Wildlife Travels

Exploring Nicaragua's Southern Pacific Coast

bradnahill — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:49:00 GMT

I’ve spent a fair amount of time hiking in the jungle but almost never at night and definitely never at this pace. Four of us were moving quickly through the rainforest, hurrying to the sea turtle nesting beach at the end of the trail, in the hopes of arriving in time to put a satellite transmitter on a black turtle currently on the beach. The rumble of far-off thunder faded into the sound of crashing waves as we crested a hill near the end of the trail.

Our destination was Brasilon Beach, within the La Flor Wildlife Refuge in the southwestern corner of Nicaragua. This beach is one of several turtle nesting beaches along this stretch of coast protected by Paso Pacifico, an innovative young conservation organization. Paso Pacifico focuses on protecting the “Paso del Istmo”, an incredibly beautiful 12-mile stretch of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean.

My visit started in Managua, where I was picked up by Liza Gonzalez, Paso Pacifico’s Country Director, on the way to the isthmus. I can’t imagine a better guide than Liza, who intimately knows the region and its residents. She’s held lofty positions in the government (she was formerly director of the National Protected Areas System) but her passion for spending time in the field and with the people who depend on natural resources was obvious. Along with us were Sarah Rudeen, an intern, and Wendy Purnell, who supports Paso Pacifico’s fundraising efforts in the US.

Along the way, we made a quick stop in Granada, the beautiful colonial town on the edge of Lake Nicaragua. Strolling through the market in front of the dramatic cathedral, I found more hawksbill turtle jewelry for sale than any other place I’ve been in Latin America. This reminder of how much work remains to be done helped to set my perspective for the visit.

The view from the car gradually changed from open pastureland to intact forest as we went south. We passed through San Juan del Sur, a growing tourist town that is the main stopping point for backpackers in this area. Liza, Wendy, Sarah, and others had just spent an exhausting week helping to clean up from an international surfing event. Before arriving at our ultimate destination, Ostional Beach, we saw beautiful nature murals on local schools, ate at a restaurant supported by the organization, and passed areas their reforestation project is restoring. Paso Pacifico’s impact is visible almost everywhere you go in this region.

At Ostional, we arrived to the Manta Ray hostel, where we were staying for two nights. Walking out to the beach, I was stunned by the dramatic view. The rolling rocky coast of Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica stretches across the entire horizon giving the impression of a huge bay. After nightfall, the only visible lights were bright stars and the far off overdeveloped resort area of Papagayo, Costa Rica, a reminder of the type of coastal development that many local residents hope to avoid in this region. Here we met up with Marvin Chevez, a ranger with Paso Pacifico and a former student in an ecotourism class that I teach at Mt. Hood Community College. Marvin had just returned to Ostional after two years of living in Oregon and is putting his new degree to good use in the reforestation program.

We headed out by boat to explore the spectacular stretch of coast, possibly the most beautiful and dramatic of coastline that I’ve ever seen (and I live in Oregon). Crashing waves batter sloping flat rocks and white sand beaches hide behind rocky-forested outcrops. Moving north along the coast of the wildlife refuge, we stopped in front of La Flor beach, one of a handful of beaches in the world that host the arribada, a mass nesting event of olive ridley sea turtles. My years of experience being quiet around turtles on nesting beaches went right out the window as I let out a yell as a small head popped out of the water not far from our boat. The turtle heard me and dropped right back into the water, but there were plenty more bobbing around.

That evening, we hiked to Brasilon, unaware of the weather that was on its way. Catching our breath upon arrival to the beach, we checked in with the rangers who let us know this turtle wasn’t suitable for a transmitter (her shell was too thin). Before the female black turtle (as known as the Pacific green turtle) headed back to the ocean, we collected her data and let her on her way. As the turtle got wet, so did we as a light rain began to fall.

Anticipating a wet return hike, we set off up the steep trail again as lightning approached. The hike back through the forest challenged my ability to concentrate; our pace increased and the trail became slick. I desperately tried to keep my camera dry while avoiding slipping on the rocks and mud. When we finally reached the end of the trail, not one dry spot remained on anyone.

