Save the Sea Turtles

We are so grateful to you for supporting our sea turtle protection work in Central America and around the world. Over the last several months, we have strengthened our sea turtle conservation program in Central America, launched new partnerships to expand the use of the investEGGAtor anti-poaching technology, and worked with a network of scientists to plan efforts to save the eastern pacific leatherback from extinction. 

Here are some of the activities that have been undertaken over the past several months:

• In honor of International Women's Day, two of our female sea turtle rangers traveled from the beaches of southwestern Nicaragua to the city of Leon where they presented their program results to students and professors at the the national university. Later than day, they visited the university's sea turtle program at Isla Juan Venado that also depends heavily upon the leadership of women.
• In preparation from the 2021 season, we rebuilt the sea turtle nursery at El Coco beach in collaboration with the Parque Maritimo El Coco, and we provided sea turtle protection training to rangers at the Morgan's Rock Ecolodge and Rancho Santana to help strengthen nest protection programs.
• We concluded our 2020 nesting season. It was a challenging year due to covid-19 which led to more poaching and due to two hurricanes battering the country. Despite this, our community rangers helped protect nests and enabled the hatching of more than 2500 turtles, of which nearly half were endangered green turtles.
• Sea turtle conservatoin programs around the world continue to reach out to Paso Pacifico to purchase InvestEGGator decoy eggs to track the illegal trade of sea turtle eggs. The latest buyers are an NGO in the Caribbean, NGOs in two countries in SE Asia, and a government in South America. Thanks to your support, we are able to offer this turtle saving tech to conservationists around the world. The global reach of requests for this technology highlights the need to combat wildlife trafficking for sea turtles around the world.
• The leatherback sea turtle is critically endangered and scientific models predict that under the status quo, it will go extinct within the next thirty years. To address this, scientists across the eastern tropical pacific, including our executive director Sarah Otterstrom, gathered on zoom to participate in a workshop led by the IUCN Conservation Planning Specialist Group. The goal was to explore the viability and acceptability of ex-situ management of the species. This would involve rearing the hatchling turtles in a controlled environment until they were large enough to have a better change of survival. The participants concluded that more research is needed about the biology and husbandry of the species before an ex-situ strategy is implemented. Your support enabled our participation in this important conservation process. Thank you.

For the sea turtles,

Sarah

Links:

• Scientific American podcast about the investEGGator