A Visit to Baru and Rio Oro, and a Harsh Reminder That We are Working in a Tropical Country
The past 10 days we have spent along the Central Pacific coast on the beach of Hacienda Baru, and on the Peninsula Osa at Rio Oro sampling solitary nesting females. In between we also picked up our new assistants Hunter Holley and Derek Dunlop (see their profiles in future posts).
The installations at Hacienda Baru’s ASANA station (http://bit.ly/2b8icB5) were welcoming, beautiful, and luxurious, but the nights on the beach were marked by long walks, few turtles, and poachers who raced us for each turtle, and heavy thunderstorms that cut several patrols short. Luckily we outran the poachers most of the time, and were able to secure the eggs and bring them to a protected beach hatchery. The two local guys Jonatan and Jose are doing an amazing job patrolling the beach night after night single-handedly.
The past days we have been at the research station of the Corcovado Foundation at Playa Rio Oro. We have been received with a warm welcome, and we have been enjoying some calm days in between action-loaded nights. Rio Oro has loads of nesting turtles, and my scientist heart has been beating faster because our sampling here has been beyond my hopes. We will definitely come back to install some satellite tags. Which are already on the roof of our house in Ostional for testing.
The beach here is framed by forest and deserted of humans except of us and the project’s volunteers, and the odd fisherman or poacher hiding in the shadows. It has been full moon phase and the walking is easy because the mid-night sun is illuminating our path.
Yesterday night, though, we had a forceful reminder of the dangerous of doing field work in a tropical country with venomous animals. One of the project’s volunteers was bit in her foot by a Fer-de-Lance (a snake from the viper family) after dinner and had to be rushed to the closest hospital (1.5 hours away). Luckily my team was safe and they learned a bit more about first-aid on snake bites (e.g. you DO NOT suck out venom) and keeping a cool head in an emergency situation. In addition, our water didn’t work for the better part of the night, and when we came back from the beach at 4 am, muddy, sandy, full of turtle goo, we couldn’t even rinse off. Uuuhhh the joys of jungle life. After the initial shock of the night passed everyone is fine now and is enjoying a day in the town of Puerto Jimenez, before we will head onto the beach again for our last night of sampling.