The next day, sun shining once again, we visited La Flor beach. Though a small arribada of roughly 1,000 turtles had happened three days before, there was little evidence of turtles on the beach. At its peak, La Flor can host up to fifty thousand turtles during an arribada. With so many turtles, the refuge’s rangers can have a hard time protecting the nests on the edge, which often get poached for sale on the black market.

A short drive took us from La Flor to Hostal Don Miguel, a charming new small hotel owned by local residents. Don Miguel is participating in Paso Pacifico’s reforestation program and hosts a nursery for native trees used throughout the region. Nicaragua has been hard hit by deforestation but Paso Pacifico’s award-winning program has helped to restore more than 1,000 acres to rainforest. This inspirational project not only helps recover wildlife habitat, it also helps to create jobs, absorb carbon in the air, and prevents erosion and flooding.

While a student in my class, I had Marvin promise to take me on a kayak tour. Unfortunately, he hadn’t warned me just how big the waves at his beach were. After a couple of attempts to pass the waves (on a kayak built for rivers) and a couple of times being tossed into the water, we figured walking the kayaks to the nearby estuary was a better idea. The quiet river was a big contrast to the crashing ocean though the calm was broken when Marvin’s howler monkey imitation awoke a big group sitting in a nearby tree.

The haunting call of the howlers stayed with me the next day as I headed to the airport to head back to Portland. After 10 days in two countries (El Salvador and Nicaragua), visiting four turtle beaches, spending 25 hours in cars and buses, numerous boat rides, and staying at 6 hotels and cabins, I was ready to head home. The dozens of local and international turtle conservationists that I met on this trip have given me hope that, despite large threats and little funding, the sea turtles living along this stretch of coast have a chance not only to survive, but to thrive.

SEEtheWILD Nicaragua Wildlife Vacations:

-Nicaragua’s Wild Side

-Nicaragua Wildlife Adventure

-Cloud Forests, Reefs, & Sea Turtles

Photos: South Pacific Nicaragua

bradnahill — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:44:00 GMT

Touring the Paso del Istmo with Paso Pacifico

The Last Refuge

bradnahill — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 13:09:00 GMT

A wide beach on a warm clear evening may be the most relaxing setting on earth. We weren’t likely to come across any nesting turtles on this beautiful evening in the far northwest corner of Nicaragua (the tides weren’t right), but we didn’t mind. The soft sound of surf provided a soundtrack for the brightest Milky Way I’ve seen in years. Just being out on the sand was enough entertainment. But we didn’t travel 10 hours by bus from El Salvador for a tranquil beach walk.

We came to Padre Ramos Estuary because it is home one of the world’s most inspiring sea turtle conservation projects. Our motley group of international sea turtle experts was there as part of a research expedition to study and protect one of the world’s most endangered turtle populations, the Eastern Pacific hawksbill sea turtle. Led by the Nicaraguan staff of Fauna & Flora International (FFI, an international conservation group) and carried out with support from the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative (known as ICAPO), this turtle project protects one of only two major nesting areas for this population (the other is El Salvador’s Jiquilisco Bay). This project depends on the participation of local residents; a committee of 18 local non-profit organizations, community groups, local governments, and more.

The coastal road leading into the town of Padre Ramos felt like many other spots along Central America’s Pacific coast. Small cabinas line the beach, allowing surfers a place to spend a few hours out of the water each night. Tourism has barely touched the main town however and the stares of the local kids hinted that gringos are not yet a common sight walking around town.

After arriving at our cabinas, I grabbed my camera and took a walk through town. A late afternoon soccer game competed with swimming in the cool water for the favorite pastime of the residents. I walked out to the beach as the sun set and followed it north to the mouth of the estuary, which curls around the town. The flattened crater of the Cosigüina volcano overlooks the bay and several islands.

