Save the Sea Turtles

Dear Friend,

We are endlessly thankful for your support as we continue to aid the conservation of sea turtles around the world. Through the investEGGator project, you are making crime-stopping technology available to international conservation partners. Because of your donations, you’ve helped us create solutions to further prevent the poaching of endangered species. Your support is enabling the protection of nesting sea turtles. Here are some of the wonderful developments we’ve made thanks to your generous donations:

• In a continuation of our efforts to combat the trafficking of sea turtle eggs, we’ve partnered with an NGO to deploy a batch of our investEGGator decoy eggs in the Caribbean. The tracking data that these decoy eggs generate will help conservationists map the sea turtle egg trafficking routes. Sea turtle egg trade and consumption has continued throughout the pandemic and remains a major threat. Thanks to your support, conservationists around the world are employing our technology in the fight against sea turtle trafficking.

• The investEGGator continues to draw interest due to its innovative tech. We were recently interviewed for the CBS television show Innovation Nation about our efforts to save the sea turtles, including the innovative way that we have employed 3D printing and GPS/GSM tracking devices to create the investEGGator eggs. The episode is set to premiere in the fall of this year. 

• Your support has helped to expand nesting sea turtle protection to additional beaches. Paso Pacifico sea turtle rangers carried out a training workshop at a hotel resort in Tola, Nicaragua in preparation for nesting season. As part of the workshop, our rangers were advised on how to build a turtle nursery structure to aid the sea turtles.

• Though COVID-19 has led to an increase in poaching pressure, our rangers have continued working to ensure that the hatching process safely runs its course and that sea turtles are protected. During the past six months, we have protected and released over 500 sea turtle hatchlings, primarily green sea turtles.

• The eastern Pacific leatherback turtle is critically endangered. Without a major change in course, it will likely disappear by 2050. You made it possible for us to attend a multi-day planning workshop with experts across Latin America to consider emergency measures like rearing juvenile turtles in captivity. Everyone involved vowed to try to save this incredible marine turtle.  

• This week, 31 children participated in a field trip to the beach where they learned about sea turtle conservation, a trip that proved to be fruitful in ways unprecedented. Many of these kids, being from the inlands, had never been to the beach or seen sea turtles before. Such experiences build up the next generation and help the children value sea turtles and their ocean home.

Thanks again for your incredible support and we hope you have a beautiful July!

Sincerely,

Sarah and the Paso Pacifico team!

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

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

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

For the sea turtles,

Sarah

Links:

• Scientific American podcast about the investEGGator