Mongabay.com's Picture of the Day is from Bolivia. This jaguar mother was photographed with her two cubs in the Kaa Iya National Park in Bolivia. "Kaaiyana’s tolerance of observers is a testimony to the absence of hunters in this area, and her success as a mother means there is plenty of food for her and her cubs to eat," said John Polisar, coordinator of Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Jaguar Conservation...
Conservation in ACTION Launched earlier this year, the Proyecto Tesoros de Nicaragua ( Proyecto TESÓN), a joint effort to clean up the San Juan River catchment, has already demonstrated how public-private partnerships can work to build a more pristine and sustainable Nicaragua. There are now three Ambassadors of the Environment working around the clock to clean up garbage near the estuary and along the beach, and to monitor the volume...
AKA why we love the Guardian's GrrlScientist: "Big cat" is not a precise biological term, it is just a verbal shorthand for distinguishing the larger members of the taxonomic family Felidae from smaller ones. Some people formally define "big cats" as the four Panthera species: the tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard. But other people also include cheetah, snow leopard, clouded leopard, and cougar under the "big cat" umbrella. Big cats...
Conservation in ACTION We have recently completed the first stage of our Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Initiative, which integrates habitat mapping, native tree reforestation, and youth education. This high-impact project is made possible by those of you in the US, and the critically important US Neotropical Migratory Bird Act. We place an emphasis on the very birds which travel from your backyard in North America to the Central American Isthmus.......
Conservation in ACTION Globally important sea turtle arribada beaches like La Flor Wildlife Refuge (pictured above) receive tens of thousands of sea turtles each year. The greatest threat to successful nesting is high mortality among adults caught in fishing gear as turtles gather to mate.... Paso Pacífico in the News At the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting last month, Paso Pacifico Executive Director Dr. Sarah Otterstrom addressed government officials, business...
In Bolivia's Madidi National Park:Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) set up the camera traps to try and identify jaguars based on the unique patterns of their spots. Once the images were collected, the team ran them through software originally designed to recognize tigers by their stripes.The 19 jaguars found by the project represent a record number for a single camera-trap survey in the country.Read more about it at...
Smithsonian.com's Science & Nature, reports on "a bold plan for wildlife corridors that connect populations from Mexico to Argentina could mean the big cat's salvation."In antiquity, killing a jaguar was often part of a religious ceremony or a mark of status. But as ranches and settlements sprang up across Latin America, jaguars lost their religious significance. Demonized as dangerous predators, they were routinely shot. The fashion craze for fur after World...
Our friends at the Wildlife Conservation Society have had a great deal of success identifying individual jaguars with camera traps in Bolivia's Madidi National Park:A record number of jaguars have been identified in one of the world's most biologically diverse landscapes. Using technology first adapted to identify tigers by stripe patterns, researchers for the Wildlife Conservation Society have identified 19 individual jaguars by spot patterns in the rainforests of Bolivia,...
We're pleased to partner with the Ocean Recovery Alliance and other organizations to empower citizen scientists to alert the world to hotspots of floating trash. The hope is that tracking and mapping floating debris, will help drive cleanup efforts, including the potentially profitable harvest of floating plastics for reuse. Global Alert - Floating Trash from Ocean Recovery Alliance on Vimeo. Global Alert - Floating Trash is a global project operated...
Schoolchildren from Ostional, Nicaragua named this Hawksbill Brasilia Thought to be locally extinct as recently as 2007, the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill has been the subject of recent study using satellite telemetry. Our friends at ICAPO (the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative), working with other organizations, have just published their findings in the scientific journal Biology Letters. After two years of turtle tracking, this team of turtle biologists has observed that, unlike what...
Conservation in ACTION Javier, a student from the fishing villiage of Ostional, shows us a big smile as the Nicaraguan muralist Lezamón paints a stunning landscape on the wall of the local elementary school. The artwork depicts the distinctive forests, coastline and volcanoes of Nicaragua and includes wildlife unique to the Paso del Istmo, such as the yellow-naped parrot, the two-toed slot and various species of sea turtles.... Partnerships make...
