leatherback nesting

It has been the best season in the history of the Reserve. These are the nesting figures for this year up to the end of June and there are still some turtles nesting so the final count will be even higher.

COSTA RICA	PANAMA
Pacuare	Soropta	Sixaola	San San	Playa Larga
1160	548	516	422	131

Nearly 2,800 in total!

Congratulations to all the coordinators, Research Assistants and student volunteers for their hard work and very long hours on the beach that have made this possible.

A few years ago, Pacuare nesting numbers were down to about half this year's figures and the Panamanian beaches were still littered with the remains of slaughtered turtles. This is an amazing turnaround and long may it last.

(Please scroll down to read about last year's season in Panama)