SEE Turtles Blog

BLUEMIND: Your Brain On Ocean

2011-05-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

-Wallace J. Nichols, PhD

"We are more than logical. We are human." - Jacques Yves Cousteau

On June 2nd, BLUEMIND Summit: www.mindandocean.org at California Academy of Sciences (join our livecast), followed by an Ocean NightLife event...always a favorite.

Once I met a man who hated the ocean. Intensely, he said. He described to me fear, negative associations and a general unease he couldn't quite put his finger on. His aversion was so strong -- especially when measured against my own great, unabashed love for the ocean -- that I'll never forget my bewilderment. Everyone I have ever known loves the ocean. I'm not talking about lower-case "l" kind of love either; the kind that we apply indiscriminately to pop stars, sports teams, soft drinks and chocolate bars. I mean the capital "L" kind of Love; the love that is unfathomable and ineffable, a fusion of respect, understanding, awe, sensuality and mystery.

Nearly a decade ago, I read with great interest reports of interrogators at Guantanamo promising detainees a swim in the tropical ocean as an inducement to cooperation. From those small, hot jail cells, clad in heavy jumpsuits, the ocean must have looked mighty inviting. The technique worked.

Later, in the summer of 2003, on a coastal trek from Oregon to Mexico, I walked past a beachfront bungalow for sale in Del Mar, California. Eight-hundred square feet, no lot, but the sound, smell, sight, touch and taste of the Pacific awaited just beyond the bedroom window. The asking price? A cool $6.3 million. They got their asking price, then some.

It turns out that globally the ocean imparts a trillion dollar premium on hotel rooms, condos, houses and all other forms of coastal real estate. People want to see and hear the sea from where they eat and sleep and are willing to shell out a lot of green to get some blue.

I've also spent a lot of time with fishermen around the world. I've seen their working love of the ocean up close. Theirs is boundless joy in the freedom of a wide open, big blue space. It is the irresistible draw to a life spent catching seafood. In one Mexican lobstering co-op I work with, the rogue member who dares violate the community rules of "how many" and "how big" is banished to the packing facility with a never-ending view of white walls and stainless steel tables instead of big blue. For them, it is the worst punishment imaginable. Few, if any, subvert the community standards.

The poet Robinson Jeffers found language in the rhythm and drone of ocean waves and the meditative act of rolling boulders up from the sea to build his stone home. "The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty will remain when there is no heart to break for it," he wrote.

Canadian actor Michael J. Fox famously quit television right after spending a few hours blissfully following a sea turtle gliding through the blue Caribbean sea. "Never once after my encounter with the sea turtle have I wavered in my conviction that it was the right thing for me to do and the right time for me to do it," he wrote.

A girl in the fourth grade at the San Francisco School sat in front of me holding a bright blue marble to her left eye. "It's beautiful in there, I can see whales and turtles and hear the ocean," she said. "I know just who I'm going to give this to."

I also queried the modern oracle (Twitter) on the topic of the #1 seafood (shrimp) and learned a lot about American's unbridled passion for cheap, fried crustaceans. We know that a certain kind of obsessed food and power addition underlies the extirpation of bluefin tuna, sharks and sea turtles, that get caught in shrimp nets, from the ocean.

@DSchnell: Ate 90 pieces of shrimp at Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp, now it's time for bed

@davezatz: Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp would be more appealing if they provided an announcer and scoreboard. Gluttony ftw

@OREOaddict16: i just ate my weight in endless shrimp at red lobster..yum =)

And, whenever I travel -- which is a lot -- I invariably meet total strangers who say: "So, you're a marine biologist? I dreamed of being a marine biologist when I was a kid!" And they'll disappear on the red Zodiac, chasing down whale songs on the ocean in their head.

We humans offer up our dreams, our secrets and our treasure to the sea from whence we came. Those imprisoned terrorists, lifelong fishermen, deep-pocketed property owners, poets, shrimp and tuna addicts and world-weary travelers clearly feel great emotional pull towards the ocean. But, why? What is it about the ocean that speaks to us on such a fundamental, profound human level? I have always wanted to know, but my chosen profession, science -- skeptical, detached, dispassionate science -- wouldn't allow me to go there.

When I was a graduate student, I tried to weave emotion into my dissertation on the relationship between sea turtle ecology and coastal communities. No luck. My advisors steered me to other departments, another career even. "Keep that "fuzzy" stuff out of your science, young man," they counseled. Emotion wasn't rational. It wasn't quantifiable. It wasn't science.

But, the human-ocean connection, BLUEMIND as we've dubbed it, held me in its grip even as my career as a scientist blossomed. Eventually, I shaped my general philosophy into an effort called "The Mind and Ocean Initiative." Today, I think -- actually, I know -- it is time for a new kind of ocean science.

Economists, marketers and politicians recognize that deep-seated, inscrutable emotions, not rationality, are what rule human behavior. Aided by cognitive neuroscientists, these fields have begun to understand how our deepest, most primordial emotions drive virtually every decision we make, from what we buy to the candidates we elect. To my way of thinking, if the lessons of cognitive neuroscience can be used for the crass purposes of influencing what people buy and how they vote, why not use such knowledge for ocean conservation? I believe we can. And, I believe we should.

Consider these questions:

Why is "ocean view" the most valuable phrase in the english language, bestowing a 50% premium on everything from lunch to a night's sleep in a hotel room to a beachfront cottage?

If stress causes disease, and the ocean reduces stress, is time spent in, on, under or near the ocean good medicine?

Can our deepening understanding of brain science be applied to better protection for ocean animals being eaten to extinction by addicted and power-hungry humans?

We must seize this particular moment in time -- when the nascent power of neuroscience is burgeoning and the popular momentum is toward conservation rather than exploitation. We can use science to explore and understand the profound and ancient emotional and sensual connections that lead to deeper relationships with the ocean. I believe that if we do that we have an opportunity for real conservation gains that could do some true and lasting good for the ocean and planet Earth.

It's time to drop the old notions of separation between emotion and science. Emotion is science. Let's convene the top marine scientists, skilled communicators, dedicated conservationists, and leading neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists to ask and answer the most probing and compelling set of questions about the ocean that we can imagine. Let's explore the mind-ocean connection -- our BLUEMINDs.

Let's mentor a new wave of passionate and brilliant graduate students to get their PhD's in the breakthrough field of NeuroConservation. And together, let's mine neuroscience to develop a set of powerful conservation tools that educators, advocates, policymakers, medical doctors and scientists can use to better and more deeply engage, inspire and lead people in the restoration and protection of our beloved ocean.

Who knows what we will find. It's likely, maybe even certain, that the greatest unexplored mysteries of the sea are buried not under a blanket of blue, but deep in the human mind. The lessons and new questions are in there. They await only discovery.

BLUEMIND: Your Brain On Ocean is being held June 2nd, 2011 at the California Academy of Sciences. Watch and listen live online at www.MindandOcean.org

People Helping Turtles, Turtles Helping People

2011-04-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

(Note: This is a guest post from Jesse Senko of the Blue Ocean Institute. It originally appeared on the BOI Blog here.)

On the Pacific coast of Mexico, all five species of sea turtles (green, hawksbill, loggerhead, olive ridley and leatherback) have declined over the past century due to illegal poaching and incidental capture in fishing nets. One of the most heavily impacted areas has been the Bahia Magdalena region, where endangered sea turtle populations remain low despite progressive conservation measures that include complete legal protection for sea turtles and their major nesting beaches.

In order to evaluate alternative sea turtle conservation strategies that rely on increased participation of local residents, a team of researchers led by (SEE Turtles co-founder) Dr. Wallace J. Nichols and myself interviewed 136 people from seven coastal fishing communities in the Bahia Magdalena region. “If we want to save sea turtles we need to find novel ways to include local residents in conservation efforts, and basically that comes down to finding out how a live sea turtle can become worth more than a dead one, be that financially, emotionally, or intrinsically…but most likely some type of combination”, said Senko, the study’s lead author. “The human-sea turtle relationship is wonderfully complex. No surprise, so are the ways to restore sea turtles. Restoring what’s broken in nature requires biodiversity, economic and cultural diversity, but also emotional diversity”, noted Nichols, a marine biologist who also founded the grassroots sea turtle conservation organization Grupo Tortuguero.

The researchers found that although residents were overwhelmingly interested in participating in sea turtle conservation, peer pressure and conflict within their community often presented challenges. “It can be difficult to fully embrace sea turtle conservation when some of your friends, family, and community members may still be eating, hunting, or even selling these animals on black market circuits, especially if you are not directly benefiting from the conservation efforts in some capacity”, added Senko.

The development of sea turtle ecotourism may help protect sea turtles and provide additional revenue for fishers who previously hunted them or accidentally captured them in their fishing nets. When asked about the prospects of sea turtle ecotourism, most residents indicated that this would have a positive impact on their community. Economic incentives and increased protection for sea turtles were mentioned as benefits of sea turtle ecotourism, whereas peer pressure, difficulty obtaining permits and producing effective marketing materials, and doubts about direct economic benefits were cited as constraints. Whale watching guides were especially interested in developing sea turtle ecotourism programs, in large part because they already possess the necessary equipment (e.g. boats, GPS devices) and knowledge of sea turtle life history, movements, and abundance. “Researchers have relied on turtle hunters, fishers, and local whale watching guides to find and study sea turtles since I first arrived in Baja as a doctoral student in the early 1990s. Sea turtle research and conservation in Baja has been all about artful collaboration and mutual benefits from day one”, said Nichols.

Recently, Nichols and Brad Nahill started a non-profit sea turtle conservation travel program called SEE Turtles that relied upon some of the findings and recommendations from this study. SEE Turtles works to provide ways for visitors to work hands-on in the field with fishers and marine conservation biologists to capture sea turtles and collect/record scientific data on these endangered animals. Although the researchers acknowledge that initially sea turtle conservation jobs are likely to be supplemental, the added income from SEE Turtles has already aided local communities and sea turtle protection efforts.

“Conservation travel endeavors that generate even a modest amount of part time jobs is a great first step in developing and promoting positive attitudes towards sea turtle and marine conservation efforts”, said Senko. “If people know of others who work with sea turtle conservation efforts they may develop pro-environmental attitudes towards sea turtle conservation even if they themselves do not directly benefit from the endeavor…and we’ve already seen this from gray whales in Baja, so why not sea turtles, they are here year-round.”

“We believe that adding sea turtle activities to an existing tourism experience that includes whales, dolphins, sea lions, birding, island and dune exploration, kayaking mangroves, diving/snorkeling, sport fishing, and surfing would be a great starting point, especially because direct economic benefits from existing sea turtle ecotourism programs are likely going to be minimally distributed throughout the communities”, added Senko.

In fact, SEEturtles.org has been so successful that Nichols and Nahill have expanded the program to include other vulnerable wildlife species (i.e. bears, large cats, birds, sharks, and whales) and the project is now called SEEtheWILD. “Everyone I meet enjoys seeing beautiful animals in the wild: scientists, kids, fishers, and travelers alike. Even people who like to eat sea turtles, love seeing them swim underwater. As our understanding of our emotional connections with each other and nature deepen, it will certainly help guide and expand conservation and restoration efforts”, noted Nichols.

The other authors in the study include current School for Field Studies/Center for Coastal Studies professor Andrew J. Schneller, Francisco “Paco” Ollervides, former Center for Coastal Studies director and current Waterkeeper Alliance research associate, and Julio Solis, Bahia Magdalena Baykeeper, Latin America Regional Representative for the Waterkeeper Alliance, and distinguished Grupo Tortuguero sea turtle biologist. The full study is published in the journal “Ocean and Coastal Management” (Email the author below for a copy).

Blog written by Jesse Senko, Blue Ocean Institute’s seafood consultant: jesse.senko@gmail.com

My Untimely Arrival at Chacocente Wildlife Refuge, Nicaragua

2010-12-09T23:18:00.000-08:00

The next stop on my "Tour of Nicaraguan Turtle Beaches" with FFI's Jose Urteaga is Refugio de Vida Silvestre Rio Escalante Chacocente, Chacocente for short. Chacocente is one of only two beaches on Nicaragua's Pacific coast where the Olive ridley sea turtle nests "in mass". This phenomenon, also known as an "arribada" which means "the arrival", only occurs on a small number of beaches in the Eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans - a handful occurring in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and a few in India. Elsewhere in the world, the Olive Ridley is a solitary nester like other sea turtle species.

An Olive ridley track

Much to my dismay an arribada occurred just a few days before my arrival here, with approximately 10,000 Olive ridley nests being deposited over the course of just a few days on this very beach that I am walking on. In my time working with sea turtles I have yet to witness an Olive ridley arribada but imagine it would leave me without words. Today, only a few scattered tracks remain on the beach.

The Olive ridley is the only turtle to put on such a spectacular nesting display which occurs approximately every 28 days during the nesting season. During these few days, tens of thousands of turtles may converge on a single stretch of beach, competing for prime beachfront realty, and inadvertently digging up each others nests in the process of laying their own. This "mass nesting" strategy is thought to overwhelm predators, ensuring the survival of some of the young, although the arribada strategy is still somewhat a mystery to scientists.

The beach here at Chacocente is really spectacular....and really hot today. I'm walking this scenic stretch of beach with a University student from Managua that is here to do her thesis research. She's looking at the hatch success rate of nests in relation to the density of nests on the beach. Olive ridley arribada beaches, with their high density of nests, naturally have lower hatching success rates than other beaches where turtles are solitary nesters and nests are spaced out along the beach. As we collect sand temperatures from the study sites, armed military guards are walking down the beach on patrol.

The beaches here are part of a wildlife reserve, managed by MARENA - the Nicaraguan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, and are patrolled by the Nicaraguan military. Jose and Fauna & Flora International work in collaboration with these entities to manage the sea turtle program here, protecting the turtle eggs from poachers. Although the Olive ridley is the most abundant of sea turtles worldwide, their numbers have been in decline due to poaching and other threats like entanglement in fishing gear.

This part of Nicaragua also holds one of the largest tracts of dry forest in the country. FFI is also working with the government and local communities here to manage and preserve this important habitat and develop alternative livelihoods for locals including reforestation projects and providing services to visitors.

A troop of Howler monkeys laze in the trees within the Refuge.

The 10,000 Olive ridley nests that were deposited here just prior to my visit are due to hatch in January. Although I missed the last arribada by just a few days, perhaps my next visit will coincide with the hatching and mass exodus of thousands of tiny little hatchlings making their way to the sea. I can hope at least, that the timing of my arrival will be better next time around.

For more information about Fauna & Flora International's work in Nicaragua click here.

For information on how to contribute your time to a sea turtle conservation project, see our Volunteer page.

Paula von Weller
Research Associate
SEE Turtles

Critically Endangered Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Finds Refuge in Small Fishing Community

2010-12-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

Reserva Natural Estero Padre Ramos lies on the Northern Pacific coast of Nicaragua, near the border of Honduras. This area was recently discovered to be an important nesting area for the critically endangered Eastern Pacific Hawksbill, a population teetering on the edge of extinction. The only other known Hawksbill nesting area of this magnitude in the entire Eastern Pacific is to the north, in the nearby country of El Salvador.

This year Marine Biologist and my guide for the next couple of days, FFI's Jose Urteaga, began collaborating with the local community of fishermen here in Padre Ramos to begin a nest protection program for the Hawksbill. Jose is Fauna & Flora International's Nicaragua Program Manager and was named one of National Geographic's 2010 Emerging Explorers for his sea turtle conservation work in Nicaragua.

Padre Ramos, a small remote fishing community has, up to this point, collected the Hawksbill eggs for sale and consumption. Now the locals, once poachers, have become conservationists, protecting the nests and hoping to draw visitors to see this critically important area while improving the livelihoods of the locals and protecting their natural resources. The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill population is so low that scientists aren't even sure how many remain. The Hawksbill has historically, and continues to be, hunted for its beautiful shell used to make jewelry and other ornaments. Pressure from poaching has only accelerated their decline.

My journey to Padre Ramos begins in the bustling capital city of Managua and takes me through small towns framed by lush green and dotted with banana and sugar cane plantations, with towering volcanoes in the distance. The area that we are headed to sits on the edge of a mangrove system. Here the Hawksbill travels inland, nesting on small estuary islands. The only other place Hawksbills are known to do this is in El Salvador. Elsewhere, they nest on ocean beaches like other sea turtle species.

As we board a small boat to explore the area, I am delighted by the natural beauty of this place - with the ocean to my left, the mangroves before me, and the towering volcano to my right that is actively smoking. We visit the two main nesting islands here. As I walk the beaches I imagine the Hawksbill, under the cover of darkness, hauling herself up high onto the beach and into the vegetation to lay her precious clutch of pearl-shaped eggs. This time of year though only remnants remain on the beach of her presence, empty eggshells that once held her tiny offspring.

Isla La Tigra - A Hawksbill
nesting beach

During the nesting season locals are monitoring and tagging the nesting females that come here to lay eggs and managing a hatchery where the eggs are guarded around the clock. During the first season of the project (2010), 280 nests were protected, an impressive number for a Hawksbill beach that was relatively unknown to researchers just a year ago, and for such an endangered population.

We return to the town where I am warmly greeted by the locals who welcome me and are interested in my visit to Padre Ramos. They are hopeful that their new lives as conservationists will bring good things to this small community that once not long ago, exploited the turtles unsustainably. Feeling inspired by their enthusiasm, I hope to return to Padre Ramos in June, during the peak of the nesting season, to volunteer my time and get my hands sandy.

For information about volunteering on a sea turtle conservation project, please see our website for details.

For more information about the status of the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill see ICAPO -the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative website.

Paula von Weller

Research Associate

SEE Turtles

The Hawksbill & The High Price of Being Beautiful

2010-10-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

While traveling in Nicaragua, I made a special trip this past week to the artisan market in Masaya south of the capital city of Managua. The “Mercado Nacional de Artesanias” is the largest artisan market in Nicaragua and perhaps Latin America according to some sources. I was anxious to find some colorful handicrafts to return home with. The open-air market, with 80 or so shops, is housed in a restored 19th century building with castle-like walls and was nearly destroyed in the Revolution of 1978-1979.

As I wandered around the market I began to see what looked like jewelry made of sea turtle shell, semi-transparent with creamy gold and brown streaks. I stopped at one vendor and asked in my very limited Spanish if the bracelets were “tortuga marina” in which the woman enthusiastically responded that yes they were indeed made from “tortuga Carey.” Tortuga Carey in Latin America means Hawksbill. I snapped a photo and continued on my way only to find vendor after vendor with piles of jewelry made from the colorfully patterned shell of the Hawksbill which was hunted almost to extinction for this very reason.

I left the market empty handed, feeling disappointed about my finds. The Hawksbill sea turtle is currently listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is also protected by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. CITES is an international agreement between countries aimed at protecting species from extinction as a result of trade. The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill in particular is thought to be the most endangered sea turtle population worldwide. The species was hunted almost to extinction for its ornately colored shell to make trinkets, jewelry, eyeglass frames, wall hangings and other crafts. The Hawksbill is also under threat from habitat degradation, incidental capture in fisheries, and poaching of eggs. The IUCN estimates that Hawksbills have declined by as much as 80% across their range.

Items made from sea turtle shell are often referred to as “tortoiseshell.” Sometimes this material is synthetic, although it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two unless you know what you're looking at. It is illegal to purchase, possess, or trade sea turtle products. When traveling abroad and purchasing souvenirs, be sure to purchase only synthetic “tortoiseshell”, or when in doubt avoid these products to ensure you aren't buying the real thing.

