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Costa Rica

Research Can Support Turtles in Jalova

Our project in Jalova,  Costa Rica strives to contribute to the protection and scientific understanding in the Conservation Area of Tortuguero.   

We work in close association with the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy. Without our support, lack of personnel, funding, and resources could be a significant issue.

The pandemic has seen challenges for the park including a great loss of income usually generated from tourism.  This has also caused disruption to the ongoing collection of datasets. Unfortunately, poaching has also increased during this time requiring dedicated community action. The full impact of this will not be known for some time.     

Our support is more crucial than ever. One of the main research focuses are turtles.

Tortuguero National Park (TNP) is most well known for its population of Green turtles. However, it does have a population of Leatherback, Hawksbill, and the occasional Loggerhead turtle. 

We partner with the Sea Turtle Conservancy and work together to patrol the beach at the Southern end of Tortuguero National Park for turtle season. 

This contributes to an extensive dataset that has been collected on the nesting population at Jalova. We also regularly work with other researchers in combination with the Sea Turtle Conservancy, to help with data collection.

Last year was a record-breaking turtle season. We were able to mark more nests, see more total turtles, and safely guide more hatchlings back to the sea than ever before. 

We saw a total of 18,111 turtle tracks on our beach, guided 5,403 hatchlings, and marked 109 nests.  These are unprecedented numbers within our small survey area. Exciting developments for the future of turtle populations.

Unfortunately, knowing that there is less presence in the park during the pandemic means, the area has also become a target for poachers. Communities are banding together to help monitor the parks.  

Your support can help us continue valuable research.  This will be all the more critical in the coming year as we monitor the effects of poaching in the park. 

How you can help

The humid jungle means that the life of our electrical equipment is significantly shortened. We often need to regularly replace crucial monitoring equipment. Camera traps are vital to our ongoing research.

Your continued support means that we can work to protect and better understand elusive creatures such as the jaguar and various turtle species. The impact is to better protect their habitat within Tortuguero National Park.