The next day, fully rested, we set off early in two boats to try to catch a male hawksbill in the water. Most of the turtles studied in this region have been females easily caught on the beach after nesting. We spotted a hawksbill alongside an island called Isla Tigra, directly in front of the Venecia Peninsula, and the team sprung into action, one person hopping out of the boat with the tail end of the net while the boat swung around in a large semicircle, the net spreading out behind the boat. Once the boat reached the shoreline, everyone hopped out to help pull in the two ends of the net, unfortunately empty.

Despite our poor luck at catching turtles in the water, the team was able to capture the three turtles we needed for the satellite tagging research event. We brought one turtle from Venecia, which is located across the bay from the town of Padre Ramos, to involve members of the community who participate with the project in the satellite tagging event. Little is known about these turtles, but satellite transmitters have been part of a groundbreaking research study that has changed how scientists view the life history of this species. One finding that surprised many turtle experts was the fact that these hawksbills prefer to live in mangrove estuaries; up till then most believed they almost exclusively lived in coral reefs.

A few dozen people gathered around as our team worked to clean the turtle’s shell of algae and barnacles. Next, we sanded the shell to provide a rough surface on which to glue the transmitter. After that, we covered a large area of the carapace with layers of epoxy to ensure a tight fit. Once we attached the transmitter, a piece of protective pvc tubing was placed around the antenna to protect it from roots and other debris that might knock the antenna loose. The final step was to paint a layer of anti-fouling paint to prevent algae growth.

Next, we headed back to Venecia to put two more transmitters on turtles near the project hatchery, where hawksbill eggs are brought from around the estuary to be protected until they hatch and then are released. The tireless efforts of several local “careyeros” (the Spanish term for people who work with the hawksbill, known as “carey”) was rewarded with the opportunity to work with cutting edge technology on this important scientific study. Their pride in their work was obvious in their smiles as they watched the two turtles make their way to the water once the transmitters were attached.

Turtle conservation in Padre Ramos is more than just attaching electronics to their shells. Most of the work is done by the careyeros under the cover of darkness, driving their boats throughout the estuary looking for nesting hawksbills. Once one is found, they call the project staff who attach a metal ID tag to the turtles’ flippers and measure the length and width of their shells. The careyeros then bring the eggs to the hatchery and earn their pay depending on how many eggs they find and how many hatchlings emerge from the nest.

It was only a couple of years ago that these same men sold these eggs illegally, pocketing a few dollars per nest to give men unconfident in their libido an extra boost. Now, most of these eggs are protected; last season more than 90% of the eggs were protected and more than 10,000 baby sea turtles made it safely to the water through the work of FFI, ICAPO, and their partners. These turtles still face several threats in the Padre Ramos Estuary and throughout their range. Locally, one of their biggest threats is from the rapid expansion of shrimp farms into the mangroves.

One of the tools that FFI and ICAPO hope to use to protect these turtles is to bring volunteers and ecotourists to this beautiful spot. A new volunteer program offers budding biologists the opportunity to spend a week to a few months working with the local team to manage the hatchery, collect data on the turtles, and help to educate the community about why it’s important to protect these turtles. For tourists, there is no shortage of ways to fill both days and nights, from surfing, swimming, participating in walks on the nesting beach, hiking, and kayaking.

On my final morning in Padre Ramos, I woke up early to be a tourist, hiring a guide to take me on a kayaking excursion through the mangrove forest. My guide and I paddled across a wide channel and up through increasingly narrow waterways that challenged my limited ability to navigate. Halfway through, we stopped at a spot and walked up a small hill with a panoramic view of the area.

From above, the estuary, which is protected as a natural reserve, looked remarkably intact. The one obvious blemish was a large rectangular shrimp farm that stood out from the smooth curves of the natural waterways. Most of the world’s shrimp is now produced this way, grown in developing countries with few regulations to protect the mangrove forests that many creatures depend upon. While crossing the wide channel on the to return trip to town, a small turtle head popped up out of the water to take a breath about 30 feet in front of me. I like to think it was saying “hasta luego”, until I’m able to return again to this magical out of the way corner of Nicaragua.