For more information about sea turtles and illegal trade with links to more information, see our Poaching & Illegal Trade page.

Paula

Research Associate

SEE Turtles

El Salvador Turtle Conservation Update

2010-08-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

(Note: We are posting updates from Josh Baugh, a student at DePauw University who is interning with FUNZEL, one of El Salvador's leading conservation groups. SEE Turtles has helped fund Josh's work. This is an edited post, for the full story, visit Josh's blog.)

Nearly all that I have been doing and writing about in my time here in San Diego is in some way related to turtle research and conservation. Much of my writing although political in nature remains rooted in what I have experienced working and living at a turtle hatchery. Admittedly, I have seen and experienced much outside of the hatchery as well through helping Antonio with his work with CEPRODE, a nationwide internationally funded organization designed to help protect communities against natural disasters. As president of the local CEPRODE, Antonio is always going to the river, which with each rain threatens the rural community, and working throughout the community. I have found that hopping on the rusty bike I've been loaned and tagging along with him is a great way of building trust and getting to know the community. Through this means I have learned about a lot of the problems in the community and those shared throughout the country that are reducing the success of the USAID turtle project. All of this time spent with him and out in the community has been invaluable and in my mind equally important to the turtle work I have been doing.

Currently, I am working on three projects in addition to assisting Nefta and Antonio at the hatchery during the night. These are monitoring the temperature and humidity of the hatchery, taking GPS points at all the 2009 turtle nesting locations in Playa San Diego and taking GPS points of all light sources along the beach, as well as a measurement of their relative light intensity. The first regarding the hatchery is for Funzel/USAID and is designed to help assist them with better hatchery management. Temperature and humidity are both very important to monitor as in Olive Ridleys and all species of turtles, sex is determined by temperature. In the Olive Ridely species I am working with an incubation temperature above 30.5˚C produces all females and below all males. Measuring humidity by means of precipitation is important for hatchery management as well because rain is the primary natural means of reducing incubation temperature. Without monitoring temperature and humidity it is likely that a hatchery will produce all males or females, thereby disrupting the sex ratio in wild sea turtle populations.

The second and third projects I mentioned involving the GPS are being done to assist Rodrigo Samayoa, current Vice President of Funzel, on a scientific paper proposing proper beach management for sea turtles. My research is providing him with data regarding the effect of beach lighting on nesting populations. Currently there is debate as to whether or not lighting negatively affects the Olive Ridley species. In other species of sea turtle it has been proven that direct lights along the beach confuse the turtles to the point that they are disoriented and unable to locate nesting grounds and have difficulty returning to the sea.

On daily basis I am monitoring the temperature and rain gage by taking readings 4 times a day. I take one at 6am, 12pm, 6pm and 12am. Additionally, during the night when the conditions are right Nefta and I walk the beach to look for nesting females during the night. The rest of the night we are resting in our hammocks waiting for the tortugueros to bring eggs to us. You can say that we let them do the work for us in this regard but it is a way of livelihood for many of them that have been doing it for years. After they bring the eggs in we count them and then Antonio calculates how much money they will receive using a chart from USAID. Currently we are paying $3 per 14 eggs brought in. Right then Antonio will give them a receipt that they can bring in during the next time that USAID comes to pay. They come on a weekly basis.

I have posted some pictures to further describe my work. But another thing I should mention is that I had the opportunity to go out to sea with some fisherman to see the turtles mating. We were lucky enough to have them come right next to the boat so I got some good shots of the whole deal. I also took some videos which I unfortunately unable to post but in the process of taking those I made myself seasick. Lets just say that by the end of those 3 hours at sea I was throwing up off the side of the boat. Another cool thing I have been able to do is work with the tortugueros and extract eggs to bring to the hatchery. With the olive ridley season picking up now as well we have started giving tours to tourist in which they can come walk the beach learn about turtles and then help release hatchlings. These tours are being run through a hostel that is being built and a supporting committee. This is all still being formed and could be a great place for future volunteers interested in turtles to come stay. I have been offered a spot on the committee, which would give me partial ownership. I am currently debating this option.

-Josh

Art for Conservation

2010-08-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Artist Gloria Clifford has loved nature as long as she can remember. Growing up in rural Virginia, her earliest memories were of collecting fish in a nearby lake and taking them home to create little habitats in her room. Watching episodes of the tv show Sea Hunt, she began a love affair with the ocean that continues to today. For several years, she lived in the Florida Keys and spent as much time in the water observing wildlife like sea turtles, corals, and fish while diving. These dives are her muse, inspiring her to create gorgeous paintings that bring the ocean alive.

Like many of us, she watched coverage of the BP oil spill with a broken heart, wondering what she could do to help. "For me, being an artist is not just a career but a passion", says Gloria. "There are so many beautiful and wondrous things on this Earth of ours and I would like to be a part of saving these magnificient animals, plants, and ocean creatures for all future generations to enjoy."

Gloria decided to do her part by donating 25% of profits of her newest sea turtle prints to SEE Turtles to support our mission to protect sea turtles around the world. The prints are available in two sizes, 8.5" x 13.5" for $45 and 11" x 18"for $58. "It is my hope that my paintings will touch someone's heart and that those who see my works of art will realize how very precious the creatures that live on our planet truly are. We are all responsible and every one of us has a part in future conservation."

See all of the prints and order from her website, www.GloriaClifford.com.

El Salvador Part 2

2010-07-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

(Note: Over the next couple of months, we'll be posting updates from Josh Baugh, a student at DePauw University who is interning with FUNZEL, one of El Salvador's leading conservation groups. SEE Turtles has helped fund Josh's work. This is an edited post, for the full story, visit Josh's blog.)

To tell you a little more about San Diego and what I have actually been up to here thus far. During a typical day most of the work is done at night, so I will begin there. At around 7 it is getting dark here and we have dinner. After dinner I watch the telenovelas (soap operas) with them for a bit and drink another cup of coffee before Antonio and I head to the other part of the property where I live. Next to my room there is a little meeting area where the viveristas (hatchery workers Antonio, Necta and myself) hangout. As it gets later we migrate to our hammocks that hang in the adjacent hallway. Occasionally tortugueros will come in and chat before they go out to the beach during the early hours. Later during the night, after we sleep a bit in the hammocks, Necta and I head to the beach to walk and look for turtles. This usually falls between 10-1 depending on the weather and tide.

After the walk we nestle back down in our hammocks and sleep until the tortugueros bring in eggs. This can occur anytime throughout the night and early morning. When this occurs Antonio fills out the information with the tortugueros and Necta and I take the eggs out to the hatchery after counting them. Some nights there are few eggs brought in and we get to sleep a lot but other nights there is a constant stream of eggs. Its good for conservation purposes but can be hard on the body so usually I will then wake up a little before 6 with the sun and proceed to stumble to my room to sleep for a few more hours in my bed. At around 8 I go to Antonio’s house and have breakfast. Typically then there is work to be done around the community that he could use a hand with so I offer my help. Another body to help work is pretty valuable here.

Antonio is the president of the river cooperative in San Diego (El Salvador) that is in charge of preparing the community for natural disasters involving the river. The river constantly needs work and so there is always something to be done. Whenever it rains, the river threatens the nearby farms and properties composed of the poorer population that don’t have the resources to protect themselves or their land. When it really rains during a tropical storm for example, the river rises and floods all of the farms. To make matters worse soon after a flood the mosquitoes prosper and people get sick as a result of the swarms. I have been told that they will carry malaria but I don’t know for sure. It is good that I take malaria medicine nonetheless!

One day I helped them clear a log jam, perhaps one of the scarier things I’ve done thus far in El Salvador. No one wears shoes and when I tried to get in with mine at first they ensured me that it was a bad idea as they would get ruined or disappear with the current. After watching for a bit I crept into the muddy water shoeless and ready to jump the minute a snake or leech scathed any part of my body. Surprisingly, the bottom was sandy and the only real concerns were the occasional spiny tree (espina) or the current. Soon I got the hang of it and managed to be of help. The other main job that I have helped with is the construction of a hostel for volunteers that in the future can come and stay there, work in the hatchery, learn about turtles and go on excursions to the rest of the country. It has a lot of promise and the lady who owns it, Mary speaks English perfectly and is already very involved with the hatchery. She has been very kind to me and has allowed me to use her wfi, which is were I am sending this from. Additionally, she has invited me to do things with her family and has been all around extremely helpful. I actually went to her son’s house in San Salvador to watch the final game of the world cup. More to come on all of that later.

There is big storm blowing in so I need to get off of here. Another tropical depression/storm I have heard but first, other important news to know about my time in San Diego;

-I saw my first nesting female on Tuesday night, another Thursday night

-We had our first tortuguita (hatchling) yesterday, which I released (I have it on video)

-On July 16 we had our first full nest hatch. 51 in total!

-Today the 17th we have had two more nest hatch with 35 and 33 hatchlings!

*I hope the pictures help describe the hatchlings for now.

Thanks for reading!

Latest update from El Salvador

2010-07-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

(Note: Over the next couple of months, we'll be posting updates from Josh Baugh, a student at DePauw University who is interning with FUNZEL, one of El Salvador's leading conservation groups. SEE Turtles has helped fund Josh's work. This is an edited post, for the full story, visit Josh's blog.)

Sat, July 19th, 2010 (Part 1 of 2)

I arrived in San Diego Playa (not to be confused with San Diego, California) on Friday July 9th at around 7 am after leaving from Puerto Parada, the small port at the entrance of the Bahia de Jiquilisco, at around 1 pm on Wednesday. The trip took so long but not because of the distance, as you could cover much of Central America in that time by car. Rather, like any excursion I've been on here in Latin America, there are plenty of stops to make and when you get there isn’t nearly as important as what you manage to do and see along the way.

Irene, a girl around Aldo’s age (15 or 16), was most interested in what I was doing and so she choose to come and hangout with us before I left. There next to the beach we all lounged around on a rancha (boat) looking up at the sky and the surrounding mountains. They all chattered over Aldo’s reggaton (mix of rap and pop music) coming from his phone, while I tried to take in the last bit of the island and its beauty. 9:30 soon passed and it became evident that Nefta’s belief that there would be a rancha was more of a hope than a reality. It was not until 11:50 that a rancha finally came by but nonetheless, just in time to get me to Puerto Parada in time to meet Mike. I was only a few minutes late but it ended up not being a problem as Mike was at home there in the CODEPA office, and the adjacent restaurant. Before hitting the road to San Salvador we had a plate of the local shrimp and a coke while watching Spain play in the semifinal game against Alemania (Germany).

After catching half of the game we hit the road in order to save some time. Having not seen or really talked to Mike in quite a while, I had a great deal to tell him about the island and why I thought moving to San Diego Playa would be a good change. In actuality there was much that he hadn’t told me about the politics between organizations and the problems occurring that I might face. Yet, he did not know the extent of the issues so that drive proved to be very informative for the both of us and frankly really refreshing for me, to find out that there is a lot occurring there currently that is beyond my control (more info below).

The next morning Mike left at 3:30 am for a meeting in Nicaragua so a lady for US AID, Carmen, came to pick me up. It was a bit of a tense morning as Mike, my one tried and true connection in the country was now gone for 10 days in another country, and I was relaying on a lady I had never meet. Yet, she showed up and that day proved to be really interesting as I got to see a lot of the central portion of the coast. After she picked me up at around 9 am, we spent the entire rest of the day going to beaches to talk to the hatchery workers about what sort of technical aspects that can improve in their hatchery. Additionally, I witnessed 3 different meetings she held with the tortugueros in the area as to whether they wanted the price they get paid for a dozen eggs to increase to $3 or to stay at $2.40. All agreed that it was best that it stay at $2.40 so that the US AID money would not run out as quickly because after it does they will want to take the eggs to the market and will be liable to be arrested.

One of the meetings was held in San Diego where I was going to be staying; yet she thought it would be best if I returned the next morning so that I could experience more of the beaches. I didn’t have a problem with that so after a quick introduction following the meeting we hit the road. After a final meeting that night in a nearby beach, Carmen and I were shown our rooms that a guy was kind enough to let us use for the night. It wasn’t much more than a mattress and a few walls, but I was out cold by 9:30 pm. That next morning at 6 we headed straight for San Diego where I meet Antonio again and after being shown my room Carmen left. To my surprise Antonio was much more welcoming than he had been the previous night in a business setting. He quickly made me feel at home by introducing me to his daughter and grandson that live with him and sitting down with me to a delicious breakfast.

Antonio is a bit of a legend in El Salvador I am told, as he was the first in the country to begin collecting eggs for conservation purposes. Eighteen years ago, he started his own hatchery here in San Diego by asking tortugeros, egg collectors, if they would donate a dozen or so to his hatchery. To put things in perspective, last year his hatchery released 92,000 olive ridley tortuguitas (hatchlings), making his hatchery one of the most productive in the country. Statistically however, only 1 out of every 1,000 will survive to reproduce and thus only some 92 of those will contribute in the future to the preservation of the species. Yet, it is needless to say that the work he is doing here is extremely valuable and commendable. * I believe, there is a great deal that I can learn from him concerning turtles and community-based conservation, so I may be staying in San Diego for a time.

In summary, U.S. AID who has the money behind the 1-year project has come into the area and essentially taken over the hatchery ignoring the local people who previously supported the hatchery and conservation of turtles when there wasn’t money. They have chosen not to work with the local organization, CODEPA, which led the previous turtle conservation projects in the area. It is needless to say that these local experts associated with CODEPA are furious that they have not been included. To many of them, I am a symbol of the foreigners that are now running the turtle projects from a far even though I do not actually work for any of those organizations, just with them. In the more than 3 weeks that I was there, I was just beginning to get the message across to the local people that I was simply a volunteer looking to study the turtles and aid the turtle conservation in the area in as well.

Additionally inhibiting the progress of turtle conservation in the area and my ability to be of help is the current economic situation on the island and really in all of El Salvador. We think that the economy is bad in the United States, well our gov. at least has the ability to aid its own people. Here the government is largely reliant on international organizations to come to their people’s rescue. Unfortunately, the people in the community of la Pirraya, where I lived, being that they are isolated, seem to be some of the last to get any aid. The resulting economic situation has created a tremendous pressure on the fishing industry in the bay, which was already suffering from overfishing. Seeing that nearly all of the families are composed of fishermen there is a real crisis at hand.

How is this related to turtles? Well a fisherman I am told is lucky to earn $5-10 a day from fishing, as there are fewer and fewer fish and they get less for their caught. Seeing that turtle eggs can sell for well over $3 a dozen at restaurants and when a single hawksbill turtle can lay well over 150 eggs, being a tortuguero can be very lucrative. For this reason, there are well over 200 tortugueros (egg collectors) on the island. For many of the people on the island, the money they earn that day is all they have to survive. With this sort of economic pressure, it is hard for a person quite reasonably to be concerned with turtles. The hatchery where I worked does in fact pay the collectors that bring the eggs to the hatchery but this money comes from U.S. AID who has to send a representative from the capital. The money they pay is not only below the market price, but it takes a week to come. For these reasons the collectors that do come to the hatchery are only those that have installed in them a sense of responsibility to the turtles. For the rest the economic factors prove to be overwhelming.

In my time on the island, we received 3 nests in total of which, 2 were carey or hawksbill, and the other golfina or olive ridley. Although, there hasn’t been a lot of nesting thus far in the season there should be many more eggs Mike, my American contact and a hawksbill researcher tells me. According to him, we should have half of the total eggs that are normally received in a single season by this time. The day I left on July 6 we had 2,136 huevos (eggs) in the hatchery and we had encountered zero turtles during our night walks. To put the stats into perspective, last year they had 60 hawksbills, 8 green turtles, and 850 olive ridleys. This year, in May there was 1 turtle and in June there were 6. It is needless to say that there are fewer turtles that are being reported or seen by the viveristas (hatchery workers) and more importantly, fewer eggs actually being brought into the hatchery. I believe this to be a result of fewer people reporting turtle sightings and fewer people being obligated to bring eggs to the hatchery. This quite simply is a result of fewer people working together on the project. Nefta, Moises and myself, the only ones working on the project, are not a sufficient force to monitor the turtle population, patrol the beach and run the hatchery.

Sadly, there were several conversations I was witness to between tortugueros and my fellow hatchery workers, in which the tortugueros would talk openly about seeing a turtle, meaning they had collected the eggs yet I hadn’t ever seen them at the hatchery. Nefta, Moises and I, slept at the hatchery nearly every night and were always there during turtle hours (8 pm-8 am) in the case that a tortuguero had eggs. Unfortunately, the tortuegeros were choosing to sell them on the market to be eaten. Why haven’t they been brought in? Well as I stated earlier and I hope is now more evident, the coalition of tortugueros led by CODEPA that was active in previous years is not functioning. Additionally, the police are not getting involved and therefore the tortugueros now aren’t obligated to have a card that says they are registered to take eggs. Instead, it is a free for all and given the economy and lack of organization/support for the hatchery, few eggs are being brought to the hatchery. The people with a true wealth of knowledge of the turtles in the area, I would see around as they would talk to us, but they were not helping at the hatchery or patrolling the beach at night, as the had in the past.

As you hopefully realize now, it is a complicated situation there on the Island of San Sebastian and really no place for an inexperienced volunteer student. San Diego is a good alternative where I can get more experience both working with people, getting to know the turtles and improving my Spanish. Here with my own space, good living conditions, and more experienced, organized and respected individuals to work with, I have the ability to grow personally. After some time here I hope I can return to la Pirraya in the Bahia de Jiquilisco. For now, it is good that I am here.

Its All Reconnected, Redux

2010-07-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted from HuffingtonPost)

A common question asked of scientists is how the oil spill will affect life in the Gulf.

My sense is that it will effect directly or indirectly, severely or slightly every single form of life in the Gulf, for many years to come. The air, the water, the sand, the mud, the microbes, the plankton, the marshgrass, the mangroves, the jellyfish, the oysters, the shrimp, the shorebirds, the turtles, the sharks, the redfish, the children, the fishermen, the chefs, the taxi drivers, the artists, the oil industry workers, the politicians. Every single bit and blob of life will be impacted. Save a few oil-eating microbes, no life will change for the better.

Some life will be killed immediately, others will suffer slowly. Some will move away, in search of food, in search of jobs. Some aren't able to move.

From a single hole, drilled into the bottom of the ocean 5000 feet underwater, gushes catastrophe.

The signature chemistry of the oil coming from the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well, mixed liberally with the dispersant Corexit that has streamed into the ocean with it, can now be found on the shores of every Gulf state. It's in the bodies of thousands of species of sea life. It's in the mouths of hundreds of sea turtles. It's on the hands and feet and in the lungs of Texans, Louisianans, Mississippians, Floridians, Mexicans as well as all workers and visitors to the Gulf coast. The fact is we don't know exactly what that means for the health of those in harms way, or for the next generation. Testing on previous versions of Corexit mixed with oil indicate an additive effect. Together they're more toxic than alone. Previous studies suggest a whole range of ecocidal properties of this chemical soup, from the death of duck embryos to internal bleeding in humans.

A single error amplified and shared equally among individuals, bad apples, misinformed response teams, corrupt regulators, greedy executives, hypnotized politicians, misguided energy policies, and an oil-addicted society, has resulted in our nation's worst environmental disaster.

It's all connected. You've heard it before from ecologists, astronomers, physicists and metaphysicians alike. And the main reason so many thinkers from such diverse backgrounds find agreement on that point is this: everything is.

