Edition: October 2012
Conservation in ACTION
In the tropical forests of Nicaragua, charismatic mammals such as the sloth (pictured above) travel the forest canopy. Meanwhile, the elusive jaguar and other carnivores roam large areas of forest understory in search of prey. Forest loss threatens all these animals, and the first step in protecting them is to understand where their movements identify key locations for habit restoration. Thus, our newly launched jaguar conservation initiative focuses on the range of jaguars and the abundance of their prey.

Our chosen tools are camera traps, which allow us to capture cats as they traverse remote areas and help us gauge the health and connectivity of the corridor. Once we have established a baseline understanding of western Nicaragua's jaguar corridors, we'll be able to better prioritize our reforestation and community awareness efforts.

Tales from the field really put the action in this month's story:
Trudging through chest-deep swamp, and navigating the forest during a major earthquake and torrential downpours with machete-wielding rangers, our scientists got castings of jaguar tracks, and placed camera traps in remote areas of the Paso del Istmo biological corridor.

Read more about the exciting adventures of our jaguar conservation team who traveled by horseback and vine, on Miguel Ordeñana's blog.


We hope regular visits to the camera sites will yield many photos of cats and other large mammals, which we'll share on our blog. Visit Facebook for more photos, including sloth action shots!

Funding for our jaguar conservation efforts comes from:
     Los Angeles Zoo
     Ruckus Roots
     PetriDish.org
Paso Pacífico in the News
Brad Nahill of SEETurtles shared the story of this summer's Central American site visits on the Care2 blog:

When you get the opportunity to tag along with some of the world's leading turtle conservationists to put satellite tags on possibly the planet's most endangered sea turtles, you say yes.


On his organization's WILDblog, Brad shared more details from his adventures in the Paso del Istmo:

Marvin Chevez, a ranger with Paso Pacífico and a former student in an ecotourism class that I teach at Mt. Hood Community College...(took) me on a kayak tour.... the calm was broken when Marvin's howler monkey imitation awoke a big group sitting in a nearby tree.

We enjoyed showing Brad the beautiful region where we work, and appreciate the support of his organization. SEEtheWild protects endangered wildlife through conservation travel.
Partnerships make it possible
Paso Pacífico has been managing Nicaragua's participation in the Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup for five years. This past weekend, Comunidad Connect, TESÓN, and Barrio Planta helped us round up hundreds of volunteers who picked up over 2000 pounds of trash along the beaches and waterways of several coastal communities. You can read more about it (in Spanish) at El Nuevo Diario.


For the third year in a row, we were also joined by NICA, who coordinated the cleanup on the beaches of El Transito (pictured above), gathering 48 volunteers to work alongside 13 municipal employees who collected 4500 pounds of garbage and recyclables on Saturday.

NICA's mission is to empower Nicaragua through community development, helping the country become more self-sufficient and a greater participant in the global economy. They work on sustainability issues in rural communities and we look forward to future collaboration with them, especially after brainstorming with them at the Clinton Global Initiative this week.

You can read more about NICA's ongoing coastal cleanup efforts at our blog.
 

Team member spotlight

Leading our jaguar project is wildlife biologist Miguel Ordeñana, who traveled to his family's homeland this month to launch the field study.

A native Angeleno, and “a proud Nicaraguan-American,” Miguel studies big cat corridors in southern California as well as Central America. He is a part of the team studying urban carnivores and setting up camera traps in LA's Griffith Park.

You can learn more about Miguel and his work with jaguars and other big cats at the Urban Carnivores blog. We're lucky to have him on board.

Help Save Jaguars!


Support jaguar conservation by donating today.

$50 will pay one week's salary for our community camera trap monitor.
$500 will purchase a camera trap.



We are now enrolled with American Express Members Give.

Did you know, you can redeem your American Express Membership Rewards points for a donation? For every 1,000 points you redeem, we will receive $10.00. Select the Members Give banner to get started.

Donate to Paso Pacifico with your Amex.



We are always grateful to longtime Paso Pacífico supporter, Teresa Lang, our former program development manager who is now at Climate Action Reserve.

This month, as we return from the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) we would like to thank her for the many project ideas and connections she has cultivated for us. Also a former CGI intern and environmental advisor, it was Teresa who first encouraged us to apply to attend CGI, which has proven to be very valuable.

Teresa has helped us train tour guides and recruit surfers for our ocean ambassadors program. She continues to share her valuable climate change and mitigation expertise with us.
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