Get Involved:

Fauna & Flora Nicaragua website

Volunteer with this project! – Come participate with this project, helping local researchers manage the hatcheries, tag turtles, and release hatchlings. The cost is $45/day which includes food and lodging in local cabinas.

Check out SEEtheWILD's Nicaragua Vacations

Volunteer Work with Sea Turtles

Photos: Padre Ramos Estuary

bradnahill — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:53:00 GMT

A visit to a hawksbill turtle project in Northwestern Nicaragua

Bay of Turtles: Jiquilisco Bay, El Salvador

bradnahill — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 03:42:00 GMT

To arrive to a new place in the dark is like tasting a new food with a blindfold on. You can feel the edges, but a full color appreciation isn’t possible until daylight arrives. Night time in the small town of La Pirraya on an island in Jiquilisco Bay is quiet; the fishermen and their families gather in small compounds preparing the day’s catch and saving energy for an early rise the next day. But hiding outside the lights of the town is the beginning of a conservation movement that could save one of the world’s most endangered populations of ocean wildlife.

My arrival to Jiquilisco Bay in southern El Salvador started at the small town of La Pirraya on the western side of the bay. Once our group, an international team of sea turtle conservationists, was settled into our rustic cabins, our night began. We received word of a nesting turtle and set off on a short boat ride up the beach.

Hawksbill turtles are known for nesting far up the beach, normally venturing into the beachside vegetation to lay their eggs. That knowledge didn’t prepare me for the location of this turtle, probably more than 50 feet inland on the other side of a barbed wire fence that was tall enough to keep people out but let turtles through underneath. That turtle was the perfect illustration of why this population remained hidden for so long; many turtle experts had considered the hawksbills of the Eastern Pacific functionally extinct until just a few years ago.

That turtle decided not to nest so a few of us broke off from the group to visit a hatchery where we waited for sunrise to inspect three hawksbills that were being held to put satellite transmitters on the next day. Along the way, we stopped the boat to see another hawksbill that was on another isolated stretch of beach.

Early the ext morning at the hatchery, I walked over to a four-foot deep pit where three large hawksbills were calmly waiting to be released. These turtles were much larger (their shells measured about 3 feet long) than the one small hawksbill I had worked with years before in Costa Rica; if I didn’t know better I would have thought they were a different species. There were also hatchlings to release, the most fun part of the job.

Our visit to Jiquilisco was organized by ICAPO (The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative) and these turtles are part of a study looking to unlock the mysterious life cycles of these turtles. Conservationists estimate fewer than 500 adult females left in their range, which goes from Mexico to Peru; almost half of them nests in this area. Until recently, researchers assumed that hawksbills only lived around coral reefs, of which there are relatively few along the Pacific coast. However, research by ICAPO and their partners has shown that these turtles live primarily in mangroves, a fact that surprised many turtle experts.

As we arrived back to La Pirraya, the town was in full swing, preparing for their annual hawksbill festival, complete with parade, dignitaries, throngs of media, and more. Dozens of students held homemade signs about protecting turtles and keeping trash out of the ocean and a few wore turtle costumes despite the quickly rising temperature. The highlight of the festival was attaching satellite transmitters to the shells of two hawksbills (you can follow them online here).

Many of the students stood outside a canopy, looking over the shoulders of the researchers to watch the process of attaching the transmitters. It took more than an hour to clean and sand the shells, place several layers of epoxy around the transmitter, and allow them to dry. Once completed, the turtles were taken to the water and released. The crowds were kept back to give the turtles room and once the turtles had their bearings, they went directly to the cool water, to be seen again in cyberspace.

I wish this story could have a neat and tidy ending with the turtles heading off into the water, their transmitters providing valuable information for years to come. However, a week later I got word that one of the hawksbills was already found dead. The likely culprit was blast fishing, a barbaric practice where fishermen use homemade bombs to kill everything in their range of impact. Read more about this tragedy on our partner EcoViva’s website here.