Each of us has used oil from the Gulf in a variety of joyful and productive ways. To visit grandma's house, to commute to work, to hold water, to make music or to save lives.

What we absolutely didn't have in mind at the time was disaster. My first hope is that one impact of the Gulf oil spill is that the very real line leading from our hands to the gas tank to the pump to the tanker to the rig in the middle of the ocean is somewhat brighter than before. And that that line now stretching from the rig, to the spill, to an asphalted salt marsh, to a dead industry, to a torn family is likewise clearer.

My other hope is that we can now see that all things are connected: us and nature and, unfortunately, oil. And there are much, much better ways to be connected.

Staring Down the Dragon on Dependence Day

2010-07-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

by Wallace J. Nichols for CNN iReports

iReport —

On the night of the Fourth of July, I flew into New Orleans. I watched from above as fireworks sailed from below into the sky to celebrate Independence Day.

The young man from a small Louisiana coastal town sitting next to me said "I've never seen fireworks from above."

"Me neither."

"I've never been on a plane before this either," he added.

A few hours later I was back in the sky, this time flying above a different kind of fireworks. The kind that mourn our dependence.

Our small Cessna traced the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, documenting the flow of oil and tar balls onto islands, wetlands, mangroves, beaches and the inadequacy of the bright yellow and orange booms floating here and there and more often than not, beachcast and twisted by the wind and waves.

One member of our team a government geologist studying the weathering of oil on seawater. One member of our team a environmental toxicologist. Our pilot, a NASA scientist herself. And myself, a marine biologist in search of sea turtles.

Bonny skillfully skirted the edges of thunderclouds and positioned our plane wherever we wanted it.

Down the oily coast we flew. Timbalier and Cat Islands, Grand Isle, the Mississippi River Delta, Chandeleur Islands. None of these places, and so many others, will be themselves for a long time.

Then we turned offshore, for deep water. Beneath us muddy water, oily water, oily muddy water. Then the edge, a giant convergence, between deep blue and shallower oily water for as far as we could see. There we found a school of forty cownose mantas, searching for food, traveling together. Without a doubt they have all eaten oil.

We flew further offshore. Closer to "ground zero," the site of the oil gusher and location of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon.

I've spent my adult life working for the ocean, the endangered animals living in it, and the people who depend on it. I've seen the wholesale destruction of species by commercial fishing, illegal hunting and the destruction caused by plastic pollution. But none of that prepared me for this.

Our plane surveyed a path of the thousands of square miles of destroyed ocean habitat. Then we descended a bit and flew over "ground zero", the site of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon. A new platform has taken its place. A large flame of burning methane jetting from the side. Ships worked the waters all around. Bands of oil extended off into the distance, set off by the deep blue of the Gulf.

We were close. So close I could smell it. The cockpit filled with fumes. I breathed in the foul breath of the fire dragon. We buzzed the beast, like a pesky fly. Our small craft banked, circled back around for a closer look. This time I held my breath.

I thought of the tragic loss of human lives that occurred just below me ten weeks prior. I thought of the massive loss of animal life that's already happened and will unfold throughout this ocean for years to come. I thought of the distraught fisherman who took his own life. I thought of the people below, working to stop the flow of oil, working to burn the oil on the surface. I thought about my daughters. I thought ten million other things at the same time. I felt like I was going to cry. Somehow I didn't, but I raged inside silently.

Eventually, I could hold my breath no longer and I sucked in the breath of the fire dragon again.

I will think of the Deepwater Horizon every time I smell that smell. Every time I pump gas into my tank, or ride my bike behind a truck on a busy street. At airports and bus stops. At BP, Exxon, or Chevron stations. It will keep me going in this ocean revolution, our collective effort to slay the dragon.

Music: Alfonso Burgos, Seri elder, a tribe in Mexico with a deep connection to sea turtles.

Supporting animal welfare on the Osa Peninsula

2010-07-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

(Guest Post from SEE Turtles Traveler Judy Bradshaw, who came with us on a recent Costa Rica trip)

In May I volunteered for a sea turtle project in Costa Rica, but before I met the turtle group I traveled by myself for a week. I flew to San Jose where I spent a couple of days and then took Sansa airlines to Puerto Jiminez on the Osa Peninsula in SW Costa Rica and then took a pick-up over bumpy dirt roads for several miles to a remote, reasonably-priced, charming little lodge (Danta Corcovado Lodge) that was near Corcovado National Park that was filled with wild animals like pumas and tapirs and boa constrictors, among other things (monkeys and fer-de-lances). Jungle. I loved it.

At the lodge I talked to a retired philosophy professor from the University of Delaware who knew Costa Rica and spoke English and Spanish. In the course of one of our numerous conversations, he told me that I should meet the Peace Corps volunteer who was stationed in La Palma, a nearby small town, because she was interested in helping the village dogs and cats, like I was and was despondent about their terrible condition, like I was.

And Laura was contacted, and she rode her bike to the lodge and we talked. She said that she thought that the people in her community were on the edge of a change in how they perceived their animals...one woman had asked her for flea powder for her dog...and many had observed some Americans with their animals who looked good. On the other hand, female puppies were thrown into the streets (a primitive form of birth control). She wanted to try a spay and neuter (castrado) clinic there and had talked to the vet in Puerto Jiminez who was willing to come out with his staff and do a one day gig. The local Catholic Church (now into birth control!!!) had donated a room.

The vet wanted about $15/animal and she thought the people could only afford about $4. I asked her how much she would need to do a one day clinic and she did some calculations and said $470. I told her I would give it to her.

When I got home on May 17, I sent a check for the money to her parents in Colorado, and they put it in her account and she did all the work organizing and publicizing the clinic in La Palma. We saw it as promoting a change in consciousness about how animals were treated and also allowing the people to invest in their animals in a small way and make them more valuable to them. It was about changing perspective and relationship. I thought of this as an experiment equivalent to a crap shoot. We were both very excited...not knowing if anyone would sign up for it.

Here are excerpts from her emails to me:

May 27 - My parents got the check, thank you so much. I wanted to give you a quick update. The clinic will be on June 9th and as of a week ago all the appointments were filled. Between 20 and 25 animals will be spayed or neutered. The response has made me believe that it was both travel and financial barriers were the reason for the over population problems. As soon as people heard that they would be able to afford it and that it was close they all jumped on board. Hopefully I'll be able to plan another clinic in the future. Thanks so much for your help and I'll keep you updated.

On June 9 I thought of La Palma at least a hundred times.

June 16
The response was absolutely HUGE! I had people will appointments arrive on time along with a huge number of people who just showed up. In total we were able to spay or neuter 20 animals and we had to turn 8 away. The vet is coming back next Wednesday to spay and neuter 15 more. Also, on the day of the clinic someone brought their dog who had been attacked by a wild animal and was bleeding severely. The vet was able to save the dogs life after 2 hours. Had the vet not been in La Palma that day, the dog would have suffered a slow death, as it was, it's life was saved (I have pics of this too which I will send just as soon as I can access a computer and have my camera). It was incredible. The entire day I was sharing I love my pet stories with Costa Ricans and they really showed me that it was their lack of access, not love that had prevented them from controlling the pet population. I will send you a breakdown of how the money was spent (there were some people who could not afford the medications for after the surgery so I covered it for them so the animals would be taken care of). I'll write you more tomorrow, I just wanted to let you know that everything went great and in the end 35 animals will be fixed. I can't tell you excited all the people are and I can see a great future for the animals.

June 17
Okay, so here are some numbers: We were able to spay 20 animals, 10 female dogs, 2 female cats, 2 male cats and 6 male dogs. The donation sponsored 13 dollars worth of antibiotics for a family that could not afford the medications.

I did almost all of the promotions by posting some flyers and word or mouth. I went around and told people that I saw with animals about the clinic and the word began to spread. I had lots of people calling me and made some appointments and had walk-ins as well. We held the clinic in the Salon of the Catholic church where they open it up for free use to the community.

Here was the set up, for each animal $13 was used to supplement the cost which is $17. After talking further with the vet we decided that people would be able to pay $4 per castration plus medications which was also around $4. By doing this we will be able to spay or neuter 15 more animals covering for each of them the $13. Last week we used a total of $269.97 and will use the rest of the donation this Wednesday.

The vet was exhausted but so happy after the clinic. He was able to save a dog from animal attack wounds and spay or neuter 20 animals. There was such a high demand I think he was really surprised. We have talked about him coming back once a month for the next year (at least) that I'm in La Palma and I'm hoping that things will be going so well that he will continue to hold the clinics and see animals in La Palma. I think it was the beginning of a really good thing.

I would absolutely love it if you could find more funding for more clinics. I have seen that a little really goes a long way. $269 was able to help 20 animals, in the US it seems like that's the cost for just one animal. Also, I think it is a big step in people beginning to value their animals. As it is now there are just so many everywhere that the attitude is who cares, there's always another. I feel like this could change that (hopefully). Please tell your friends that this was a huge success, people came to clinic and shared with each other and me how much they love their animal and all of the things they do for their animal. They were able to buy pet food and flea medications and soaps. It was really fun to see old men with their cats talking about the cat sleeping in the bed with him and older ladies with their little dogs talking to them in funny voices. As the animals were waking up the owners were so concerned and huddled over their animal whispering to them and petting them. It was really sweet to see the animals being so cared for.

Again, thank you and if any of your friends are interested in helping please let me know, I would love to make more clinics happen. I have more info and plan to sit down and write a blog about the event as soon as I have some time (I hope tomorrow).

So that's the story, and here we are now.

I am doing the fundraiser.

This is what I want:

Five dollars. $5.
If you want to send more we would force ourselves to take it.

Here is how you can get it to me:

1. A check made out to "Castrado Clinic"

Or, if you are too embarrassed to make out a check for such a project with such a name:

2. Cash

You can send your contributions to:

Judy Bradshaw
3722 SE Woodward Street
Portland, Oregon 97202

Your reward: nothing. It's not tax deductible.

Your reward is nothing...and no one will ever thank you except me and Laura and the people of La Palma and the female animals. (The males will take a little longer to come around...after they find out their lives are happier without compulsions and infected wounds.)

I did consider running an "adopt a spay" campaign in which Laura would take a photo of your animal with its legs spread and its private parts exposed which you could frame and hang on your wall as evidence of your generosity...an idea I now find to be insensitive. I mean how would you feel if this were done to you? And these poor animals have never been exposed to the idea of spaying and neutering, unlike our own animals who hear it through the grapevine of those who have gone before. The La Palma animals are pioneers. We have to allow them their dignity.

If you decide to mortgage your house to support the clinic though I am sure we can work something out with the Catholic Church so your time in purgatory will be reduced.

So...no photo. I'm sorry. You get nothing.

So that's the pitch. We want money.

The animals save us, and now it is our time to save them.
You can do this, yes you can.
We can do this, yes we can.

Thanks.

Judy Bradshaw

El Salvador Field Updates

2010-07-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

(Note: Over the next couple of months, we'll be posting updates from Josh Baugh, a student at DePauw University who is interning with FUNZEL, one of El Salvador's leading conservation groups. SEE Turtles has helped fund Josh's work. Follow along on his blog.)

Upon arriving in Puerto Parada, the one port that launches boats into the Bahia de Jiquilisco I came to realize that soon I would be on my own without mike to translate for me or talk on my behalf. The time needed to come however. There in the port we parked at the codepa office (the local conservation organization that I work with) in order to give a gift to Cristobel, the president, who just had a baby. As we sat and talked with here and introduced her to me she quickly offered for me to live in her house on the island because in here eyes it was a rip off for me to live in a cabana where they aren't giving me the $5 a day discount they originally promised to do. Seeing that she had just had a baby however, she explained how she wouldn’t be on the island but her husband, Nefta and Aldo were living there. Nefta who works at the hatchery and is a fisherman was ok with this she said and so I agreed to stay with them. After eating some lunch there at the office, Chili, Mike, myself alongside Rene and Manuel who work for Codepa went out in the bay to show me around the office/dormitory at the hatchery. Just riding in the boat (rancha) I was able to get a glimpse of the beauty of the bay area. Stopping at the hatchery, Maricio spent awhile walking and talking with me about what is important to consider when running a hatchery.

After our tour we came back to the office where, I was introduced to Nefta whom I was to go stay with. Mike fortunately, introduced me but still I could no understand a word that he said. The dialect takes time to get used to I hear and gets thicker with age as I have noticed. Yet, I got on a boat with him nonetheless and soon we were on our way to the island. The first thing he asked me on the boat was could I drive a boat. To him it was ridiculous that at my age I didn’t know how and so he quickly took it upon himself to teach me and I drove the rest of the way once we got into open water. Once I got onto the island I was quite surprised just how rustic the conditions were and just how completely oriented to fishing a village could be. When I got inside the house, and was told just to put my stuff next to the loveseat I thought ok that’s fine but I was unaware that I was going to be living quite literally in the living room. It is amazing how much they much to welcome me despite truly having the space for me. I don't know many people that would be welcoming to me living on their living room couch for two months. I soon found out however, that most nights I can go with Nefta to the hatchery where they sleep in hammocks and walk after it rains to look for turtles. Also, if they see a tortuguero (egg harvester) they try to see that he donates some of the eggs even though he is not forced to do so at the moment.

Since that Sunday night I have been living at their house and have slept in a hammock all but last night during which I slept in a tent on the floor of the hatchery so that I would not get eaten alive by mosquitoes like I have been the last few nights. As of right now my body is covered in bites. Other than that all is well! Right now I am at this meeting for all the directors of hatcheries in the eastern portion of the country. I have learned so much today and just thus far. My Spanish is coming along ok but that has proven to be the biggies problem outside of the bugs. All the other aspects of living in primitive conditions I have been able to deal with. More to come on the meeting and other news!

The Terrestrial Side of Talamanca, Costa Rica

2010-06-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

Our group’s last couple of days in the Caribbean focused on the terrestrial side. Thursday we visited the most productive organic farm I’ve ever visited, Punta Mona. After college, I spent an idyllic few months as a volunteer at Punta Mona, helping the owner, Stephen Brooks, get the farm going with a group of friends. That time ignited an interest in sustainable agriculture that continues today as I work to turn my entire yard into a garden.

In the ten years since I worked at Punta Mona, the place has gone from a fairly productive farm with 20 or so varieties of food to a super-productive farm with more than 200 species of fruit trees alone. Literally everything growing in this place has some sort of value, whether medicinal, nutritional, spiritual, or cultural. Our group has never tasted, smelled, or adorned ourselves with so many natural items in one short span. Our tour guide, Richard, the farm manager, overwhelmed every one of our senses on this hike.

Stephen is one of the most interesting characters you will ever meet. In addition to founding the farm years ago, he also started a student ecotravel company called Costa Rican Adventures (now sold to others and with whom I did my first tour guiding) and more recently started an organic food company called Kopali Organics. Look for them at natural food stores (I recommend the chocolate covered Gogi berries). His passion for sustainability and plants is contagious and his vision is inspiring.

The next morning, we met Tino, in my opinion Costa Rica’s best nature guide, despite the hard time he gives me every time we go into the forest with a group. He took us into the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, an incredible piece of land at the very southernmost point along the Caribbean coast, which he helped to create about 20 years ago. In a relatively short hike, he showed us 5 sloths, several howler monkeys, four snakes, dozens of interesting trees and plants, and more. Its no wonder he was mentioned by name in a recent New York Times article about the region.

Earlier, while visiting the community of Soki in the Bribri Indigenous Reserve, I spoke with one of our hosts who works with a local cooperative called APPTA (Association of Small Producers of Talamanca) that he worked with to sell his organic cacao beans and bananas. I had heard of APPTA’s work in the region and put in a call to a contact I had made years before about touring their cacao processing plant, which we did after the nature hike.

There, our host Walter Rodriguez, told us how the cacao produced in this region was developing a reputation as one of the best in the world; a recent shipment was sent to the high end chocolate company Theo in Seattle. We toured their facility, where they ferment and dry the beans for exportation. He also showed us a nursery where they are cultivating more productive trees for members of the cooperative.

Walter told us of meeting an indigenous man years before while working with Asociacion ANAI, a regional conservation organization who also originally started the turtle project in Gandoca. This man walked 7 hours round trip to deliver a few pounds of cacao seeds to a store and received enough money for 2 bags of salt in exchange. Walter realized that cacao could be a way to help these forgotten communities out of poverty and helped to create APPTA. Now, according to Walter, APPTA has more than 1,200 members in 40 indigenous communities around the region, who make their living producing organic foods such as cacao, bananas, and other fruits. Their entire production of cacao is spoken for; in fact they could increase their production ten-fold and still not have any left over. The new trees they are producing are about 30 times more productive, which is good news for chocolate lovers everywhere!

Anyone needing to see some good news in the world after the oil spill should take a visit to this region to see (and smell and taste) what progress can be made when dedicated people work towards protecting wildlife and communities. Even though I’ve spent a lot of time in this area over the past decade, every visit brings new experiences and new inspiration to continue working to support our friends in Costa Rica. We hope to show you these incredible places on our next trip!

-Brad Nahill

PS- More and better pictures to be posted soon!

Hawksbill turtle release in Costa Rica

2010-06-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

On our first full day in Costa Rica a couple of weeks ago, we ran into an old friend of ours named Susana Schick, who was our neighbor when my wife and I lived in this area working with a local leatherback turtle project. We let her know that SEE Turtles was funding the release a couple of rehabilitated hawksbill turtles through our partners at WIDECAST Latin America. Susana, who has a long history of doing environmental education in this region, immediately started working on bringing her daughter's class from the local elementary school in Puerto Viejo.

The plan came to fruition this morning. As we bumped along the dirt road leading north from town, we saw a group of 12 students in the two-toned blue uniforms happily walking along a beach. I'm not sure if they were more excited about seeing the turtles or the fact that they had escaped the classroom for a rare field trip, but either way, we had a fun group ready to learn.

We introduced our group, made up of my and my two sister's families and my mom to the kids and gathered around our rental van to give them an impromtu slide show on sea turtles that I had on my computer. Randall, from the Seahorse Aquarium in Limon, soon arrived with the two hawksbills that we were going to release. These gorgeous turtles were confiscated by the police and given to Randall to nurse back to health in his aquarium.

Randall then spoke to the kids about the local situation of these critically endangered turtles and why its important to protect them. Susana did a quick poll before the presentation of how many of the kids had tried turtle meat; all but two raised their hands. Eating turtles in this region has been common for generations; hopefully we are beginning the process of changing minds with activities like this. Each kid, both local and foreign, had a chance to touch the shells of the turtles before being released. Two brave young boys volunteered for the honor of releasing them and all of the kids helped keep them hydrated with water as they walked to the ocean.

Bribri, Amubri, Soki

2010-06-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the longest and most intense day of the trip so far. We took our van about an hour up into the Talamanca mountains to the Bribri Indigenous Reserve. There we met a local young man named Geiner (not sure of that spelling) who guided us across a large river on a small boat (right) to the public bus which took us to the town of Amubri. I first visited Amubri eleven years ago with friends from EcoTeach when they first visited the community to talk to elders about bringing student groups there. Back then, all of the houses were traditional wood thatched roof houses and no electricity. Now, they are all concrete with tv's and tin roofs.

From Amubri we set off down the road to visit the village of Soki. It was a hot, sunny day and several of the kids took advantage of the horses that our guides brought along. In Soki, the Bribri are hanging onto their culture, still living from the land and practicing their long-held customs and ceremonies. EcoTeach has great background information on the communities here.

