Poco a Poco, Bird by Bird

by Sarah Otterstrom

I grew up spending lazy summers along the shores of northern lakes in the Inland Pacific Northwest. Maybe this is where my love of “biodiversity” was born. If anything, it was where I first learned to recognize the magic of the natural world.

At the lake, my cousin and I built a tree fort with a plush carpet made of fresh moss and we decorated the ceiling with pine leaves. We imagined living a simple life balanced between gathering and storing wild berries, and relaxing to the sound of the whispering pines. During those times, we were part of the forest, just like our fort.

For much of my adult life I have returned to spend summers at the lake. For years I set out on these trips with a stubborn naiveté, that the ecological problems in Nicaragua were separate from the problems in the Inland Northwest.

Two summers ago, however, I was huckleberry picking with my two young sons in the woodlands surrounding Priest Lake, Idaho. We heard the chuckle of two young boys and the sound of BB gun fire. I figured, all is well, just some kids goofing around. Well, the laughter continued and it soon developed into what we might call “bullying”. I could not resist walking through the woods to see the source. Standing there were two young boys, BB guns in hand, poking a dying bird.

It was a Western Tanager (pictured below).

 "Western Tanager" by http://www.naturepicsonline.com/ licensed by Creative Commons

The Western Tanager is a colorful migrant that spends its summers in the Pacific Northwest and winters in Mexico and Central America, including Nicaragua. The bird that was killed by these boys may well have been a bird Nicaraguan “Junior Rangers” had worked to keep safe. I was devastated. While I preach to Nicaraguan children to spare the life of birds, children in my country are busy doing the same thing, but with higher caliber weaponry. My magical corner in the Northwest was not as singular as I had imagined it and I struggled to explain such hypocrisy to my children. 

The lesson to me from this experience is that, as conservationists, the solutions we are all looking for must be global. Paso Pacifico can be effective at disarming Nicaraguan children of their sling-shots and we know that our small effort is worthwhile, because each bird is valued. But, as long as we work in isolation from the entire geography of the bird’s life cycle, we will fall short.

By surrendering their slingshots and pledging to protect wildlife, these two young Nicaraguan boys earned binoculars and have become students in Paso Pacifico's environmental education programs.

Fortunately, in the bird world, partnerships abound and through them we are finding ways to safeguard birds throughout their migratory path.

Poco a poco, bird by bird, Paso Pacifico and other bird conservationists will arm the world with binoculars and help protect birds and ecosystems they make whole.

Please help us give 100 children in Nicaragua a chance to enjoy a tanager with binoculars:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/binoculars-for-slingshots/x/6418779

Stingless Beekeeping in the Paso del Istmo

Marcos inspects a Melipona beecheii worker captured at a flowering bush on the property of a beekeeper.

It is dry season in Paso del Istmo, with trade winds wicking moisture from the Pacific slope forests causing upwelling of nutrient-rich water offshore. Deciduous tree species are dropping their leaves and tree crowns full of yellow or purple blooms dot the landscape. The dry season blossoms bring increased bee activity and with it a flurry of projects in our meliponiculture program.

In the rainy season of 2012, intern Sarah Rudeen and veterinary student Marcos Calero Pérez piloted Paso Pacifico's bee program by reaching out to keepers of stingless bees in the vicinities of the Flor and Ostayo rivers, gathering data and leading workshops on modern stingless beekeeping techniques developed in Mexico, Brazil, and Costa Rica.

Marcos Calero Pérez and intern Richard Joyce are carrying the program forward by assisting in the transfer of hives from logs and branches to wooden boxes. These specially designed boxes allow for less disruptive and more sanitary harvest of honey, easier monitoring, and, most importantly, the ability to divide hives, increasing the number of hives without having to cut trees and branches from the forest.

In addition to supporting and promoting the keeping of native stingless bees, we are collecting data on the bee diversity in the isthmus and using pollen samples to better understand the relationships between bees, native flora, and cultivated crops.

When dry season comes to a close, we will transition to connecting honey producers with stores in Rivas and Managua where they can get a good price for their product. In addition, we will create a plan for a women's beekeeping cooperative.

Stay tuned for more updates on the project!

A rustic log hive in the Ostayo watershed. Paso Pacifico is helping beekeepers transfer hives to boxes that facilitate harvest and hive division.

Marcos Calero Pérez teaches children the basics of Melipona bee biology.

Roble de sabana, a dry season blooming tree.

Bait for attracting swarms of Tetragonisca angustula, a small stingless bee whose honey is highly medicinal for eye ailments.

Special thanks to author and photographer Richard Joyce!

Paso Pacifico 101

In October of last year I had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua to learn more about Paso Pacifico and its work in the Paso del Istmo.  The trip was a crash course in all things Paso Pacifico.  In just five short days we patrolled beaches with the Sea Turtle Rangers, climbed trees looking for endangered Yellow-naped parrots, met the Junior Rangers at the Karen Warren & Susan White Spider Monkey Sanctuary and met with a significant portion of the staff.  It was possibly the five most exhilarating and exhausting days of my life and I am so grateful for what we were able to experience and learn from this organization and its members.

By far the best part of trip was getting to meet with so many of the organization’s employees.  I rarely experience such genuine warmth and compassion so quickly after meeting someone and all of the folks we met had these qualities.  They were especially considerate of our language barrier and maintained their composure when listening to us stumble through what little Spanish we could conjure. I understood after meeting these individuals why Paso Pacifico has been so successful.  Their interactions with one another and with the members of the various communities demonstrated the real strength of the organization.  Compassionate people like this are the ones who make conservation happen and who, with persistence, will change the world.