That news was a reminder that, despite a tremendous amount of progress protecting Jiquilisco Bay’s turtles over the past few years, there is still a lot of work to do. The first order of business is to ensure that the bay receives protection; ICAPO is hoping to guarantee protection of the critical hawksbill habitat, namely the 50 meter-wide area of beach along the nesting beaches and all of the marine habitat within the estuary. These actions by the government of El Salvador are the minimum necessary to give hawksbills the best shot at survival in the Eastern Pacific.

Get Involved:

Come visit Jiquilisco Bay in November with EcoViva.

Learn about SEEtheWILD’s Volunteer Vacations

Volunteer Work With Sea Turtles

Photos: Jiquilisco Bay, El Salvador

bradnahill — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 03:35:00 GMT

Visiting the hawksbill sea turtle conservation project run by ICAPO

Toluca's Turtles

bradnahill — Tue, 9 Oct 2012 15:12:00 GMT

“Possessing, selling, and consuming sea turtles is illegal in El Salvador,” states Enriqueta Ramirez in Spanish. “We are not interested in buying turtle eggs from you; we want to collaborate with you to protect sea turtles.” With these strong statements, Enriqueta is confronting a challenging history; a young female conservationist trying to change the paradigm of a male dominated culture of turtle egg exploitation.

Enriqueta’s audience is a group of about 50 turtle egg collectors, almost exclusively men, ranging from about 15 to 60 years of age. These men listen respectfully for the most part; its clear who is in charge of this meeting. The dynamic young leader of ViVAZUL, one of El Salvador’s leading turtle conservation organizations, controls the purse strings at this conservation project. Her organization (the Spanish translation of “Live Blue”) works with professional egg collectors to protect turtle eggs at three local hatcheries, where the eggs are protected until they hatch.

ViVAZUL is among the most effective turtle organizations in the country. An initiative of Fabien Cousteau’s organization Plant A Fish, VivAzul has helped to save more than 400,000 turtle hatchlings in its two years of existence. I have come to visit this olive ridley turtle nesting beach in the small coastal village of Toluca on El Salvador’s central coast with Enriqueta to learn how turtle conservation is working in this small Central American country.

Toluca is not a town you’ll find on the map. Few tourists come to see the turtles or relax on its sandy beach. The 40 families here live in small compounds stretched out along the coast, with walls of bamboo marking the property of each family. The town’s kids know how to enjoy the benefits of ocean front living, swimming playfully in the surf as a pastel sunset plays out over the coastal hills to the northwest.

Enriqueta first visited Toluca a decade ago as a young graduate student. Back then, before the sale of turtle eggs was banned, the most that conservationists could do was to request that egg collectors donate a dozen eggs per nest (roughly 10% of an average nest) to the hatchery. In February 2009, the government of El Salvador announced a veda, a ban on the consumption, sale, and possession of turtles, their eggs, and turtle products) in conjunction with a project funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID) to purchase turtle eggs from local residents who collect them.

As an emergency measure, the new law has been successful. Over the past two years, roughly 80% of the turtle eggs in the country have been protected (about 1.5 millions eggs protected per year). However, Enriqueta and other turtle experts believe the egg purchasing program will not be sustainable over the long-term. Much of the money for the program has come from US AID funding, which will run out in two years. To get started on what to do after 2014, a group of leading organizations is working together to craft plans to replace the funds from other sources and invest in environmental education.

After Enriqueta finished explaining how a new system of ID’s would work during this nesting season, she methodically took the picture of all of the participants with her new iPhone. Quickly the tortugueros settled into groups, playing cards and smoking cigarettes. Enriqueta and I took advantage of the down time to interview a number of the men.

The prevailing wisdom of turtle conservationists in the country is that collecting turtle eggs is a primarily economic activity; as long as the money can be replaced, the eggs will be protected. Enriqueta, however, believes that there are social factors at work. When asked to describe what its like to meet up every night to go “turtling”, the guys used words like “pastime” and “sport”.