After more than an hour, we came to the small village and went to one of the homes and sat on makeshift benches. There, local leaders showed us how they made chocolate for important occasions and gave us a delicious lunch of rice, beans, heart of palm, banana, and helecho (a fern-like plant), served wrapped up in a banana leaf. We then moved to a newly built traditional ranch where their kids sang us a song and then we participated in a sacred dance called the Sorbon (again probably spelled wrong). The kids from our group then sang a song from their school and taught the Bribri kids the timeless game of tag.

Most people here work in agriculture, harvesting bananas, plantains, cacao, and other fruit. They are part of a successful cooperative called APPTA which supports many local and indigenous communities. We hope to visit their chocolate processing plant later in the trip. A small amount of tourism also helps these communities survive. EcoTeach has built a new school and clinic and helped to bring clean water to two villages here. For many of us, the most enduring memory will be the hospitality of our new Bribri friends. Their gratefulness of our visit and openness to share their culture will be one of our most precious souvenirs.

(PS - Feel free to point out the irony of a complete lack of mention of turtles for our 100th post...)

(PPS - We didn't post any pictures of the Bribri people except for the guide as they request us not to take any.)

Costa Rica Continued...

2010-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Day 3 started with a trip to Gandoca, to visit the WIDECAST Latin America leatherback sea turtle project. Gandoca is the southernmost town on the Caribbean coast, just a stones throw from the border with Panama. The turtles here have been protected since the 80's and poaching of the eggs has dropped to almost none. In the same time period, the project has brought in hundreds of volunteers per year while generating tens of thousands in income for the local community. (Learn about volunteering here).

On our visit, we took a relaxing boat ride around the Gandoca lagoon, seeing three species of monkeys (howlers, capuchins, and spiders), as well as lots of birds. After that, we visited the egg hatchery, where the nests are protected until the hatchlings hatch and are released to the ocean. We had just missed several nests hatching the night before but did see one little straggler hatchling. The kids in our group helped to smooth the sand to make the way for the hatchling a little bit easier. For dinner, we held a big dinner for both our friends from the US and Gandoca, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of me and my wife meeting while working in Gandoca in 2000. In the evening, we took a short walk onto the beach looking for nesting leatherbacks. While we didn't see any, we did see a couple of green turtle hatchlings, the first of the season in Gandoca!

The next day, I peeled off from our group with photographer Neil Osborne and videographer Paul Miller to visit a unique wetland in northern Panama called San San Pond Sak, an indigenous name combined with a bit of English. This important wetland is home to approximately 100 manatees (viewing platform pictured) and an impressive local organization called AAMVECONA (in Spanish) works to study and protect both them and leatherback turtles nesting on their beach. In our short time there, we only caught a couple of glimpses of a manatee but came away educated on their threats and natural history and plan to bring groups there in the future.

Next update coming soon-

-Brad Nahill

Why Do So Many People Choose a Turtle Tattoo Design?

2010-06-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

By Terry Daniels

Tattoos are becoming more and more mainstream these days, and it's not just the young people who get them, either. Many people of all ages are now choosing body art. This is due to the fact that they are a great means of expressing personality and individuality. Also, the fact that tattoos are widely accepted by almost every culture in the world has spurred their popularity.

With that said, you may not know what type of tattoo you want to get. Turtle tattoo designs are a very popular choice amongst people with tattoos, so if you think you may be interested in getting a turtle or sea turtle design, read on.

Turtles really do have a lot of deep meanings from nearly every culture in the world. They are fascinating animals. Thanks to their shells, they are protected from danger and predators. Also, sea turtles can live for hundreds of years! It's no wonder that so many people have attached so many deep meanings to these creatures.

For example, turtles are very sacred animals to many Native Americans. Indeed, some tribes attribute the creation of the world to turtles. The Huron, for instance, believe that a girl fell out of the sky to our world when there was nothing but water and sea creatures. The animals took the girl to a very wise turtle, and he told them how to create land from the bottom of the ocean. They did this and the land began to grow and grow into continents. The sky girl could then live comfortably, which became the world that we know today.

Obviously, it's not surprising that there are so many turtle tribal tattoos to choose from. And this is just one example out of many creation myths. Often, the turtle is thought to carry the world on it shell or is somehow used to support the heavens. The turtle is most often associated with tranquility and steadfastness. The tattoo designs usually represent bravery, guts, endurance, perseverance, security, protection, and longevity.

Another advantage of a turtle tattoo is that it can give an artist the opportunity to put together elements of more than one tattoo. Many artists like to utilize a turtle's shell with another design or symbol. For example, if you wanted to, you could get a Japanese Kanji character inside the shell to represent strength or protection.

Obviously, you needn't have to use Japanese or Chinese characters on the shell if you don't want to. You can still choose something else that has meaning to you to be incorporated in with turtle designs. The main purpose of getting a tattoo is, after all, to get something that has meaning to you.

These tattoos can be very versatile, as a turtle is a creature with which one can get creative where tattoos are concerned. You can have a very small and simplistic tattoo featuring a turtle, or you could have something large or elaborate also.

Now, you must understand why so many people choose turtle tattoo designs. If this is something you think you'd be interested in, you need to find a design you like. You can do this by searching online. Don't forget that you can also personalize it even further by including something else onto the turtle's shell!

Terry Daniels of TattooDesign-Reviews.com, specializes in helping individuals get the styles and designs they need to make the right tattoo choices. Terry leads his team of tattoo experts in constantly reviewing new products and packages in the market to make sure you get the best value tattoo designs that look good on you. Check out actual user reviews of tattoo design sites and galleries at TattooDesign-Reviews.com.

Live from Costa Rica

2010-06-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

We'll be sending regular updates from Costa Rica over the next couple of weeks. I'm here with 3 families with kids ranging from 2 to 10, visiting all of the fun things to offer around the country's South Caribbean region.

I arrived with my family and another on a red-eye Friday morning. While the flight was as rough as you'd imagine with kids, everybody was thrilled to arrive and get started. We took a quick dip in the pool at La Rosa de America, where we met up with the members of the group smart enough to fly in the night before. We then passed through Braulio Carillo National Park on the way to the Caribbean, braving driving rain and crazy bus drivers along the way.

The rain let up just as we arrived to Jardin Pierella, one of my favorite places in Costa Rica. This butterfly farm run by William Camacho, has done an incredible job at restoring diversity to an area of the country dominated by pasture. William raises butterflies to export to museums around the US, as well as taking care of wildlife confiscated by the Costa Rican's Environment ministry. He told us about a recent survey that showed a majority of homes here had wild animals. I knew the problem was bad but had no idea at the scale. Among the creatures (in addition to butterflies) we saw here were poison dart frogs, a red eye tree frog, walking sticks, peccaries, parrots, and a very friendly porcupine. After that, we drove the last 3 hours to our cabins near Puerto Viejo and went to bed early.

Bright sunshine greeted us the next morning and the warm Caribbean water was first on the agenda. After a couple of hour of bodysurfing, we had a great lunch at a local place called Bread & Chocolate. Our afternoon began with a visit to the Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve and their wonderful iguana farm. Our indigenous Bribri guide, Lucas, explained the cultural importance of the iguanas to his people, how they use the fat, skin, and meet for different purposes such as medicine, drums, and food. The iguanas are a favorite local meal, so they're are almost completely gone from this region. They have released more than 35,000 iguanas from here over the past 20 years, helping to keep the forests alive with these beautiful animals.

As the sun set, we got another shower as we headed to the beach to meet a couple of sea turtles. Also confiscated by the Environment Ministry from people who had them illegally, this green and hawksbill were being given a second chance at life. We helped release them back into the ocean just north of Puerto Viejo. Just north of where we let them go is Cahuita National Park, home to the country's largest coral reef, the preferred habitat for hawksbills.

I'll have a short video to share and more stories soon-

-Brad Nahill

Saving sea turtles, creating jobs, changing lives

2010-05-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

Two years ago we launched a project called SEE Turtles with the straightforward goal of saving sea turtles by helping people to experience the joy of a wild sea turtle while generating income and work for people living with endangered sea turtle populations.

I teamed up with Brad Nahill, whose background in environmental economics and ecotourism complemented my own as a marine biologist and we picked three important locations to begin the work. We knew that many local organizations sought visitors and volunteers to combat poaching and to provide alternative incomes, but lacked the resources to make that happen. We could provide that marketing reach by combining their efforts within a single portal, designed to find would be turtle lovers looking for different and meaningful travel. We partnered with strong organizations in Baja California, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Trinidad and Tobago and set about connecting people with the trip of their life.

We have now reached a milestone of sorts, having generated more than $100,000 in new income in the communities where we work, used to expand protection efforts and connect fiscal well being with restoring these endangered animals. To date, more than 200 travelers have visited nesting beaches and foraging areas and volunteers have covered more than 500 work shifts, saving the projects thousands of dollars.

To be sure, tourism has its downside. There's the carbon footprint, plastic footprint, cultural footprint, and the potential negative impact of hoards of visitors on the wildlife itself. SEE Turtles, like many others, works to redirect would be travelers to places where their footprint is minimized and promotes responsible turtle-watching guidelines.

The odds are stacked against sea turtles, whether the threat is in the form of fishing nets, plastic pollution, beach development of consumption of their eggs and flesh. But as Brad points out, “when dollar spent visiting a turtle conservation project helps to improve conditions for sea turtles that helps show that these amazing creatures are a valuable resource to protect.”

To celebrate these successes, SEE Turtles is offering a free trip to visit a turtle conservation project in Costa Rica or Baja California Sur, Mexico. One winner will receive a free spot on an upcoming tour run by ecotourism companies EcoTeach or Baja Expeditions. To enter, visit SEEturtles.org and sign up for the monthly e-newsletter. The contest runs through August 31st, 2010 and the winner will be chosen at random in early September.

An added benefit is that when people come back from these kinds of trips they are even more dedicated to local conservation work. Connecting with a wild animal as ancient as a sea turtle on its terms can be transformative, for the visitor, for the residents and for the sea turtles.

-Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, Co-founder

DISCOVER: Beyond Politics: Oil, Water, Shrimp, and Sea Turtles

2010-05-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

This is a guest post at DISCOVER Magazine from Wallace J. Nichols, a marine scientist and oceans conservationist who in 1998 founded the Grupo Tortuguero, an international grassroots movement dedicated to restoring Pacific sea turtles and to sustainable management of ocean fisheries. He currently works with several universities and organizations to protect the oceans, including Ocean Revolution, the California Academy of Sciences and SEEturtles.org.
~~
My brave friend Leilani Munter called from the field to report that the National Wildlife Federation and CNN had documented the first sea turtle caught in a slick at sea, gasping for air through an iridescent sheen. Tragically, just as nesting season for a number of the Gulf of Mexico’s sea turtle species is set to begin, these highly endangered animals become the poster species of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Soon, if not already, adult male and female turtles will gather in shallow coastal waters, mate and prepare to nest, precisely where oil is accumulating. The pregnant females will scuttle across beaches at night to lay eggs, just as they’ve done for millions of years, but these beaches will be different—they will be blacked with oil. In a few short weeks, a new generation of hatchlings will emerge from the sand and make their way across oily beaches to an oily sea where tar balls and slicks will make their already-long odds of survival even longer. As they mature, they will have to rise through oil slicks to breathe and survive by eating oil-coated animals, algae and seagrass. While sea turtle will be among the most recognizable victims, they won’t be alone. Many species of birds, fish, invertebrates and plants will fare just as badly.

Even before the spill, sea turtles had it tough. (more…)

Sea Turtles & Oil Spills

2010-05-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

Its hard to remain optimistic about the future of wildlife when oil spills like the current one get worse by the day with little hope of quick improvement. We've talked about how oil can affect sea turtles through global warming (when its burned) and plastic (when oil is shaped into bags) on this blog before, but we've yet to delve into the murky world of oil extraction. In the history of the environmental movement, oil spills, while tragic, have helped to spread awareness of the need to shift away from fossil fuels.

From the spill of California in the 60's which led to a ban on drilling off that coast, to the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, few things have captured public attention like an animal covered in oil. We can only hope that this spill helps efforts to transition away from oil, though President Obama's statements to date don't give anyone the impression he's ready to back down from increased drilling off our coasts. We agree with this great article on Grist about how the President could use the spill as an opportunity to move in a new direction.

So how are the turtles being affected by this disaster? Recently we added a new page on our site about ocean pollution, prophetically the first two photos relate to oil and spills. This page notes that oil affects both "convergence zones" at sea where juvenile turtles often live as well as nesting beaches. Turtles can also ingest tar balls that can damage airways and lungs. NOAA has a good fact sheet on turtles and oil spills.

Initial reports show 23 turtles washing up dead in Mississippi, though its not clear if the spill is to blame. I also just heard a media report on the radio where the reporter claimed to watch sea turtles feeding on dead fish covered in oil. The effects of this spill are likely to linger for a long time, according to turtle expert Peter Meylan, "The same factors than concentrate oil appear to concentrate posthatchlings, so the potential to lose some significant portion of future contributions to important nesting populations of several species is on the horizon." That could affect young green and hawksbill turtles nesting in Mexico and the Caribbean. The spill is also likely to affect the peak of the nesting season for Kemp's ridleys, already hard hit by entanglement in fishing gear.

We'll be posting more updates on how turtles are being affected by this spill as they come in. In the meantime, we've been asked how people can help. Here are some suggestions:

-Support conservation groups working in that region as they work overtime to save affected wildlife. Examples are: the Gulf Restoration Network or Restore America's Estuaries.

-Let President Obama know that expanded drilling is not the answer to our energy needs. Defenders of Wildlife has information on how to leave a comment on the White House comment line.

-Tell your Senators to keep drilling out of the climate bill.

-Demand that the cleanup response be accelerated here.

-If you are in the area and happen to come across an affected turtle, here is a guide on what to do by WIDECAST.

-Follow updates and find more actions you can take at Surfrider's blog Oil On the Beach.

Fabien Cousteau & J. Nichols to visit El Salvador, Launch "Billion Baby Turtles Project"

2010-04-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

To mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of Jacques Yves Cousteau’s birthday on June 11th, noted sea turtle biologist, Dr. Wallace “J.” Nichols, and friend-filmmaker-activist Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famed explorer, will journey to El Salvador to announce the “Billion Baby Turtles” project. The visit will be the first ever to El Salvador by a member of the Cousteau family, whose name is synonymous with ocean protection and restoration. The “Billion Baby Turtles” project is an ambitious effort to support the release of a billion baby sea turtles at key locations around the world by the end of the decade. The project is also a key component of Fabien's new ocean conservation and restoration organization, Plant-A-Fish, also to be launched in June.

Nichols and Cousteau chose to begin on the beaches of El Salvador because they are home to one of the most endangered sea turtle populations in the world, the Pacific Hawksbill turtle. Until last year, virtually 100% of the Central American nation's sea turtle eggs were collected for sale or eaten in bars and restaurants. Thanks to recently passed conservation laws and innovative public-private partnerships, that's all changed. In 2009, for the first time in decades, nearly one million baby sea turtles found their way to the ocean in El Salvador and 2010 should see a continuation of that success. The innovative approach of Billion Baby Turtles involves collaboration between former egg collectors, local non-profit organizations, government agencies, the tourism sector and international foundations around the world.

According to FUNZEL, the Salvadorean partner with USAID working to coordinate the expanded sea turtle network, there are now dozens of communities, hundreds of turtle volunteers—or "tortugueros” as they like to be called—and numerous agencies and non-profit organizations committed to the recovery of Hawksbills and the three other sea turtle species known to live in El Salvador.

"For sea turtles to make a comeback, we need to build a diverse social movement that extends from the city to the coastal villages and promotes El Salvador as a net sea turtle protector, rather than consumer," says Nichols, a Research Associate at the California Academy of Sciences and co-founder of SEEturtles.org who is scientific advisor to the project. "Sea turtles are in many ways a symbol of the ocean crisis but also of hope for solutions," says Nichols. "By supporting the release of a billion baby sea turtles at ocean hot spots over the next decade, we'll help tilt the odds further in their favor."

"The people of El Salvador have an enormous responsibility to ensure the survival of sea turtles along with protecting the ocean as it is a key source of livelihood for generations to come," says Fabien Cousteau. "What is underway in El Salvador inspires us all. This visit is my personal commitment to support their important work."

According to FUNZEL/USAID sea turtle project coordinator, Enriqueta Ramirez, the team is convening a meeting of business leaders on May 6th to build and solidify long-term commitments to nesting beach projects along the entire length of El Salvador's coastline. Next up after El Salvador, Cousteau and Nichols plan to visit to the coast of Zihuatanejo, Mexico to release more baby sea turtles.

See the press release for more details.

Disney's Oceans is the most important film of our time

2010-04-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted from Huffington Post)

Most of our planet is ocean. And our ocean is in big trouble.

But nearly all of the ocean is out of sight and mind for nearly all of us.

Jacques Cousteau, whose 100th birthday is celebrated in June, said that people protect what they love.

The best way to fall in love with the ocean is to get in it, on it and under it as much as possible. But that's logistically challenging and impractical for most people.

The next best way is to see Oceans in a theater, opening on Earth Day.

If you open your heart up and take in the spectacularity of this film, it will change your life. Seriously. I saw it happen yesterday at the Turning the Tide pre-screening at Cavallo Point.

Let the images of walrus love, the beautiful swimming blanket octopus, spider crab orgies of extraordinary magnitude, great white sharks, orcas, humpbacks, sea turtles and dugongs feeding and waves upon waves upon waves wash over you.

Avatar was entertaining, but it's fake. Hollywood at its absolute best. This film is real and every bit as mind-blowing. Our ocean planet at its best. What James Cameron spent years creating in a studio, the Disney Oceans team spent years patiently waiting to film, in the ocean. And the result is pure joy. A reminder that we share this blue marble called Earth with such a diversity of creatures and forms, all of us connected. But the future of many requires us to adjust our activities.

Make no mistake, ours is an ocean planet. Get to know it again. Take everyone you know to seeOceans on the biggest screen you can find. Fall deeply in love with the ocean, our planet, again.

Then, most importantly, live like you love the ocean. Be part of the ocean revolution.

-Dr. Wallace J. Nichols
Co-Founder, SEE Turtles

Kuna Yala Sea Turtle Festival

2010-03-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

Michael J. Fox and the magical sea turtle

2010-03-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I was awake in a Mexico City hotel room, in town for some official meetings regarding sea turtles. Couldn't sleep. Turned on the news. On CNN Larry King was interviewing Michael J. Fox who had announced an abrupt career change, related to the disclosure that he suffered from Parkinson's disease. Just as I tuned in, he began to tell a gripping story about following a sea turtle in the ocean, and how while under the sea turtle's spell he'd had the breakthrough. Best that I let him tell the story in his own words, as it appears in his book "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist":

"My decision to leave Spin City was the right call at the right time.

By then, making a decision about what to commit my time and energy to came down to how I felt about something as opposed to what I thought about it. Certainly, my decision to retire from Spin City in the spring of 2000, effective at the end of the fourth season, was all "feel."