As of earlier this month I am proud to say that now I too am a Paso Pacifico employee.  I will be helping the organization manage its media presence and organize its digital media.  I am proud to now be a permanent part of this community and look forward getting to know them better, hear their stories, and be a part of conserving this amazing landscape.

Salvador Sanchez, Paso Pacifico’s Turtle Program Coordinator, explains the life cycle of a sea turtle at La Flor Beach Natural Reserve.  

Marcela Gutierrez recently joined the Paso Pacifico team and now leads our reforestation project in which we are reforesting two major watersheds.  She was instrumental in the community focus group we attended in the small community of Tortuga.

Paso Pacifico’s Turtle Rangers took the morning to explain to us their work protecting and researching sea turtles at Brasilon Beach north of the community of Ostional.

Julie Martinez leads our environmental education program and is well known in many of the small communities in the Paso del Istmo. 

Daniel Sanchez, one of Paso Pacifico’s Turtle Rangers, took the afternoon to give us a tour of the mangrove forest near the community of Ostional.  His extensive knowledge of the local ecology and gentle demeanor make him a great naturalist and guide.  

Primates in Fragments: Complexity and Resilience

Primates in Fragments: Complexity and Resilience

Primate Populations in Fragmented Tropical Dry Forest Landscapes in Southwestern Nicaragua

The lack of information on how primates respond to habitat fragmentation across a variety of ecosystems and regions hampers conservation efforts in the fragmented landscapes where populations are most threatened.

We investigated the status of primates in the highly fragmented forests of southwestern Nicaragua, a region containing some of Central America’s few remaining patches of tropical dry forest. We surveyed primates in two areas, the Chococente Wildlife Refuge comprising the country’s largest remaining fragments of tropical dry forest, and an area of Rivas just north of the Costa Rican border, where tropical dry forest exists in much smaller, more isolated patches without formal protection.

Of the three species found in Nicaragua, howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) were least affected by fragmentation remaining relatively abundant in both areas. However, capuchins (Cebus capucinus) and spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) were far less abundant and have suffered local extinctions both inside and outside of protected areas. Interestingly, our data suggest that all three species are currently least threatened in the human-dominated landscape on the Rivas Isthmus, the more fragmented study region where forests receive no official protection.

In spite of extensive fragmentation, southwestern Nicaragua’s remaining tropical dry forests may maintain a functioning metapopulation of primates, including populations of the endangered spider monkey. However, reasons why the endangered spider monkey is more common in the more fragmented region are unclear. Our results demonstrate both the surprising ability of primates to survive in highly modified landscapes, and the critical importance of coordinating conservation efforts with private landowners, local communities, and other stakeholders.

Planning for primate conservation in such anthropogenic landscapes must consider historical factors and larger spatial context. In Nicaragua, the local NGO Paso Pacífico has adopted the spider monkey as a flagship species, and is working extensively with landowners and local communities to conserve this species and the forest fragments in which it lives.

Chapter authors are Paso Pacífico's:

Director of Science Kimberly Williams-Guillén
Collaborator Suzanne Hagell
Founder Sarah Otterstrom
Collaborator Stephanie Spehar

You can download the full chapter here. 

Read more about the black-handed spider monkey on our website.

limpieza de costas: registra tu playa

Limpieza Internacional de Costas, este 21 de Septiembre. Ayudanos a limpiar las costas.

Estaremos en:

• Casares
• San Juan del Sur
• Corinto
• Paso Caballo
• Ostional
• Brasilon
• Playa Escondida
• Jiquiliste
• La Flor
• Rio Ostayo
• Rio La flor
• Laguna de Asososca
• y otras playas

No te quedes en casa e inscribete o inscribe una playa. Te esperamos este 21 de septiembre.

Reforestation, Birds & Butterflies

In case you missed it, the August Edition of our Connections Newsletter is online.

Read about:

• Paso del Istmo Reforestation Partnership
• Conservation & Sustainable Tourism Program (CSTP)
• CSTP Coverage in La Prensa
• CHICABRAVA all girls surf camp
• Surf Industry & ESPN Coverage of the Waterman's Ball
• Entomological Museum of León, Nicaragua
• Butterfly Surveys
• Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Initative 
• Billion Baby Turtles T-shirts

Billion Baby Turtles T's

PuruKai's Billion Baby Turtle t-shirt sales support sea turtle conservation in Costa Rica. Our friends at SEETurtles and WIDECAST will save five baby sea turtles for every shirt sold.

Most of our friends know that the Billion Baby Turtles project supports sea turtle conservation efforts like ours. Billion Baby Turtles funds, at work all over Central America, go towards paying local residents to patrol important turtle nesting beaches, protecting turtles that come up to nest, and ensuring that the eggs are protected.

The folks at PuraKai explain their name and business model:

Save five turtles. Buy a t-shirt.

The story of Purakai is the story of capturing the spirit of two great cultures. The name PuraKai is derived from the Costa Rican phrase Pura Vida, and Kai, the Hawaiian word for ocean. Giving PuraKai the meaning of “Pure Ocean”.

As eco-minded entrepreneurs we feel the there is a better way to make clothing. Clothing made without herbicides, pesticides, GMO's, or harmful dyes, without toxic run off from cotton fields polluting our surf, ruining our beaches, and destroying our fragile coastal eco-systems. Clothing a surfer, stand up paddler, freediver, spearfisherman or other water lover can wear proudly.