I’ve gone out to patrol on turtle nesting beaches more than 100 times but walking the beach at Toluca was a very different experience. I’m used to the mostly deserted turtle beaches of Costa Rica where researchers control the beach and poachers avoid confrontations. Here in El Salvador, the tortugueros stake out their position along the beach, spaced out every 50 feet or so, standing on the water’s edge like sentries awaiting a beach landing. We didn’t see any turtles this early in the season, but the walk was as much of a learning experience as any beach patrol I’ve ever done.

Without programs like this one, nearly every turtle egg in El Salvador would be consumed. The country has roughly 4,000 tortugueros, spread out along every major nesting beach in the country. For most of these people, primarily men, the money earned from selling the eggs (either to a hatchery or the black market) is supplemental but can be a significant portion of their income. One nest of 140 eggs brings in $25, more than 10 percent of the average monthly income in this area.

With people still getting used to the ban on consuming eggs, the large number of people earning income from turtling, and one of Latin America’s highest levels of poverty, saving sea turtles in El Salvador is a complicated task. Fortunately for these turtles, Enriqueta has learned to skillfully negotiate between government officials, international funders, and the local group of tortugueros. Under her strong presence, most of the hatchlings of Toluca will make their way to safely back into the water.

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VivAzul is looking for volunteers to help with their hatcheries. Toluca is the kind of place where a volunteer with medium to high Spanish skills and the ability to adapt to a fairly challenging living situation will thrive. Minimum two-week commitment is required. Costs range from $20-25 per day for lodging and meals. To request information on this program, see the SEE Turtles volunteer program or contact ViVAZUL at www.vivazul.org.sv, by email at info@vivazul.org.sv, or on Facebook. Join a sea turtle tour to El Salvador.

Big Season at Las Tortugas (Part 1)

bradnahill — Thu, 4 Oct 2012 01:59:00 GMT

One of my favorite parts of my job running SEEtheWILD is the opportunity to bring a group of Portland, Oregon residents to participate in a volunteer vacation every spring with the leatherback sea turtles. As our group arrived to our hotel the first night, the inevitable question was asked, “How many turtles do you think we’ll see?”

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As an optimist, I always want to answer that question with a big number but past experience has taught me that its better to set lower expectations. I hedged my bets and said that we should see several, knowing that so far this season, there have been a lot. A group that we organized in late March had 14 turtles their first night and even had the opportunity to see on one the beach in the morning, a rare chance to take a photograph.

I tried to contain my excitement when we got to the turtle station and I learned that there were 3 times as many nests in March of 2012, compared to 2011. My optimism was confirmed though shortly after we got out to beach for our 11 am patrol with the local researchers at Las Tortugas Research Station. It took all of 15 minutes to find our first leatherback, just a few hundred meters up the beach. It had already laid its eggs but our group was able to help measure the turtle and relocate her eggs to a hatchery, where they are protected until they hatch in two months.

The second turtle we saw was practically waiting for us in front of the hatchery, though another group of researchers were already working with her. Once we created the new nest, we were alerted that a third turtle that had just come up down the beach. On the way, we came across yet another turtle that had come ashore but decided not to nest. As we arrived at the third turtle, we realized she had just started to drop her eggs.

As the researcher situated a bag to catch the eggs, I jumped in to dig out the sand to create access for her and to collect the eggs that had already fallen and put them into the bag. By the time we were done with that turtle, our four hour patrol was just about finished and we still hadn’t walked our full section of beach. As we got back to the station, we learned that another turtle had laid its eggs just in front and a couple of our group stayed behind to dig it out and move it to the hatchery.

Monterey Bay, Sea Otters, and… Rob Lowe?

bradnahill — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:25:00 GMT

Who would you rather see while kayaking - a movie star or a cuddly marine mammal? I had the opportunity to do both just a short drive from San Francisco in August of 2010.

Monterey California is in some ways a model for how wildlife-based tourism can revive a community and benefit both people and endangered animals. In the early 1900’s, the town was a hub for the fishing industry and was home to many canneries based on the abundant catches coming in from fishermen. Fish stocks crashed in the 1950’s from overfishing, decimating the community.