The decision happened late in the afternoon on the last day of the twentieth century. My family and I were snorkeling in the pristine waters of St. John's in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We'd been visiting this beach for years, and had never seen a sea turtle. Having finally spotted one gliding through the sea grass just inside the coral reef, I swam slowly behind it, keeping a respectful distance. When I finally emerged from the water, I kicked off my flippers, walked over to where Tracy was toweling off the kids, grabbed a towel for myself, and informed her that I was leaving the show. It may have been a bone-deep exhaustion from battling symptoms every day just to do my job, or maybe it was just the sublime indifference of that turtle, but a switch had flipped, and depending on how I chose to accept it, a light either just turned on or just turned off. If the perfunctory nature of my announcement startled Tracy, she covered it well. Certainly it was her moment to fill. She could have laughed it off like a weak throwaway joke or just pretended to ignore it, tacitly offering me the space to reconsider. Or she could have said, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" After all, what I was so casually proposing would bring about sweeping changes in each of our lives, as well as the kids'. I didn't even mention the turtle, fearing that she would think I was only consulting her for a second opinion. Whatever rough patches there had been in our marriage had usually arisen when one of us—okay, me—acted unilaterally. Bottom line, she could have reacted in any of a number of ways. But what she did was look me in the eye, utter a single word, "Good," and pull me into a wet, sandy embrace.

For the few remaining days of the vacation, we didn't talk about it much. If I was waiting for her to talk me out of it, that wasn't happening.

But could the break really have been that simple, that clean? This was a momentous decision, easily one of the most important in my life, and I was just blurting it out.

Well, yes—in a sense. Never once after my encounter with the sea turtle have I wavered in my conviction that it was the right thing for me to do and the right time for me to do it. But it was hard too. Not a hard decision to make, but a hard decision to havemade. As with any turning point or instance when a new road is chosen and old one forsaken, there are consequences. Here it was, New Year's Eve, the cusp of not only a new year, but a new millennium, and my resolution was to leave behind everything that I had resolved to achieve, acquire, and accumulate over the previous twenty years. I knew I wouldn't just be leaving the show—I would be putting aside my life as an actor. While I always had difficulty thinking of myself as an artist, I took pride in being a craftsman. I think I understood that even though, officially, my retirement was from Spin City and not my career as a whole, I couldn’t just tweak the schedule or the working conditions and expect to take on another leading role in a television series or film. This was it. I was essentially pulling the plug. Adios. Bye-bye."

There's something about about being with wild nature on its terms that is transformative, clarifying. Mr. Fox isn't the only person I know with a story like that, not by a long shot. And he's not even unique among celebrities with SEA TURTLE stories (Andre Benjamin and Charlize Theron both told me similar stories about their turtle connections).

The fact is that sea turtles will just do that to you, when you least expect it. They'll grab hold of your life and tug it in a different direction, just like that. I guess that's what happens when you're a 150 million year old species.

Thanks to everyone who tells their sea turtle stories, eloquently, fearlessly and publicly. People need to hear that protecting endangered species isn't only about their commercial value, their role in the ecosystem, their contribution to biodiversity or some potential medical discovery. It's all those things. And so very much more.

-Wallace J. Nichols

Sign the Lights Out for Rush Pledge!

2010-03-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh Seriously Considering Founding Turtle Preservation Society

(Disclaimer: these quotes may be slightly out of context, a practice Limbaugh approves of but rarely warns listeners of when practiced on his show)

Radio star Rush Limbaugh is worried about sea turtles and is doing something about it. He and his neighbors in Florida know that just one light can kill thousands of sea turtles.

"Giant sea turtles lumber out of the ocean, they trundle up to the beach, they dig the nest, they lay the eggs, and they trundle back to the ocean", says Limbaugh. "And then some weeks later the hatchlings hatch and they burrow up out of the sand and they are supposed to go to the ocean." But, says Limbaugh, "lights on the beach distract the hatchlings and cause them not to go to the ocean but inland. So, those of us who live on the beach have to turn the lights off."

During the sea turtle nesting season female sea turtles crawl on to beachs around the world to lay eggs. When they are finished they used light reflected off of the water to find their way back to the ocean. When the baby sea turtles emerge from the nest about 60 days later they also use the reflected light to find their way to the ocean for the first time.

As we develop coastal communities, building beach houses, shopping centers and high rise hotels and apartment buildings, we are splashing more light on to these sea turtle nesting beaches. Unfortunately these lights are coming from the wrong direction and can cause sea turtles to follow the wrong light source, becoming disoriented, and end up on a roadway, in a pool, an easy snack for a racoon or cat, or simply get lost and bake in the morning sun.

For this reason, many coastal communities have "lights out" regulations during sea turtle nesting season. These regulations often require home and business owners to take modest steps to install turtle-friendly lights, draw curtains, or turn lights out after dark.

One light in the wrong place can disorient nesting female sea turtles and hundreds or thousands of their hatchlings.

Rush even says he is "seriously considering founding the forthcoming Turtle Preservation Society of Palm Beach".

Take the "Lights Out for Limbaugh" pledge!

Thanks for your support, Rush!

M. Coyne, Seaturtle.org

WJ Nichols, Co-Founder, SEE Turtles

(environmentalist wackos)

(Reposted from the following blogs:

Turtle Journal (www.seaturtle.org)

WallaceJNichols.org

Beach Lighting Tips

Reposition or shield necessary lights so they are not visible from the beach.
Put lights on a timer or motion sensor.
Replace current fixtures with "turtle-friendly" fixtures.
Reduce wattage of outdoor lighting.
Turn off lights in rooms that are not being used.
Relocate movable lights away from windows.
Keep curtains or blinds closed after 9 p.m.
Apply window tinting.

SEE Turtles Best Practices for Turtle Watching

On our complicated relationship with marine mammals

2010-03-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

An explosion of attention around how we interact with marine mammals is forcing us off topic today. Whales, seals, and dolphins have long been looked at solely as resources by humans, for food, fur, entertainment, and scientific research, among others. As with other many (but not all) species, as humans learn about how these creatures interact with their environment (and the value that provides) and our lifestyles become less dependent on their use, our collective attitude often shifts from exploitation to protection.

At SEE Turtles, we've seen this shift happen before our eyes, as communities shift their economies to benefit from conservation. Watching my daughter interact with a friendly gray whale in Baja recently has made this relationship more visceral than ever.

In many cases however, these competing views collide, sometimes violently, with the animals literally caught in the middle. Here's a wrap-up of recent developments:

The Cove wins best documentary but Oscars producers, averse to anything controversial, quickly shifts away as Ric O'Barry holds up a sign saying "Text Dolphin to 44144". A couple of interesting post-scripts: The makers of the movie apparently broke up an illegal whale smuggling operation at a restaurant in California. They are also planning a tv-version of the movie for Animal Planet.
RadioLab, an extremely entertaining radio production company affiliated with NPR, has a great podcast highlighting two fascinating stories: divers freeing a whale caught in fishing gear and a leopard seal attempting to feed penguins to a photographer. Click here to find the podcast, look on the right side for one titled "Animal Minds".
Here in our back yard in Oregon, the now annual euthanizing of sea lions for doing what comes naturally (eating fish) has begun anew. Federal agents say they are eating too much salmon (whereas the giant dams and fishing boats are "off the hook".
An orca at SeaWorld recently killed a trainer, dragging her underwater and drowning her. Apparently bowing to public pressure, the company is now reconsidering using this orca in its shows though has stopped short of reconsidering the use of these animals for entertainment.
Finally, Canadian politicians have adopted Japan's combative attitude towards international criticism over the cruelty of the harp seal "hunt". The normally polite Canadians (perhaps emboldened by their hockey teams gold medal?) will be serving seal in Parliament to protest the European Union's ban on seal products.

Grupo Tortuguero's Baja Murals Help Save Sea Turtles

2010-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Our Ocean Backyard, by Dan Haifley

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_14524691

Posted: 03/06/2010 01:30:05 AM PST

Sometimes life does imitate art. Take, for example, Mexico's Baja California peninsula, which hosts a series of murals on the walls of restaurants, schools and gas stations.

The subject of those murals is a familiar and revered one to peninsula residents -- sea turtles. A recent study indicates that this public art has had a profound impact on attitudes and behaviors toward the marine environment.

The murals include images of turtles recycling plastics or feeding on pelagic red crabs; or local residents releasing Adelita, equipped with a transmitter to follow her swim from Mexico towards Japan several years ago. These murals are billboards marking the start of turtle highway -- their migratory route across the Pacific. In my next column, I'll examine an extraordinary effort at the other end of the migratory route -- near Santa Cruz's sister city in Japan.

While turtle images appear on some of Baja's walls, their real counterparts move through nearby waters where they breed -- and are still hunted, which is why they have become a symbol of Baja's growing marine protection movement.

Tufts University student Alyssa Irizarry conducted research on what impact the murals had on residents' views about and behaviors toward the environment. The award-winning study broke new academic ground and its conclusions provided positive feedback to Mexico's conservation movement for its education work.

Mexico has a history of murals as social commentary -- an example is Diego Rivera's celebrated work. Irizarry's study found that murals can be a powerful tool for conservation as they have been used in social and political commentary.

Ever since Spanish colonization, turtle meat has been a desired food item in Mexico. During most of the 20th century, turtles were commercially harvested in Baja for both the domestic and international market. As a result Mexico's sea turtle population nearly collapsed in the 1980s.

Much of Baja's economy, which is centered on fishing and tourism, depends on the ocean. A prohibition was placed on turtle hunting in Mexico in the 1990s, but their consumption is still an important cultural tradition in some areas. Despite this, Irizarry's study found a trend away from the consumption of sea turtles and toward a desire to protect them.

Irizarry's study dovetails with the work of Grupo Tortuguero, formed in 1999 to protect Baja's marine resources. California's Dr. Wallace J. Nichols often cites her research in his work with the organization. "Can murals save sea turtles and the marine environment?" he asked recently. "The answer is yes, and the conclusion of this study is: keep going."

Irizarry conducted surveys which showed that the murals are effective in developing environmental awareness: "It is unknown whether or not the actions are realized, but sea turtle murals can provide the motivation for community discussion and participation in turtle conservation," she says.

Youth in Baja schools and adults each responded to Irizarry's surveys that their attitudes and actions towards the environment were affected by more than just their initial attraction to the murals. She concludes that knowledge of sea turtles by school aged youth resulted from environmental education, and that viewing the murals afterwards served to reinforce that knowledge.

Dan Haifley is executive director of O'Neill Sea Odyssey. He can be reached atdhaifley@oneillseaodyssey.org.

Greening the Friendly Skies

2010-02-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

The carbon footprint of flying may be the most vexing issue for ecotourism operators. The reality is that to get people from places where they live to where they want to go, flying is sometimes the only way to get there. We at SEE Turtles believe that climate change is a huge threat to people and wildlife (especially sea turtles) and actively advocate for policies to reduce emissions. However, we don't think giving up getting on airplanes is a real solution to the problem and airplane boycotts would have dramatic impacts on many conservation projects and nearby communities and have little impact on emissions.

So for us and many of the tour operators we work with, the question becomes how to reduce the environmental impact of flying for our customers. Many operators have embraced carbon offsets, which we think can be a good way to support the development of renewable energy but aren't a full solution to the problem. The only long-term answer is to put a price on carbon that will speed up the transition to more efficient use of fuel and conversion to sustainable fuels. Here is a good place to let your representatives know you support climate legislation.

One simple and inexpensive first step that all airlines can take is to recycle onboard waste. Up to 7.5 million pounds of waste is generated every day on airplanes according to a recent New York Times article, of which 75% is recyclable. I'm frequently frustrated at how few airlines recycle, though was pleasantly surprised recently to see the flight attendants on Alaska Airlines separating their waste for recycling. Conservation group Green America has just released a new report on how awful airline recycling is and which airlines are better than others. Check out the report and let the airlines know you want them to recycle here. You can also fill out a survey on your experience to help their research. Delta came out as the top recycler and US Air came out the worst (seems to be a pattern with that company).

Another simple solution for airlines to reduce waste would be for airline attendants to ASK people if they actually want the little bag of peanuts instead of just handing it out. Asking people to think before handing those out would almost certainly reduce the number of bags given out and disposed of, also reducing the weight that the flight carries.

Photo Image: Freedigitalphotos.net

-Brad Nahill

Turtles & Whales & Dolphins, Oh My!

2010-02-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

Baja California Sur is like no other place in the world; stark deserts contrasting with deep blue oceans full of life. Most people know that the region is one of the only places in the world where whales (specifically gray whales) will approach boats and allow people to touch them. Most people don't know that there is a unique new way to interact with sea turtles in the region; I took my young daughter Karina on a trip organized by Baja Expeditions to see for myself.

I'd seen many pictures and always wondered just how friendly these whales are and how well the interaction is managed. By the time we got out into Magdalena Bay, near the town of San Carlos, we saw spouts, flukes, and breaches in every direction, more whales than could be counted. A relatively small number of whales are friendly at any given moment, but once one is found, it will hang around the boats for hours. They will show their belly, roll around to show off their flippers, rise their noses out of the water, and pass under the boats. The boats we saw were respectful, just a couple at a time with any one whale, calmly taking turns so that each gets a chance to spend some time with the whale.

However, the whales were just the warm-up act for our real reason for being there, to participate in a sea turtle research monitoring conducted by the EcoTortugueros, led by our friend Julio Solis. The project is run by local conservationists working to develop an alternative to fishing in the region and to financially support research efforts. Setting nets across an active turtle route, our friends were able to catch 4 black turtles (a sub-species of green turtles), which were tagged, measured, and then released.

Karina was overwhelmed by the turtles, helping at every possibility to keep them wet, and get a closer look at their shells and flippers. One was even named after her. The trip was topped off by seeing a pod of bottlenose dolphins on our boat ride home, the perfect ending to a fantastic trip. There's a couple more of whale and turtle trips in 2010, though time is running out.

Check out a quick video of the trip:

-Brad Nahill

Explore Explore.org

2010-01-28T13:58:00.000-08:00

These days, reading the newspaper can be a bit depressing for those concerned with protecting nature. Between the stalling of climate legislation and the lackluster Copenhagen conference, cold-stunned turtles in Florida, and ever growing patches of garbage in the ocean, its enough to make one want to run off and hide on a remote island in Mexico (like I'll be doing next week, stay tuned for highlights).

For people looking for a ray of sunshine, make your way over Explore.org. This website, recently redone with a user-friendly interface, has inspiring photos and videos of wildlife conservation (including gorillas and dolphins), cultural stories exploring efforts to revive traditional Indian music, and many other topics. Music lovers will enjoy a personal jam session with Jack Johnson in Hawaii.

Seeing Turtles Makes You Happy!

2010-01-15T11:27:00.001-08:00

In a recent column titled "The Happiest People" in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reflected on reasons why Costa Rica was recently ranked #1 in the World Database of Happiness (what a wonderful name!) as well as the Happy Planet Index. (Regular readers of this blog will note we covered this story last July.) He assumes that disbanding its army 60 years ago, which has helped to the country invest in a national health care system (that ranks ahead of the US in some measures), a national education system, and a national parks system that protects one of the highest percentages of land in the world.

All of those things make sense and I'm sure play a part in it. However, Kristof misses one key ingredient that may play a role. Sea turtles! The country is home to several of the world's most important nesting beaches and successful turtle conservation projects. He comes close, talking about the beautiful beaches and abundant wildlife, and the strong ecotourism industry that allows Americans to escape from Nature Deficit Disorder. As we noted recently, seeing turtles can also make you greener.

(Note to Mr. Kristof, leatherback turtles are MUCH slower than sloths, at least on land! Let us know the next time you go and we'll show you...)

The current Costa Rican government doesn't seem to have learned the connection between happiness and sea turtles either, with a recent proposal to downgrade the protected status of an important leatherback nesting beach.

As a person who has helped hundreds of people see their first sea turtles in Costa Rica, I can personally attest to the smile-inducing power of the giant reptiles. Kristof also mentions two other countries ranking high on happiness lists, Mexico and Colombia. Is it a coincidence that both of these countries also have major sea turtle populations? I think not...

I'll be leading a group of 20 friends and family to Costa Rica this summer (keep an eye out for live posts from the beach in May and June). I don't think anything on that trip will generate more smiles per capita than watching a tiny leatherback hatchling make its way to the ocean.

Let us know if we can help raise your happiness index with a turtle trip to Costa Rica!

Happy Blue Year - A Review and Preview

2009-12-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

This past year has been a time of transition and growth for SEE Turtles. We started the year moving from Ocean Conservancy to work with the great group of folks at The Ocean Foundation.

In 2009, SEE Turtles:

Launched a new website
Unveiled a volunteer matching program that has received more than 800 inquiries
Created a School Outreach Program that offers field trips, presentations, and more
Added a capacity building capacity building component where we help communities in Baja, Mexico launch new conservation tourism businesses
Built our social media reach with a new Facebook fan page (770 fans), Twitter account (almost 700 followers), and an enewsletter list with 800 subscribers
Added new sections to our website on turtle species and threats

Despite the down economy, which dramatically reduced tourism, we helped connect 60 travelers to our partners in Costa Rica, Baja, and Trinidad. These travelers generated more than $13,000 for local communities and almost $10,000 for conservation efforts. Our grand total to date is now $62,500 generated, split between $35,500 for conservation and $27,000 for communities! In 2009, 22 volunteers completed more than 200 shifts, doing the dirty work necessary for these projects to succeed.

While we are proud of these results, we know a lot more needs to be done to protect sea turtles in these sites. SEE Turtles is gearing up for a big 2010, where we expect to more than double the number of people going to sites and the amount of money generated. Our plans for 2010 include new turtle sites, new species (starting with other ocean creatures), and more.

SEE Turtles succeeds with help from people like you. To make a tax-deductible online donation, please click here and be sure to check the box titled "SEEtheWILD" (our parent project).

Happy New Year and thanks for your support! SEE you in 2010.

Of Sea Turtles & Selfish Giving

2009-12-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Fans of NPR may have caught an interesting story on "Selfish Giving" this morning. In this season of giving, the story explores whether giving that is not purely unselfish is moral. The story focuses heavily on cause marketing, where companies give to charity in order to sell more products, and suggests that giving and volunteering are the latest fad. But at the end, referring to students padding their college applications, the story asks "Is the high school senior who is volunteering in Costa Rica really making a difference in the life of sea turtles?"

In this economy, with non-profits cutting staff and services, we think that any reason that encourages people or companies to support social causes is a good one. SEE Turtles wouldn't exist without the support of socially conscious companies like Endangered Species Chocolate and Nature's Path, and those companies are successful because their customers want to support environmentally-minded businesses. Our project is based on the premise that many travelers want to do good while having fun and prefer operators who leave a positive impact on the locations where they send people.

From personal experience, I first went to volunteer with sea turtles in Costa Rica after graduating from college as a way to gain experience in the conservation field and build my resume. I wanted to help both the turtles and my career prospects and accomplished both. Yes, volunteering can help a young person get a job or into college. But it also helps small conservation groups cover long stretches of nesting beaches and brings in critical income to coastal communities. If helping sea turtles becomes a fashionable thing, its certainly better than the latest smart phone...

Turtle Watching Inspires Young Philanthropy

2009-12-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

Jeremie Crystal was just six years old when he saw his first turtle in Grande Riviere, Trinidad. He witnessed a giant leatherback, which he nicknamed "Nest-Quick." He also got to see tiny leatherback hatchlings on this incredible beach, one of the world's most important for this species. This memory has stuck with him for the past seven years.

Recently in school, Jeremy learned about how fishing gear can entangle and kill sea turtles. He decided then to take a collection at his Bar Mitzvah to help solve this problem. This past weekend, his efforts resulted in $1,000 for sea turtle conservation efforts! This donation will go towards reducing accidental capture in fishing gear in Baja California Mexico, which has one of the highest rates in the world of turtle capture and mortality.

