Caribbean Biological Corridor in the Works?

"The Plan establishes the profiles for projects to be developed in a 1,600 kilometer-long geographic area which links three countries’ landscapes, ecosystems, habitats and cultures, the local Environment Ministry (Semarena) announced today."

Reported in Dominican Today

We'll be watching!

Solar FLAP Bags for Turtle Rangers

We're getting excited to welcome our friends from the Portable Light Project to Nicaragua. They're bringing customized solar FLAP units for use on the turtle nesting beaches.

These special units, created just for us, will be mounted to these bags (pictured at right). Each unit will emit a red light, rather than a white light, to ensure that they don't disorient turtle hatchlings who follow the moonlight to sea.

We're grateful to Sheila Kennedy, whom we met at Pop!Tech last year, for her work designing these, and her team for their help orchestrating this project.

Turtle Transmitter Recovered

Yesterday was a good day. We recovered the stolen turtle transmitter without police intervention. This, of course, is partly due to the fact that the stolen device was still transmitting its location. Fortunately, though, we also had conflict resolution training and experience on our side. Once our staff explained the transmitter's value for conservation and for sea turtles, the device was returned. Everyone is at peace and we have our $3000 satellite transmitter to affix to Karen again -- or perhaps to another turtle.

EcoLocalizer Reports on Performance-Based Conservation

Picking up Rick Smith's recent piece at National Parks Traveler, EcoLocalizer has posted about our turtle rangers and community-based conservation programs:

Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization focusing on the Pacific slope of Central America, is helping endangered Hawksbill Turtles in Nicaragua with a compensation-based conservation program based on incentive payments for local people. The financial rewards to locals in exchange for protecting endangered sea turtle nests are making a difference: Rangers have reported that egg poaching is on the decline. And Paso Pacífico plans are to make this program sustainable.

You can see the EcoLocalizer piece here.

Crazy Turtle Update

Believe it or not, someone has stolen the satellite tracking device right off the back of Karen the Hawksbill sea turtle. Our colleagues in Ostional are trying to recover it -- luckily the stolen device is trackable!

Meanwhile, Karen is doing just fine. In fact, she nested last night at one of our beaches. Our rangers protected her and continue to protect her nest.

Ventura County Start Talks Turtles

We got a brief mention in the local paper today!

Ventura group tags rare sea turtle for study
 
"The Ventura-based conservation group Paso Pacifico recently tagged a rare sea turtle off the coast of Nicaragua with a radio transmitter that allows scientists to study the endangered species." 

Endangered Hawksbill turtles tagged

Paso Pacifico is proud to announce that our rangers together with sea turtle scientists from the Proyecto Carey! have measured and tagged two critically endangered Hawksbill turtles.  They were encountered and protected by our rangers on June 30th 2009 near the beach ‘La Flor’, a well known mass nesting olive ridley beach along the country’s southwest coast. These turtles will provide critical conservation information for what is one of the most endangered sea turtle populations on the planet; the hawksbill turtle in the eastern Pacific. The information generated will be used to help guide future research and conservation in the study region.

This huge achievement was made possible thanks to Alex and Ingrid of Proyecto Carey! and to the Eastern Pacific Hawskbill Inititiave,  the Nicaraguan Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), the Nicaraguan Sea Turtle Network (Red Nica), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the USAID, the US Forest Service International Institute for Tropical Forestry, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
You may follow these turtles here:
http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=295