In the late 1970’s, a group of marine biologists suggested building an aquarium, including a couple of members of the Packard family (as in Hewlett Packard) who provided the funding to make it happen. Right from the start, the idea was to showcase the incredibly diverse ocean habitat in Monterey Bay.

Now, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the most popular in the world and a leader in ocean conservation efforts. The Monterey Bay National Marine Reserve protects ocean wildlife including sea otters, leatherback sea turtles migrating from Indonesia, and several species of whales including gray whales, humpbacks, orcas, and blue whales, the world’s largest animal.

Now due to the work of hundreds of visionaries, instead of taking from the ocean, Monterey’s economy is based on conserving, learning about, and experiencing the ocean. I came here to participate in the Blue Ocean Film Festival, a celebration of marine moviemaking that happens every two years.

After watching a number of great films, I had to get out on the water. I grabbed my friend Jen and we went to rent kayaks to get out among a bunch of otters floating around the kelp forest alongside the aquarium. As we were getting outfitted with our kayaks, the cashier leaned over the counter and said, “Keep an eye out for Rob Lowe.”

“Really?” Jen and I looked at each other in surprise. “Yeah, he’s out there on a paddle board”, the guy replied.

So Jen and I hit the water and pushed our way through the thick kelp and headed toward the lumps in the water that looked like they could be otters. When we found a group swimming around, we parked our kayaks in the kelp at a respectable distance and watched as they played. A short distance away, an otter pup, tied up by mom in the kelp, watched jealously as the others looked for food. This bay is one of the best places in the world to see these threatened otters; you can even see them from land alongside the aquarium.

Then we saw a very tanned guy inching along on a paddleboard. From our distance, it certainly looked like he could be a movie star but we didn’t leave the otters to get within papparazi distance. This photo here is our best evidence.

I remain a bit skeptical that it was Mr. Lowe (though Jen swears with her life it was him). I do know that those lumps in the foreground are sea otters, the real movie stars of Monterey Bay.

Meeting The Most Endangered Turtles

bradnahill — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:21:00 GMT

Summer in Portland, Oregon is wonderful. Warm sunny days blend gradually into crisp nights even at the height of summer, a perfect climate to explore the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood, and the Oregon Coast. So why did I give up two weeks of my hometown’s best weather to visit the hot, rainy, and buggy coastal areas of El Salvador and Nicaragua?

When you get the opportunity to tag along with some of the world’s leading turtle conservationists to put satellite tags on possibly the planet’s most endangered sea turtles, you say yes and start looking at airfares. Over ten days, I traveled with a small, diverse group of people to visit four key sea turtle habitats in two countries. We put transmitters on six turtles at two sites, attended a turtle festival, and met local residents working to support conservation programs. I will be sharing these experiences with blog posts, images, and more in the hopes of educating people about the threats that sea turtles face in this region and how people can participate in their conservation.

A few of the inspiring people I traveled with included Alex & Ingrid Gaos, the driving force behind the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative, one of the most hopeful turtle conservation stories out there; Jose Urteaga of Flora and Fauna International, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and one of Nicaragua’s leaders in turtle conservation; and Dr. Jeff Seminoff, director of Marine Turtle Research at the National Marine Fisheries Service of NOAA. Others include Randall Arauz, recent winner of the prestigious Goldman Prize and founder of Pretoma, a leading wildlife organization in Costa Rica; Enriqueta Ramirez, founder of ViVAZUL and one of El Salvador’s leading young turtle conservationists; and Liza Gonzalez, current Nicaragua Director for Paso Pacifico and former director of the Nicaragua protected area system.

Some researchers believe the hawksbill turtles of this region are the most endangered population in the world; fewer than 500 nesting turtles remain at two sites. A network of people are working to bring these turtles back from the brink while at the same time providing opportunities for improving the lives of coastal residents near turtle hotspots. I’ll be posting about how these hawksbills have chosen mangroves over coral reefs (unlike the rest of their species around the world) and about innovative programs that are providing optimism for the future of turtles in the region. I hope you will join me on this exploration to learn about one of the world’s most charismatic and endangered animals.