Thanks to Jeremy, you are a wonderful example of the difference one person can make in protecting endangered species and living proof that ocean wildlife viewing makes people green! We hope you can join us for a trip to see your donation in action one of these days.

-Brad Nahill

Inspiring Conservation Through Art

2009-12-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

Can murals save sea turtles? This question was asked by graduate student Alyssa Irizarry, who worked with the School for Field Studies (SFS) to determine the effect of numerous paintings of ocean wildlife around the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. Everywhere you go in Baja, from small coastal towns like Lopez Mateos to larger cities like La Paz, you see these wonderful paintings depicting whales, sea turtles, and other creatures.

Many of these murals were created as part of a Rare Pride campaign that the Grupo Tortuguero ran. Rare (an international conservation group that I used to work with) learned how important social marketing can be in changing attitudes toward nature and their campaigns utilize a combination of murals, costumes, puppets and more. Other murals in the region were created by the famous Wyland, who has made a career out of painting huge murals to help humans feel a stronger connection to the sea.

Alyssa's research was illuminating. According to SFS, she found that the murals reinforce messages delivered to local students and adults through environmental education campaigns. While the murals alone don't necessary inspire conservation, but she says that, "sea turtle murals can provide the motivation for community discussion and participation in turtle conservation."

To see the murals yourself (and the live sea turtles, too), check out our upcoming trips page.

-Brad Nahill

Protecting Turtles and Helping Communities

2009-12-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

Anyone who reads this blog knows how we feel about plastic. Leatherbacks and other turtles often confuse plastic bags for jellyfish, getting caught in their throats. Plastic litter covers nesting beaches around the world (see photo at right).

Now, however, we are excited to be able to help protect turtles

and residents near turtle sites by selling plastic. Recycled plastic handbags, that is. These bags are made from shopping bags by cooperatives of women in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. Each bag is made from up to 80 plastic bags, helping get them out of turtle habitat while generating income for conservation efforts and women in low-income communities.

This fantastic project (called Weaving for Nature) is run by our partners at WIDECAST Latin America. To date, they have recycled more than 12,000 bags into new products.

These bags are now available through World of Good. Buy one for yourself or as a unique holiday gift! The bags range from $20 - 25 and coin purses for $10.

Inspirational Talk by SEE Turtles co-founder Dr. Wallace J. Nichols

2009-11-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

Last month, J. addressed a group of the world's leading adventure travel operators at the Adventure Travel World Summit in Quebec, Canada. Watch his inspiration message about loving and saving the wild here:

Green Festival Goodies

2009-11-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

Just back from the San Francisco Green Festival, billed as the country's largest sustainability event. The show was packed for most of the three days and attendees were bombarded with great speakers, delicious food, and an overwhelming number of green products to choose from.

Helping us out at this exhausting event were friends Barb Andrews of the California Academy of Sciences, David McGuire of Sea Stewards, and Max Davis. Lots of interest in helping sea turtles by San Franciscans, including the mayor himself, Gavin Newsom (pictured with David and Barbara holding a loggerhead skull).

Our favorite booths there included:

-Snow Leopard Trust: Check these folks out for great holiday gifts produced by ranchers who help protect these gorgeous creatures. I picked up a bunch of ornaments for our tree.

-Sustainable Harvest International: These great folks support efforts by farmers in Central America to grow more sustainably. They have great eco-trips too through their Smaller World program.

-Earthwatch: One of our favorite partners. Check out their turtle trips on our site.

-Kid Command: Fun and educational video games for kids. Much better than Wi if the kids are stuck inside.

-MamaShaman: Very creative shoes made from molas of the Kuna people in Panama. Fair trade and beautiful!

Sea Turtle Monitoring and Sea Kayak Expedition, Nov 3-10

2009-11-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

A guest post from Melissa Gaskill, who joined a recent turtle research trip to Baja California, organized by Baja Expeditions:

A steep shell beach barely wide enough for a row of tents served as base camp for the most recent SEE Turtles expedition in Bahia Magdalena, near Puerto San Carlos on the Pacific coast of Baja California. Our group included ten tourists, two guides, two cooks, and four pangueros, or boat drivers. Since 2000, local fishermen and conservationists have monitored the sea turtle population here. Once a month, they set nets, check them every two hours, and measure, weigh and tag any turtles caught, then return them to the water. This data measures the effectiveness of efforts to help the endangered animals.

Allowing tourists to participate hands-on in the monitoring not only spreads the word about these efforts, it also provides important financial support.

We first spent three days across the peninsula, at the Baja Expeditions eco-camp on Isla Espiritu Santo, an uninhabited island rising from sky blue Gulf of California waters. There, we snorkeled with sea lions, swam over a shallow reef, hiked a mountain slope bristling with towering cardon, and kayaked from one pristine beach to another, stopping at a mangrove-lined cove along the way. After a night in La Paz, we made a three-hour van ride to San Carlos to board one of Baja’s signature blue-and-white pangas and cross the bay to camp.

Our first order of business: placing the wide-weave, shallow nets across the path of the tide. Julio Solis, a San Carlos panguero (boat driver) who helped establish Magdalena Baykeeper, then pulled out a yellow pad and marked off two-hour shifts from 6 PM that day through 4 PM the next. After he assigned two crew members in each slot, we got our turn to sign up. I chose 8 PM and 4 AM. Neither of those shifts netted a turtle, but the black water reflected bright stars, and I enjoyed helping to check the net by pulling it across the boat, something these men do with practiced ease.

During the day in between shifts, we took outings, one to an isthmus of sand dunes, which we cross to a wide, seemingly endless beach on the Pacific Ocean, and another threading through mangrove channels looking for birds.

In the end, we snagged three turtles, two of them without tags, meaning they haven’t been captured before. The group helped with the data collection and keeping the turtles wet and calm (covering their eyes seems to do the trick). When released, the animals swim away with impressive speed.

Our last day, we wandered the bay, stopping to watch locals fishing with handlines, checking crab traps, and shrimping using an environmentally-friendly slow trawl that skirts but doesn’t drag the bottom. (The previous night, I enjoyed a delicious meal of shrimp caught this way, my first in a long time since giving up shrimp for ecological reasons.) After lunch on a secluded beach in the mangroves, we started the long journey home, all of us, I’m sure, changed by our experience.

The crew from our camp belong to a group of 16 men and women, Cooperativo Eco-Tortuguero de San Carlos, formed to offer this conservation tourism experience. In addition to financing the monthly monitoring, the outings provide an alternative to typical tourism development (think Cancun or Los Cabos), creating dignified work that keeps people in their communities. While many outfitters and destinations claim the ecotourism label, this trip is the real deal.

Ocean Wildlife Viewing makes people green

2009-11-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

Over the years I've seen up close the way sea turtle watching can truly change behavior, from kids to adults, fishermen to artists, even Michael J. Fox changed his life after turtle watching in the US Virgin Islands (see our blog post of May 8, 2009 for more).

New research from the University of Queensland (Australia) suggests that watching ocean wildlife causes people to become more green (as in environmentally-friendly though may pertain to people with sea sickness as well). Research fellow Dr. Jan Packer interviews visitors to places like the sea turtle nesting beach at Mon Repos or whale watching at Hervey Bay (both in Australia). She reports that seven percent of these people make changes in their daily lives to reduce their environmental impact four months later.

One of our top goals is to not only inspire these changes in everyone that goes turtle watching, but to provide concrete ways that people can take when they get home. One participant who just returned from a turtle trip to Baja this week, Melissa from Texas, reported that two of her newfound friends from the trip were inquiring into how their shrimp was caught at local restaurants and educating the waiter and restaurant owner on the problems of shrimp trawling. When they weren't assured that the shrimp was caught sustainably, they chose something else.

Visit SEE Turtles for ways to become inspired and find best practices for turtle watching.

Tour Operators Unite to Protect Key Nesting Beach

2009-10-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ten leading ecotourism operators are supporting efforts by conservationists to protect Las Baulas National Marine Park in Costa Rica. Las Baulas, near the coastal town of Tamarindo, is the most important leatherback sea turtle nesting beach on the Pacific coast of the Americas. Developers in the region are supporting an effort to downgrade the park's status from a National Park to a Wildlife Refuge, which would open up areas of the park to development and threaten one of the last remaining nesting beaches for this species along the Pacific.

Pacific leatherback turtles are one of the most endangered populations of sea turtles worldwide, with a 90% drop in nesting numbers over the past two decades.

While entanglement in fishing gear is the primary reason these turtles are dying, loss of nesting habitat is a major threat. Developers and conservationists in this region have long been at odds over hotels being built too close to the nesting beach; increased coastal development in this area would further threaten these beleaguered turtles. This development would also threaten an important turtle watching industry that brings people to this area to witness these giant reptiles lay their eggs.

SEE Turtles, working in partnership with Pretoma and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, has gained the support of 10 leading ecotourism operators (list below), who together represent thousands of visitors to the country and millions in spending. These forward thinking operators know that their business depends on protecting wildlife, travelers want to know their trips are helping to protect nature, not destroy it.

My first experience working with sea turtles was ten years ago on Playa Langosta, part of the national park. I witnessed first-hand how large hotels can affect nesting beaches, camping next to the Barcelo Langosta Resort as it was being built. The hotel destroyed mangroves, lit up the nesting beach, and brought people who trample the beach with no idea of its importance. If this change is allowed to take place, Las Baulas is destined for more of this kind of unsustainable tourism, which damages wildlife while providing minimal benefits for local communities.

To learn more about this situation, read the ezine "Voice of the Leatherback Turtle" on NatureAir's blog.

To express your support to maintain the protections of Las Baulas, click here.

Read the full tour operator letter here.

Here's the full list of tour operators and travel non-profits who signed on:

Geographic Expeditions

GAP Adventures

Planeterra Foundation

Costa Rica Undiscovered

Global Vision International

Environmental Adventure Company

Blog Action Day

2009-10-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

We at SEE Turtles can't possibly pass up participating in the first annual Blog Action Day, this year focused on climate change. Regular readers of this blog (both of you) have probably noticed that its a subject we've been focused on lately. There's a good reason for that, as sea turtles are one of the most affected creatures by global warming. They are even nominated for National Wildlife Federation's new face of global warming. Here's an interesting National Geographic article about new measures conservationists are taking to adapt, with a quote from our advisory board member Carlos Drews of WWF Latin America.

I've already plugged 350.org's International Day of Action on October 24th. Use the link to find an action near you. An innovative new campaign is called tcktcktck (as in a ticking clock) to pressure for a strong climate treaty. Are you a young person who wants to speak out? Try Kids Vs Global Warming. Finally, with reports that oil companies are convincing more people to call their representatives against climate legislation, make sure to let your representative you want a strong bill passed. Environmental Defense Fund has a good site to voice your opinion.

The Autumn of Global Warming

2009-09-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Following on our August post on The Summer of Plastic, the overriding eco-theme of the new season is shaping up to be global warming (I'll skip the overused "heating up" metaphor). We at SEE Turtles are glad to see increasing coverage of the issue after a summer dominated by the health care debate. While we also feel strongly about health care, we don't agree with President Obama's recent remark that its the "defining issue of our generation." In our opinion, global warming is clearly the biggest challenge right now, one who's reverberations will go way beyond our country's economy and public health.

Among the recent news on climate change is today's introduction of the Senate version of a climate bill (from MSNBC.com). We're happy to see a larger cut in the short-term (20% by 2020) and other improvements from the House version, but this bill is a starting point that is sure to be negotiated downward as it makes it way through the Senate. Also coming out today is our new page on how sea turtles will be affected by a changing climate, you might be surprised at how many ways these creatures will be affected. An obvious impact on turtles is sea level rise, here's a TreeHugger article on the imminence of a two meter rise (6.5 feet for the metric-impaired).

Despite the uncertain fate of climate legislation in the Senate, there is some good news out there. Japan's new government has announced a much stronger commitment to reducing emissions (from BBC) and China is rapidly moving forward on renewable energy (from Grist). Companies are jumping ship from the US Chamber of Commerce (also Grist) for their stance on the issue (our neighbor in Beaverton, Nike just joined the list!). I used to work for a group called Ozone Action that effectively dismantled a corporate group called the Global Climate Coalition, its good to see this kind of work still going on. However, even when there's good news, like when WWF discovers more than 150 new species in the Greater Mekong region of Asia, there's a flip side - these species may already be threatened by climate change.

We encourage everyone out there who cares about wildlife to get involved in the upcoming debate about climate legislation. One great way to take part will be to join 350.org's international day of action, with events around the world. Expect to see from us several ways you can help through our Twitter, Facebook, blog and other social networks.

-Brad Nahill

Should We Let Pandas Go Extinct?

2009-09-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

MSNBC has a thought provoking article about the strategy of pouring money into panda conservation. They quote a radio interview by Chris Packham, a who hosts a tv show on BBC in the UK and runs a bat conservation group, suggesting conservationists "pull the plug" on the panda, which is a common symbol for wildlife conservation efforts. He has since walked back his statements a bit though continues to suggest that funds would be better used protecting ecosystems as opposed to specific species.

While he has a point that conservation expenditures are skewed towards cuddly creatures while many less charismatic species struggle, his argument misses some key facts. First, much of species-specific work (whether pandas or lions or whales) benefits the entire ecosystem through the creation of protected areas, restrictions on destructive activities, and education that helps connect people to nature. Second, any experienced environmental fundraiser will tell you that every conservation effort is under-funded and few people will donate to protect something they don't feel connected to (such as bats). By using charismatic creatures to raise funds, all wildlife benefits from efforts to combat global warming, overfishing, and other major threats.

Finally, charismatic creatures inspire people to become better environmental stewards. Local communities who benefit from tourism around creatures like pandas (or sea turtles or tigers) are more likely to protect their local habitat from exploitation that would affect the flagship species and every other animal that lives there.

I suspect Mr. Packham's aim was to stir debate and may be related to the difficulty of fundraising for bat conservation (isn't that species-specific conservation?). He may have accomplished that goal, though hopefully not to the detriment of panda conservation.

Cruise Ships: Good or Bad for coastal communities?

2009-09-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

Friends of the Earth recently came out with their ratings of large cruise ship companies on their green efforts. Large cruise ships have tremendous impacts on ocean habitats and coastal communities and its good to see organizations advocating for improvement. The ratings were based upon companies records on sewage treatment, air pollution reduction, water quality compliance, and transparency of information. We would like to see in future reports how these companies interact (positively or negatively) with coastal communities and if there is support for local environmental and social programs.

Cruise ships can damage ocean habitats by dumping their waste at sea and the large boats (which are basically floating cities) can emit a significant amount of air pollution. Local communities also lose out on a large amount of the economic benefits of tourism, as people spend only a short time on shore and don't stay in local hotels. On the other hand, cruise ships do reduce the need for a lot of coastal infrastructure in fragile ecosystems.

The top rated companies include Holland America (B+), Norwegian (B-), and Princess Cruises (B-). The lowest ratings (F) went to Royal Caribbean and Disney Cruise Lines. These ratings however, didn't include some very responsible companies who use smaller boats. Our favorite is Linblad Expeditions, one the world's top ecotourism companies, who take strong measures to reduce their impacts and generate large amounts of funding for conservation efforts.

You can find more information on environmentally-friendly cruises in our Resources for Responsible Turtle Travel Page. More on the report, including the response from the cruise industry on MSNBC.com.

Litter control vs Plastic Bag Bans

2009-09-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, the Santa Cruz Sentinal published a response from the American Chemistry Council to an editorial advocating for a ban on plastic bags (As We See It: Scourge of plastic bags). Not surprisingly, the plastics industry puts the blame for the ever-increasing growth of plastic in the oceans on the consumer, pushing the onus for action on government agencies and beachgoers. While we agree that there should be more recycling facilities, increased enforcement of littering laws, and programs that encourage behavior change, the exponential growth of plastic in the ocean (see August 24 post: The Summer of Plastic) means serious action must be taken now. Bans on plastic bags are the only immediately effective way to keep these bags out of the ocean.

So beachgoers, yes, do your part and participate in events like this weekend's International Coastal Cleanup. Buy reusable bags to take to the supermarket with you. Let other people who litter know that they need to clean up after themselves. But perhaps most importantly, show your support for serious action to reduce the spread of plastic bags in our environment by voting for bans, bag fees, and other restrictions.

-Brad Nahill

Please Help Conservationists Rebuild After Jimena

2009-09-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

A guest post from our partners in Baja California Sur:

Last Monday Hurricane Jimena spared Los Cabos but slammed into the Bahía Magdalena region of Mexico¹s Baja California peninsula. There were no fatalities, but the majority of homes and infrastructure in the region were destroyed or severely damaged. Some news coverage:

http://www.mexidata.info/id2402.html
http://www.oem.com.mx/elmexicano/notas/n1310350.htm

Many of you have inquired over the past week about Hurricane Jimena. A couple of dozen Tortugueros and their families from the communities of Puerto López Mateos, San Lázaro, San Carlos, and Puerto Magdalena lost their homes to Hurricane Jimena and need our help.

For example, Julio Solís, a local fisherman who founded and now directs Magdalena Baykeeper in San Carlos (who many of you will remember from the ISTS in Loreto for his rising speech on the Grupo Tortuguero) along with his extended family have been uprooted. Two thirds of Julio¹s house was torn apart when Jimena made landfall. Rebuilding Julio¹s house will cost about $2,000.

The extended family of Chuy Lucero, long-time field coordinator of the Grupo Tortuguero (who you may remember for his white sombrero in Loreto)including his brothers, nephews, and their families had their homes at San Lázaro completely washed away by Jimena¹s storm surge and heavy winds. Rebuilding one of the Luceros¹ island houses will cost about $1400 (the roofs and siding flew with the wind but the beams and studs didn't blow or drift far).

The Solises and the Luceros are just a few of many Tortuguero families who
suffered by Jimena. Our target is to swiftly raise funds to help these and
other Grupo Tortuguero families rebuild their homes. Please consider making a donation of funds, materials or expertise to help.

From México you can make a deposit directly into a special BANAMEX account of the Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias, A.C. that we established for this purpose (email us for details).

From the USA you can make a tax-deductible donation to the Pro Peninsula Fund at The Ocean Foundation by clicking here
(https://www.propeninsula.org/donation_checkout.php); please note Hurricane Fund in the comments section of the donation form. If you would like the funds to go to any family in particular please contact us directly.

If you can't spare the funds but have construction materials or expertise,
please contact one of us directly to see how you might be able to help.

Many thanks,

Aarón Esliman, Executive Director, Grupo Tortuguero

Hoyt Peckham, Director, Proyecto Caguama

Kama Dean, Program Officer, Pro Peninsula Fund at The Ocean Foundation

Mark Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation

Wallace J. Nichols, Co-Director, Ocean Revolution

Turtles vs. Drunks

2009-09-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Today's New York Times Environment section has an article about the plight of sea turtles nesting on Miami Beach. This beach is a perfect case study for the multitude of threats that turtles and other wildlife face with large-scale coastal development. In addition to multitudes of tourists with their beach gear, the nesting females have to avoid recreational boaters on their way in.

One thing that struck me in the article was how persistent the problem of poaching (both of adult turtles and their eggs) remains. People, including conservationists, often think of poaching as a problem in developing countries, one that was solved here in the US a long time ago. However, when their is money to be made on the black market, you can bet that someone will be doing it.

The most frustrating problem these turtle face in Miami Beach, though, has to be the drunks. Normally, night is the safest time for turtles and hatchlings, under cover of darkness, they have a better chance of avoiding predators. Here, as the bars close, their overly intoxicated patrons go looking for the next fun thing; the staked off nests become an attractive target.

