Help to Release 5000 Sea Turtles in Guatemala!

At the Hawaii Park on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, we are approaching the end of the sea turtle nesting season.  To date, we have buried a total of 6,108 olive ridley eggs at the Hawaii Hatchery, and have released 3,869 hatchlings into the Pacific ocean.  We received one green sea turtle nest of 88 eggs, which we successfully incubated and released.  There have been no reports of leatherback nests in the Hawaii area, although one nest was reported in the La Barrona area.

Thanks to the support of the the New England Aquarium, See Turtles, WIDECAST and the Columbus Zoo, we continue our sea turtle population monitoring program along the Pacific coast.  This program is important to determine the long-term population trends of sea turtles in Guatemala and to document strandings caused by fisheries bycatch or agricultural runoff.  Please see the latest Situational Analysis on ARCAS’s publications page: https://arcasguatemala.org/who-we-are/arcas-publications/      

November 28 - 30th, we carried out the Rally Parlama, where local children were encouraged to take part in sea turtle and mangrove conservation activities, and, as a reward, were treated to field trips to the Aurora Zoo, the movies and to go bowling.  Thanks to the support of our friends and donors like you, we were able to treat over 100 local young people to a fun and educational trip as a way to create support for our conservation efforts in local communities.  We at ARCAS strive to  contribute to the conservation of endangered species while also contributing to the sustainable livelihoods of low-income coastal residents. Donations made to this GlobalGiving campaign are used to hire local guides to accompany groups of tourists to witness firsthand the mystical experience of seeing a sea turtle lay its nest, or release hatchlings and watch them scamper down the beach into the sea.

Thanks very much for your generous support for our sea turtle conservation efforts. Please let us know if you have any questions, and please come and visit us. The Hawaii Park is open to public, both for day visitors and volunteers! And if you want to come and release hatchlings with your children, please contact us for availability.

Links:

• http://www.arcasguatemala.org