Thankfully, like most nesting beaches around the world, there are dedicated people working to make this beach a safe place again for the turtles. These conservationists range from park staff to aquarium specialists and even a "Turtle Dude" camping on the beach. Kudos to these folks, who spend every day protecting turtles in one of the most challenging locations in the US.

Jimena Rebuilding Efforts Begin in Baja California Sur

2009-09-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Jimena has finally left the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, after several days of hanging out, doing substantial damage to small communities along the peninsula. Damage was not as great as feared, as the storm weakened dramatically before hitting land, dropping from a Category 4 to a Category 1. So far, only one person has been reported to have died when a creek flooded the city of Ciudad Constitucion.

Our new Field Director, Chris Pesenti, was in La Paz when the storm hit. That major city, as well as Cabo San Lucas, were spared most of the damage, but several communities that we work with were among the hardest hit. Chris received word that the town of Lopez Mateos was cut off and had no access to water or electricity service. Along with Chuy Lucero of

the Grupo Tortuguero, Chris took a large tank of water and successfully crossed the river blocking entrance to town. Other towns including Loreto and Puerto San Carlos suffered damage and electricity black-outs.

From Chris: "what impacted me the most was the attitude of the people, the smiles, everyone happy that they escaped with just material damage, and that with all the fallen roofs and walls there was no loss of life. The man whose house suffered TWO fallen palm trees jokingly told me that at least they kept the roof in place. I felt pretty inspired as a human..."

Chris will be discussing the best ways to help with local leaders. SEE Turtles will do its part to help the rebuilding efforts in partnership with Baja Expeditions. Donations from our Nov 3-10 trip will help support these communities, please contact us if you would like to help.

-Brad Nahill

Dolphin watching vs Swimming with Dolphins

2009-09-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Keeping on the dolphin theme, Planet Green has an eye-opening story on the not so nice side of swimming with the dolphin programs. While SWTD, as Planet Green calls it, is definitely preferable to say, dolphin hunting (see post on Cove, The), it would definitely not fall into the conservation travel realm. We can certainly understand the desire to swim with and interact with amazing animals like dolphins, and imagine the people that partake in these activities come away with a deep appreciation and connection to nature, as noted in this Travel & Leisure article.

But the effects on the dolphins is not worth the fun for the people. These kinds of programs encourage the capture of wild dolphins, can cause stress and injury on the animals, and most of these programs are unregulated to ensure humane treatment. The article quotes a statistic from World Society for the Protection of Animals that claims more than half of dolphins caught at sea die within 3 months.

SEE Turtles suggests researching programs that promote dolphin conservation, such as Earthwatch in Greece or this one with Global Vision International in Kenya. At the very least, search out dolphin tours in the wild that take strong efforts to reduce the impact on the animals and support their protection.

-Brad Nahill

Dolphin watching vs dolphin hunting

2009-09-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

The movie The Cove, about a group of dolphin-lovers who travel to Taiji, Japan to document the annual dolphin hunt, has been drawing a lot of attention lately. The goal of the movie's producers is to pressure the Japanese government to end this needed slaughter, which according to them captures as many as 20,000 dolphins. These dolphins are sold to unknowing Japanese consumers or shipped off to various aquaria.

Anyone following the longstanding efforts to get Japan to give up its whale hunting (see Aug 19th post) will know how stubborn their government can be with wildlife issues. However, the movie, despite being a small-budget documentary that has been shown at relatively few theatres, already seems to be having an affect.

The Save Japan Dolphins posted this recent update from Taiji as the annual hunt is supposed to be starting. We here at SEE Turtles love that part of their argument is that dolphin watching can be as lucrative (if not more) that dolphin hunting. Lets hope that message gets through!

-Brad Nahill

Should Companies Support Conservation?

2009-09-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

The New York Times blog DotEarth has an interesting post today on whether Apple should support leopard conservation since it named its newest operating system Snow Leopard. There's an interesting discussion in the comments (though I wasn't able to submit my own due to a technical glitch on the NYT site, grrr.).

It won't surprise anyone that we at SEE Turtles believe that companies should indeed support the animals that they use for marketing. In the tourism world, this is especially important since the use of the animal implies that their travelers will see that animal and that the company's business is directly linked to that animal's survival.

Below is what I would have posted had the site allowed me.

I think its a great idea that companies that benefit from the use of an endangered animal to help market itself allocate a portion of their marketing budget towards conservation efforts. When a company uses the image of an animal this way, its attempting to connect the animal's characteristics to its way of doing business (for example, "Put a tiger in your tank". If that animal ends up extinct, the company's brand would be affected. Imagine a child in 30 years asking what a tiger is after seeing it on a logo?

Personally, I am more concerned by companies that use these animals in their logos and then engage in activities that directly harmfully affect that animal (I'm thinking of a certain giant

oil company with a different big cat in its logo) and then donate a tiny amount of money towards their conservation (compared to their profits). For a company to associate itself with the symbolism of a wild animal, then directly promote its extinction through company operations is especially disturbing and can't be remedied with a small donation.

-Brad Nahill

UPDATE: Finally able to submit my comment. Also just found out that our friend, photographer Steve Winter of National Geographic fame has had his images licensed by Apple for Snow Leopard, a great start! Steve was kind enough to share this photo, one of his first.

On using hatchlings for tourism

2009-09-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

I just came across a disturbing article about turtle watching in Jakarta, Indonesia. Normally, I'd be excited to see new sites and communities encouraging people to learn about and witness the beauty of sea turtles in the wild, but examples like this show just how far responsible turtle watching has to go.

At Thousand Islands National Marine Park, hawksbill hatchlings are kept for tourism and educational purposes. Even though they claim to release them six months or a year later, their claim to protect the turtles from predators is thin. Turtles (like any other animal) have to avoid predators but have evolved to do that from hatching. Trying to head start turtles like this without expertise is not the ideal way to protect turtles. Even the head of the park admits "Actually its better to release the turtles soon after they are hatched".

Not only are some of the turtles kept for education, 10% of them are sent to a nearby resort, which is especially disturbing. The article goes on to promote coral transplanting, where tourists can cut live coral to transplant somewhere else (where is not clear), which I can't imagine helps the natural reefs either.

Our friend Thushan Kapurusinghe of Turtle Conservation Project in Sri Lanka has told us of similar hatcheries there as well. A Sri Lankan operator, Eco Team has a great article on how these hatcheries can be harmful to turtles. If you want to see hatchlings, make sure you are visiting a respected conservation project that releases all of their hatchlings as soon as possible (ideally in the evening) after emerging.

-Brad Nahill

Protect Las Baulas National Park

2009-08-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

Costa Rica, with a few notable exceptions, has done a relatively good job at preventing the coastal tourism overdevelopment that has devastated nesting beaches like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Local citizen groups have been able to prevent some of these proposed developments, but this time powerful hotel interests are working to downgrade the national park status of Las Baulas National Park at Playa Grande on the Pacific coast. The battle between groups like The Leatherback Trust and the hotels in this area has been simmering for years, with little progress.

This beach, also known as Playa Grande, has been one of the most important leatherback nesting beaches in the world. Though their nesting numbers have declined drastically due mostly to accidental capture in fishing gear, the beach is also threatened by the incursion of hotels and their lighting onto the beach. Conservation group NRDC is one of several groups working to maintain the park's status, make your voice heard on this issue at their BioGems website.

Travel Insurance with a Conscience

2009-08-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

Visiting a sea turtle project, while it can be an inspiring and life-changing event, raises many issues that travelers might not encounter on a typical vacation. In some places, you might have to walk a few miles along a sandy beach in the dark, avoiding driftwood and other debris washed ashore. In other places, you may be hopping aboard boats and crossing choppy waters. While we take pains (no pun intended) to ensure the sites we promote are safe, accidents happen while traveling.

That's why we recommend travel insurance to everyone who goes to a turtle project abroad, whether volunteering for two months or joining a week-long tour. We suggest World Nomads, based in Australia but covering people from nearly every country on earth. In addition to their comprehensive policies and simplicity of use, World Nomads shares our philosophy that travel should benefit the places that are visited. Their Footprints Network has raised more than $650,000 to fund community projects such as repairing schools in Cambodia and India, training teachers in Nepal, and providing clean water to many communities.

The Summer of Plastic

2009-08-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

We've long known that plastic is harmful to people and wildlife. Images of fish and wildlife stuck in 6 pack rings years ago caused the industry to develop photodegradable versions (though we won't debate how effective that has been today). Studies showing the harmful effects of BPA in plastic bottles have been filtering through the media since Canada outlawed the chemical a year ago (what are you waiting for FDA?).

Yet the real coverage of plastic seems to have grown exponentially this summer. A recent report presented at the American Chemical Society (hardly a green organization) concludes that plastic breaks down in the ocean, releasing harmful chemicals to collect in fish and wildlife (and eventually us). Multiple expeditions to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (currently estimated to be the size of Texas and growing quickly) have also spread the word about our unsustainable use of plastic. Finally, the recent vote on Seattle's 20 cent/bag fee also attracted a lot of attention. Pro-plastic groups pumped nearly $1.5 million dollars into defeating the fee (outspending the anti-plastic groups by 17 - 1), but advocates in Seattle remain optimistic about the future. Incredible that places like Mexico City and Mumbai are now ahead of highly-touted green cities like Seattle and Portland, OR on plastic bags. Plastic is a favorite issue of our own J. Nichols, check out his latest post on Thinking Like a Coconut.

Despite this progress, the chemical industry is fighting back. Wonder how long it will take before fraudulent letters from citizens groups against plastic bans turn up written by the same pr flacks involved in the anti-cap and trade scandal?

For those interested in how plastic affects sea turtles, we just posted a new page on this very topic.

-Brad Nahill

Napo Wildlife Center (Ecuador) shows positive unintended consequences

2009-08-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Treehugger has a wonderful slide show of a visit to the Napo Wildlife Center in Ecuador, run by the indigenous Kichwa tribe. While many people attack ecotourism as greenwashing because flying to these places burns lots of fuel. What these critics don't seem to grasp is that without this tourism income, the world would lose some of its most valuable treasures. This point is driven home in the article by showing the only real economic alternative in the region - oil drilling. Look no further than the lawsuit against Chevron Texaco to see what kind of impact this has had on the Ecuadorian Amazon. There are several sea turtle nesting beaches that would be empty without ecotourism, all of the eggs would be collected and sold on the black market.

One thing that caught my eye was the slide that said that many of the Kichwa had stopped eating monkeys, long a favorite food, since the tourists wanted to see them. This kind of behavior change can end up being one of the most powerful positive impacts for conservation even though its not part of the original intention. In some turtle communities, tourism programs are started mostly as an economic issue with a limited reach to residents. However, once other people in the community realize that their family and friends depend, directly or indirectly, on the survival of the turtles, it becomes a powerful social pressure to stop eating eggs.

Heath Ledger's Anti-Whaling Video

2009-08-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to checking out the much hyped new Modest Mouse video directed by Heath Ledger. Any video showing the reality of whaling is bound to be dark and intense, but this video goes to levels I haven't seen since Pink Floyd's The Wall. Using animation instead of real video, Ledger turns the tables by showing whales out on human hunt and graphically shows the full cycle from capture to processing and consumption.

Ledger's production company The Masses is supporting (quite appropriately for the edgy video) the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society of Whale Wars fame. For every download on Itunes in the first month, the proceeds will go towards anti-whaling activities. Read the backstory here.

SEE Turtles Receives Award from Nature's Path

2009-08-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that SEE Turtles has received the Nature's Path Organic Foods 2009 EnviroKidz Giving Back Award! We appreciate this show of support from one of the foremost sustainable foods companies around. The donation will help us launch a new school outreach program that will encourage students across the country to learn about sea turtles and help us save them through fundraisers and by participating in hands-on conservation work in Costa Rica and Baja California, Mexico.

The Giving Back Award comes from a percentage of profits from the popular EnviroKidz brand, including Cheetah Chomps and Gorilla Munch. Check out our press release for more information.

Advice on Protecting Reefs on Vacation

2009-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Washington Post Green Section had a wonderful response to a question from a traveler on snorkeling in coral reefs without damaging them. Kudos to Nina Shen Rastogi for both getting the story straight on the leading causes of coral reef decline (climate change, fishing, pollution) as well as educating readers on how to avoid damage to reefs (don't step on them, look for responsible operators, avoid stirring up sediment).

The piece also touches on the importance of tourism to communities near the reef and the ability of a great experience to turn a tourist into an activist. We also agree on the dubious claim of damage from sunscreen on reefs. Former Ocean Conservancy scientist Jack Sobel told us the recent study on sunscreen in reefs was not very convincing.

The only missing advice was to give creatures like sea turtles and others plenty of space while swimming, don't ride them or try to touch them. Check out our turtle-friendly travel advice here.

Legislation threatens turtles in North Carolina

2009-08-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

The News & Observer reports that North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan, a recently elected Democrat, surprised environmental advocates in the state by signing on to a bill introduced by Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina. This bill would roll back important protections for wildlife on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore including sea birds, turtles, and other beach-life by granting greater access to sections of beach to vehicles and fishing.

Three species of turtles nest on this beach, including primarily greens and loggerheads with an occasional leatherback nest. While nesting numbers are not high (total nests have generally been in the range of 80-100/year), numbers are increasing, showing that protections are starting to work.

The likelihood of this bill passing is unclear. If you'd like to express your opinion on this legislation to Senator Hagan, you can contact her at her website or by calling 919-856-4630.

Key hawksbill beach in Malaysia threatened

2009-08-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

WWF-Malaysia reports that a key endangered hawksbill nesting site is threatened by a large resort that the government has recently approved. Pulau Upeh is home to 1/5th of the entire peninsular Malaysia nesting population and would be devastated by the planned 200 chalet rooms on the tiny 4.5 acre island. With only 2 weeks between the announcement of the project and the beginning of construction, the project cannot possibly determine a long-range plan to protect the hawksbills and adequately manage the tourism.

Planet Green/Blue August

2009-08-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Check out Blue August on Discovery's Planet Green. There are lots of great articles on marine debris, sustainable seafood, and getting active. Phillippe and Alexandra Cousteau have several videos you can watch as well. Our favorite article? Ban the Bags, Butts, and Bottles, where you can submit photos of beaches affected by trash.

Nau's Grant for Change

2009-08-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

We've entered SEE Turtles co-founder Dr. Wallace J. Nichols in Nau's Grant for Change Contest. The winner receives $10,000 towards their work, which we would use to expand our project to new species. Please help us out by taking two minutes to register (just your name and email) and rating J's entry at http://www.nau.com/collective/grant-for-change/dr--wallace--j--nichols-684.html

Turtles like clean coasts

2009-07-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

Environmental group NRDC has just released the report for 2009 on the country's cleanest (and not so clean) beaches. More than 200 beaches were rated, based on water quality testing and beach closures and advisories. Unfortunately, the news was not great, as closings were the 4th highest in 19 years of reporting. One bright spot is that closures dropped 10% from last year, though that was due to less rain than any real improvements in water quality. Stormwater runoff, where treatment plants are overwhelmed by water and end up directly in streams, is the major cause of closures.

Sea turtles and other marine creatures are affected by this pollution as well. Where the report's map coincides with turtle nesting beaches in the US, most spots received commendation for water quality in 2008, which is good news. However, none of the five nesting areas in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina were tested on a regular basis. Only one area, on North Carolina's barrier islands, did not pass for water quality in 2008.

-Brad Nahill

Tour de Turtles

2009-07-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Our friends at the Caribbean Conservation Corporation are about to launch this year's Tour de Turtles, a "fun, educational journey through the science, research, and geography of sea turtle migration." On their site, you can follow turtles tracked from Tortuguero (Costa Rica), the Archie Carr Refuge (Florida), El Salvador, and Chiriqui Beach (Panama). Each turtle has a cause that it supports, ranging from marine debris, pollution, and coastal development. You can also make a turtle dance and record it! My money's on Arenita (aka Turtle 856), El Salvador's turtles need all the help they can get!

Locally-based offsets

2009-07-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

While running a project that straddles the two worlds of conservation and travel, we have struggled with the best ways to address the carbon emissions of the trips that we promote. We certainly feel a responsibility to do our part to reduce climate change, sea turtles are especially susceptible to rising seas, bleaching reefs, and warmer temperatures. So far, we have encouraged travelers to offset their trips through reputable organizations like Sustainable Travel International and incorporated tree planting into itineraries.

However, our clear goal is to generate as much support as possible for locally-based sea turtle conservation efforts. We have decided not to include offsets in tour costs as we already include donations to turtle groups. In the sites that we work with, we can see concrete benefits from this modest funding, which wouldn't be the case with mandatory contributions toward offsets.

TreeHugger today has an interesting post on Canopy Co., an Ecuador-based organization that supports community-based offset projects. As SEE Turtles grows, we hope to support these kinds of projects that have both benefits for communities and concrete reductions in emissions, ideally in the places that we promote.

Shark victims want more sharks

2009-07-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

In one of the more creative recent ways to push for conservation of ocean wildlife, Pew Environment Group organized several survivors of shark attacks to lobbying US government officials to strengthen a ban on shark finning in US waters.

It takes some real open-mindedness for a person who was nearly killed by a shark to work on behalf of increasing shark populations. Finning has taken a huge toll on sharks around the world, with millions of sharks being lost every year to fill soup bowls in Asia.

From the Pew press release: “The media makes sharks out to be monsters, some people make them out to be huggable little creatures, but neither is completely true,” said Al Brenneka, of Raleigh, North Carolina, who lost his arm after being bitten while surfing in Del Ray Beach, Florida, in 1976. Brenneka now runs a shark attack survivors network and also tags and releases sharks for research. “Sharks are wild animals that deserve our respect, not our retribution.”

For those who do want to (safely) help shark research in Costa Rica, check out Sea Turtle Restoration Project's trip to the Cocos Islands in Costa Rica this August and stay tuned for more shark-related trips in the future from SEE Turtles.

-Brad Nahill

Stimulating ocean cleanup

2009-07-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

Ocean wildlife off the coast of Oregon are getting a boost with a recent grant from NOAA to remove old crab pots. These pots, which are lost in storms or when propellers cut the lines, often ensnare passing whales, turtles, sea lions, and other creatures. The state's Department of Fish & Wildlife estimates that as many as 10 percent of the pots are lost, roughly 15,000 of them dropping to the ocean floor each year.

This program, apparently the largest grant ever given to clean up discarded fishing gear, will hire fishermen to retrieve the pots.
While this program, estimated to clean up 4,000 pots, is a good start, there is a lot more to do and no plan to continue the retrieval after the funds run out in 2010. State officials hope that fishermen will keep the program going once funding runs out, which seems a bit optimistic at a time when catches are dropping.

More information at msnbc.com.

2007 OpEd by Homero Aridjis on Conservation Tourism

2009-07-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Year of the Turtle (translated, Spanish follows)

Homero Aridjis

La Refora, Jun 3, 2007

A blue wind shakes my flippers, a strange tide turns on my chest, the green sea, the dark sea is calling me, the old ocean is yelling at me in the sand.

Laura Laud (leatherback), “Song of the Sea Turtle”

“The light of the sun has drowned on the horizon. The tenuous moon illuminates the earth. From the heart of the night left a sea turtle. A wave deposited her on the sand. The males had left in search of their feeding grounds. Only the females ventured to the edge to lay their eggs. A few at a time. The long beach giving to the open sea.

“And it extended kilometers and kilometers until vanishing into darkness, there in the dunes. The waves pounding the coast like white fury. In its return, they take small creatures toward the sea.” (Aridjis, The Search for Archelon. Odessy of the seven turtles.)

This fantastic spectacle, seen by human beings for millennia, is still repeated on Mexican beaches on the Pacific Ocean. But soon, if we don’t do something to conserve it, seeing a leatherback nesting in Mexiquillo, Michoacan or on the coasts of Oaxaca and Sonora, will be like catching sight of a stegosaurus grazing between plants in the Jurassic. The children of the future, you could almost say, in the second half of the 21st century, won’t be conscious of the natural wonders of those that are being lost. Only if the government and civil society work together, supported by large media outlets, and in close collaboration with communities, and ethnic groups like the Seri Indians who venerate the leatherback, can we accomplish the miracle of the leatherback not going extinct.

At the end of May of 1990, the Mexican government, under pressure from the Group of 100 and a coalition formed by national and international organizations, decreed the total prohibition of killing the seven species of turtles in Mexican waters and beaches. That way the olive ridley was protected, the most sacrificed of all in the infamous Mazunte fleamarket, and in clandestine markets that were detected only by their pools of blood that left their primitive shelters dedicated to the death of the chelonia. In a National Geographic movie about the Mexico of the past, a hidden camera filmed the moment where the turtle poachers killed the ridleys with a bullet in the head or a machete. Those captured in the high sea had their flippers cut, to later return them to the water, where they drowned and suffered long agony or attacked by sharks. In the recent arribada season, we could state, on the beaches of Escobilla and Morro Ayuta, the fruit of this decree: the massive return of the olive ridley to nest on Oaxaca’s beaches.

Just as 2006 was the Year of the Golden Eagle and 2005 was the Year of the Jaguar, both species in danger of extinction, all of us concerned about the survival of the sea turtle celebrated that this June 5th, World Environment Day, president Felipe Calderon declared 2007 the Year of the Sea Turtle. With this declaration, special attention will be called to the leatherback turtle, a specie that is very close to disappearing. If in his term president Calderon succeeds in saving the leatherback from extinction, whose population has been and is being decimated by fishing gear and coastal habitat destruction, his government will go down in history as one determined to protect one of the oldest species on earth.

With this opportune declaration, and with an Interamerican Cooperative Treaty, our country would head the environmental crusade for the shared protection of these migratory species, since Mexico has more species of sea turtles, more nesting beaches, and more places to observe them in the sea than any other country. Mexico should be the leader in the sustainable observation of the sea turtle, and in using the obtained benefits that are derived for the prosperity of local communities. If the sea turtle is one of the most important animals to Mexico, by consequence we have a responsibility to protect them and conserve them.

According to a WWF study, while 10 million people spend more than $1.25 billion dollars every year to observe whales and dolphins, less than 200,000 people frequent sites for sea turtles. The study showed that local communities can earn three times from tourism than the short-term value of consuming sea turtles and its eggs without taking into account the long-term value of the role of sea turtles on ecosystems, cultures, traditions, and economies; making the turtle a symbol of the authentic sustainability when equipping local populations with the infrastructure to receive ecotourists. Guiding the public to the “turtle towns”, one can save the turtle and transform their economy. Biologist Wallace J. Nichols, student of the oceanic migrations of the sea turtle, says that “people always tell of their experiences swimming with turtles or seeing them at night laying their eggs on the beach. For some, it changes their life.”

To finish I cite the epigraph of The Search for Archelon, whose verses express the magic of nighttime nesting of a hawksbill turtle on a beach of the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, as millions of years ago,
we arrive at the same beach.
Today, as millions of years ago,
the same mystery.

Carmen Carey (hawksbill), “Memories of the Caribbean”

Costa Rica is the Happiest Country

2009-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

According to the "Happy Planet Index", a report by the UK-based New Economics Foundation, Costa Rica is the world's happiest country. With the highest life satisfaction in the world, the second highest life expectancy in the Western Hemisphere, and a relatively small ecological footprint, the small Central American country topped the list.

Unfortunately, the list doesn't delve into how much happiness having lots of sea turtle causes in Costa Rica's residents though the turtles will certainly appreciate how efficiently the country uses its resources! Undoubtedly a relatively environmentally-friendly tourism economy has helped them top the list. As the number one industry in the country, the government for the most part over the past 30 years has learned that protecting its incredible natural wealth is a key to attracting visitors that help to lower poverty and provide funds for a strong health care and educational systems.

-Brad Nahill

Opposition to shark tours in Hawaii grows

2009-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

Surfers, community members, and conservationists are building an effort to end shark cage tours in Hawaii over concerns of teaching sharks to associate people with food and throwing natural systems out of whack. Sharks could certainly use some good pr and some leading shark conservationists believe that done right, shark tourism could be a net positive to conservation and education efforts. However, putting people in a cage and throwing food into the water around them to shark tours neither benefits conservation nor engenders respect and reverence.

Those interested in seeing and helping sharks should look instead to organizations like Sea Turtle Restoration Project, who is offering a unique opportunity to participate in research on hammerhead sharks off the coast of the Cocos Islands in Costa Rica. Learn more about that trip here.

100 people and $50,000!

2009-06-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

SEE Turtles recently reached two major milestones. One hundred people have now gone to visit turtle conservation sites through tours and volunteer programs. Our project has generated more than $50,000 for local conservation efforts and turtle communities through donations, fees, grants, and spending on tours.

This is just the beginning. Our new volunteer matching service has been extremely popular, with more than 150 inquiries so far, who we are connecting with 10 turtle projects around Central America and Mexico. We are setting up a number of turtle trips next year for museums, zoos, and other organizations and will launch a school field trip and educational program in the Fall.

Check back soon for more updates and check out our upcoming trips to become part of the turtle conservation travel wave!

A matter of timing

2009-06-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

One of the top 2 threats to sea turtles is getting caught and drowning in fishing gear. Being air-breathing reptiles, turtles need to reach the surface to breathe regularly. When they get held under in nets or on lines, they often die. Researchers at NOAA have determined that many of these drownings can be avoided if the turtles are held underwater less than 50 minutes.

As a way to prevent turtle drowning, NOAA has hired a company to create a "tow-time logger" (pun probably intended). This cylinder would record depth and time the net is underwater as a way to reduce turtle mortality while allowing fishermen to keep fishing. Both conservationists and fishermen seem skeptical. Any significant time underwater can hurt turtles even if it doesn't kill them and turtles caught multiple times may not be able to hold their breath as long.

Fishermen wouldn't be too excited about having to pull up their nets very often, which would reduce their catch. However with possible closing of entire fisheries to protect endangered loggerhead turtles, these loggers might be a better option.

More information at MSNBC.com.

-Brad Nahill

Happy 100th Archie!

2009-06-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 100th birthday of the man most responsible for sea turtles still being around. Dr. Archie Carr was born on June 16th, 1009 in Alabama. Though not as famous as his contemporary Jacques Cousteau (who turns 100 next year), Dr. Carr was every bit as effective a conservationist. In his honor, today is also Sea Turtle Day.

Among his many firsts were earning the first doctorate awarded by the University of Florida in zoology, starting the world's first sea turtle project (Tortuguero, Costa Rica), and founding the first organization dedicated to the survival of sea turtles (the Caribbean Conservatio

n Corporation). Tortuguero (right), now celebrating its 50th

year, is the world's longest continuously running wildlife conservation and was recently named one of the most successful conservation projects ever by the Smithsonian with a more than 500% increase in green turtle nesting since inception. Dr. Carr also helped to protect one of the world's most important loggerhead sea turtle nesting beaches in Florida, now known as the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge.

All turtle lovers owe Dr. Carr a thank you today. Hopefully he's somewhere where turtles don't have to worry about extinction...

CCC has a moving tribute here.

Ocean Progress

2009-06-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

While climate change legislation is languishing in Congress, ocean conservation efforts have made progress over the past few days. President Obama recently announced an Ocean Protection Plan that will finally create a national policy that (hopefully) will coordinate between the numerous government agencies that make decisions affecting the ocean.

This is long overdue and was recommended by two prestigious ocean commissions years ago, only to fall on deaf ears under the previous president. A strong national ocean policy would not only allow conservation to have an equal voice in the decision-making process, it ideally would also give momentum to creating more marine protected areas where fish and wildlife can be fully protected. Treehugger has more here.

Another positive step recently was tobacco legislation passed by both houses of Congress and soon to be signed by President Obama. While not primarily an environmental bill, the expected drop in smoking from the increased regulations is a good thing for the oceans (and land). Anyone that has participated in a coastal cleanup has picked up dozens of these ubiquitous filters from the beach, where they are tossed without thought by smokers. For years, these butts have been the top item (by far) found in Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup. In 2008 alone, more than 3.2 million butts were collected from beaches around the world, a full 28% of total items found! More information on the legislation at Washington Post.

Celebrate World Ocean Day by Taking Action

2009-06-08T08:54:00.001-07:00

Today is World Ocean Day (not to be confused with World Turtle Day, World Environment Day, or Earth Day) so show your love for the ocean by doing something, big or small. A few suggestions below:

Volunteer with a sea turtle project

Vote for your favorite Shrimp Sucks video by commenting here

Go without plastic for a day

Ask President Obama to ask Congress to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty

Ask your representatives to vote for Waxman - Markey Cap & Trade Legislation to stop global warming

Give someone a blue marble

SEE Turtles near home

Unsustainable tourism in the Caribbean

2009-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

The ugly side of mass market tourism is rearing its head in the Caribbean. Two recent articles show the before and after of large scale tourism that don't adequately benefit local communities and negatively affect wildlife. While research has showed that tourism on turtle nesting beaches can be done with minimal impact on turtles, large numbers of people and big hotels are never a good thing.

The first article details a study of how tourism is affecting a unique place in the Cayman Islands called "Stingray City". With up to 2,500 visitors at a time(!) coming to feed, stroke, and swim with the stingrays, this study has shown that the rays had weaker immune systems than non-disturbed rays. Boats also injure the stingrays and feeding of wild animals is never a good idea, especially food that they don't normally eat. A lot more of this kind of research is needed to make sure that tourism doesn't destroy what makes a location unique. SEE Turtles promotes "no viewing" areas where wildlife can avoid human stress and has guidelines for preventing impacts on sea turtles and other ocean wildlife.

Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic, proposed large scale tourism development near Jaragua National Park threatens both the world's smallest reptile (the Jaragua sphaero or dwarf gecko) and one of the largest (leatherback sea turtles). Proposals includes hotels, golf courses, and a bauxite mine. Local groups such as the Jaragua Group are calling on the government to promote local micro-enterprises that would directly enlist the help of residents.

Crazy Turtle Hero

2009-05-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

CNN is currently featuring "Heroes" from around the world who are working to improve their communities. The featured hero this week is Suzan Lakhan, a co-founder of Nature Seekers in Trinidad.

Her story is truly inspirational, helping to transform a community from one that regularly ate leatherback turtles into one focused on protection. Nature Seekers now runs community development programs including ecotourism and reforestation, as well as protecting one of the world's most important leatherback nesting beaches. And somehow she manages to find the time to run a wonderful guesthouse in Matura! (see photo).

Nature Seekers is a SEE Turtles partner, check out our Trinidad trips if you want to go and meet her in person!

What Gives You Hope?

2009-05-28T17:09:00.001-07:00

Lots of things give me hope, the tastiest has to be chocolate! Especially ethically-traded organic chocolate from great companies like Endangered Species Chocolate. (Full disclosure, ESC was an early donor to SEE Turtles but is no longer currently funding the project).

ESC has launched a wonderful new website called "What Gives You Hope". Do yourself a favor, go this this site and let them know what makes you optimistic and you'll be entered into a monthly contest to have your entry featured and win free chocolate.

-Brad Nahill

SEEturtles.org: INTEGRATING SEA TURTLE CONSERVATION WITH ECOTOURISM IN KENYA

2009-05-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

INTEGRATING SEA TURTLE CONSERVATION WITH ECOTOURISM IN KENYA

Funzi Turtle Club members receive ownership documents of a boat donated by IUCN Netherlands as part of a project ‘Integrating sea turtle conservation with ecotourism’. The boat will be used for sea patrols. The turtle conservation club also carries out other activities such as habitat rehabilitation, beach clean-ups, turtle tagging and release, hatchling release program, in-situ nest protection as well as production of handicrafts and souvenirs out of recycled material. This club is one of the 18 community Turtle Conservation Groups (TCGs) that the Kenya Sea Turtle Conservation Community (KESCOM) currently works with.

World Turtle Day 2009

2009-05-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is World Turtle Day, so we encourage you to celebrate by going to SEE a turtle (the sea kind or otherwise), make plans to SEE turtles (find some ideas HERE) or contribute your support to your local turtle group (they all need your help).

Tomorrow is also Carl Safina's birthday, so we encourage you to celebrate by going to SEE Carl. Just kidding. But you can drop him well wishes via his BLOG and thank him for his tremendous, longstanding writing, thinking and advocacy on behalf of sea turtles and their habitat.

In addition, Oceana has dedicated their BLOG to World Turtle Day!

World Turtle Day was created by American Tortoise Rescue as an annual observance to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats around the world.

One last thought to get you inspired for WTD09: "Am I not turtley enough for the turtle club?"

PBS Nature: Voyage of the Lonely Turtle

2009-05-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

A film based on the story of Adelita, a loggerhead turtle who swam home from Mexico to Japan, airs this week and last on PBS stations. Check your local listing and read about the film HERE

Good news for leatherbacks!

2009-05-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

All the recent news on leatherbacks seems to be good lately for a change. A group of scientists has estimated the Gabon nesting population somewhere between 15, 000 to 41,000 females, a huge number considering the most recent estimate of worldwide females in 2004 was only roughly 35,000 total! That makes this population larger than both the Suriname and Trinidad populations, long considered the world's largest.

This news comes on the heels of a large new leatherback nesting beach in southern Panama, just north of the border with Costa Rica. Ocean Revolution's Tim Dykman recently visited one of these beaches, located in the territory of the Kuna Indigenous community. The Kuna have a long tradition of respect for the leatherback and do not eat their eggs or meat. See photo below.

Add those new studies to evidence that leatherback numbers are increasing dramatically in places like Trinidad and that 2009 is looking like a great year along Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, things are looking bright for this species in the Atlantic. Now we just need some good news for the Pacific leatherbacks...

DIA Turtle Display

2009-05-12T10:54:00.001-07:00

On a recent trip to Denver, I passed by this display case educating people about avoiding purchasing sea turtle products on vacation. The display is pretty well done though not very noticeable to the thousands of people passing by.

Michael J. Fox on turtles and optimism

2009-05-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

Michael J. Fox is one of those people whose incredibly sunny attitude in the face of hardship can't help but inspire. Instead of disappearing when he learned he had Parkinsons, he decided to use his celebrity and energy to bring attention to this debilitating disease. His show last night "Always Looking Up" was a look at what makes people optimistic and visited sites around the world where people are working together to improve their conditions. http://abc.go.com/specials/michaeljfox/index

What does this have to do with sea turtles? Michael had one of those moments of clarity one day while snorkeling off the US Virgin Islands. From his memoir Lucky Man:

"My family and I were snorkelling the pristine waters off St John's in the US Virgin Islands. We'd been visiting this beach for years, and had never seen a sea turtle. Having finally spotted one gliding through the sea grass just inside the coral reef, I swam slowly behind it, keeping a respectful distance. When I finally emerged from the water, I kicked off my flippers, walked over to where Tracy was towelling off the kids, grabbed a towel for myself, and informed her that I was leaving the show."

Michael's attitude is one that I see in many sea turtle conservationists working long hours to protect an animal that has seen a dramatic decline over the past few decades. A well-known magazine not too long ago named "oceanographer" as the second worst job in the world because of the constant bad news. But I see cause for optimism in sea turtle conservation, that where groups of dedicated people and organizations have been working for many years, numbers are going back up. There is a long way to go till their numbers reach where they should be, but there's enough evidence in many populations that we have turned a corner.

And Michael, anytime you want to SEE Turtles again, just let us know!

-Brad Nahill

El Salvador's sea turtle saviors

2009-05-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

A meeting of the El Salvador's sea turtle conservation network (Red de Tortugueros Salvadorenos) was held in San Salvador today. The philosophy behind the network echoes the work of Grupo Tortuguero, a ten year old grassroots turtle group in Mexico. Members in attendance included community representatives from many of the country's important nesting beaches, government and NGO representatives, private sector/hotel representatives, scientists and a dozen police who shared their names and telephone numbers in a show of support for the recharged sea turtle protection efforts.

National Geographic Leatherback article

2009-05-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

A National Geographic article about sea turtles is always a cause for celebration. For those who haven't read it yet, go pick up a copy. Photographer Brian Skerry captures leatherbacks in a way that no other photographer has and writer Tim Appenzeller sheds light on the more mysterious aspects of these stunning turtles. The article details the route of the Atlantic/Caribbean population and how its numbers are increasing while the Pacific population collapses. The National Geographic website has short videos of Brian talking about the difficulties of photographing leatherbacks in the water and on the beach, as well as photos not in the article.

Some of the best shots are from Matura Beach and Grande Riviere in Trinidad, two spots features in SEE Turtles trips!

Here is a photo of an olive ridley turtle from another well-known National Geographic photographer, Steve Winter.

Get Outside Yourself: New SEE Turtles Volunteer Match Program Connects Travelers with Sea Turtle Conservation

2009-05-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

For your next volunteer vacation, how about a close-up and personal encounter with one of the world's most mystical and prehistoric creatures? That is what engagement with sea turtles is all about. There are many projects around the world that work in sea turtle conservation. In order to find the best one for you, check out the new volunteer placement service that SEE Turtles is offering at www.seeturtles.org. The free service matches interested travelers with sea turtle projects in Mexico, Costa Rica, Tobago, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

Read more HERE

Turtles on Oprah!

2009-04-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit behind on the news here, but couldn't miss posting this. Oprah on Earth Day had Fabien Cousteau (still trying to track down the clip) who spoke about the giant plastic garbage patch in the Pacific and the effect it has on turtles and other creatures. Its great to see folks like Oprah take on this issue, its the only way people will realize how large the problem is. Here is a link to an article on the interview and ocean issues

Also, in her Earth Day issue, Oprah celebrates turtle activist Carole Allen of Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

-Brad Nahill

SEEturtles.org: Surfing with sea turtles

2009-04-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

Groups Sue to Protect the Gulf of Mexico's Turtles

2009-04-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

Six conservation groups (including our buddies at Caribbean Conservation Corporation, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, and Defenders of Wildlife) are suing the National Marine Fisheries Service to enforce regulations that are supposed to protect turtles from longline fishing. The groups want the fishery closed until an improved management plan is enacted, reducing the estimated 1,000 turtles caught over the past three years.

More information at CCC's website or MSNBC.

Great Turtle Race

2009-04-16T13:30:00.001-07:00

Our friends over at Conservation International and National Geographic are out there racing turtles again. They have some great new twists this year, with rock stars (REM, Pearl Jam) and Olympic athletes (Amanda Beard, Aaron Peirsol) coaching their turtles on. I got my money on Wawa Bear!

Our own Dr. Wallace J. Nichols will be guest blogging during the race, along with a lot of other turtle experts and famous folks

Check out the race site at www.greatturtlerace.org and find daily updates on the blog at http://blog.conservation.org/