Paso Pacifico's Executive Director Sarah Otterstrom and Communications Director Wendy Purnell just returned from SIMA's 22nd annual Waterman's Weekend, where Paso Pacifico was honored as one of their 20 beneficiaries! The turnout included more than 675 of the surf industry's most notable environmental stewards, and the event raised over $400,000 for non-profits like us that work to conserve ocean resources. Sarah Otterstrom, Paso Pacifico's Executive Director Photo: shop-eat-surf.com Jessie Creel...
Paso Pacífico is looking forward to the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association’s 2011 Waterman’s Weekend, coming up on August 11 & 12. This annual event is a fundraiser for SIMA’s Environmental Fund and an opportunity to recognize those who work for ocean conservation. Every year, the Environmental Fund chooses 20 ocean-related, non-profit organizations as beneficiaries, and Paso Pacifico is proud to again receive this honor! The events of Waterman’s Weekend will...
Alexander Gaos, co-founder of ICAPO, our partner in sea turtle conservation, is featured in the latest issue of Conservation Magazine. They call him the Turtle Whisperer.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has declared May 20, 2011 Endangered Species Day to recognize the importance of protecting endangered species, to acknowledge the ongoing work of conservationists, and to commemorate the victories of the Endangered Species Act. Numerous species have been pulled from the brink of extinction thanks to the hard work of conservationists like those working with Paso Pacifico. Today, as we celebrate our successes, we must...
Yesterday, the New York Times reported on the costs and benefits of factory farmed tilapia and they zoomed in on Nicaragua. Dr. McCrary has spent the past decade studying how a small, short-lived tilapia farm degraded Lake Apoyo in Nicaragua. “One small cage screwed up the entire lake — the entire lake!” he said of the farm, which existed from 1995 to 2000. Waste from the cages polluted the pristine...
This month we're reflecting on our ELLAS program, and the commitment we made to the community at the Clinton Global Initiative Five women launched one sea turtle nursery which protected over 6500 sea turtle hatchlings and transformed the way their community interacts with turtles. 2010 was the first time in 25 years turtles hatched on the community beach, after a quarter century of all nests routinely being poached. Native tree nurseries employ...
This month we're reflecting on our ELLAS program, and the commitment we made to the community at the Clinton Global Initiative. Empowering Women Economically Throughout our existence, but this past year especially, we at Paso Pacifico have watched rural women in Central America's poorest country empower themselves economically through ecosystem services. We have watched women learn to lead tours and teach others about their region's biodiversity. We have watched them...
On Wednesday April 13th, the California Academy of Sciences and Sea Turtle Restoration Project will host the first (hopefully not the last) Science of Advocacy Session at the International Sea Turtle Society annual meeting. We look forward to hearing from these promising speakers: Dr. Darren Schreiber (UC San Diego) will give us a primer on the intersection of neuroscience, public policy and behavior change. Dr. Lekelia Jenkins (University of Washington)...
Kim Williams-Guillen, our director of conservation science, has been studying fragmented wildlife habitat and conservation corridors in the coffee-growing regions of Chiapas, Mexico. Like many others, she's been testing the theory that shade-grown coffee plantations help ensure greater biodiversity in neighboring forests than do traditional cultivation methods, where coffee is grown more intensively in deforested areas (they do). Unlike scientists who've measured biodiversity before her, Kim's focus has been on...
Do you remember the Leatherback who nested at Brasilon Beach? We have watched as 38 of her eggs have hatched so far! We hope to count several more over the next day.
We've just received a press release from our friend Wallace J. Nichols: As ocean pollution experts meet in Hawaii, disturbing new report chronicles effects of decades of plastic pollution on sea turtles—and what we can do about it. ... Experts on plastic pollution from around the world, determined to solve this growing problem, have gathered this week for the Fifth International Marine Debris Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, a mecca for...
Kim Williams-Guillén, our director of conservation science, has shared another gigapan image, this one from a vampire bat cave. Click here to visit the Gigapan page and zoom in and out.
Liza Gonzalez, Paso Pacifico's national director, has received a scholarship from the Ocean Conservancy to attend the Fifth International Marine Debris Conference in Hawaii later this month. Liza will represent Nicaragua at this annual symposium which brings ocean conservationists together from around the world to: Heighten global understanding and appreciation of the threats posed by marine debris, the cost to coastal communities and marine biodiversity, and the sources of marine debris...
Threatened throughout its range and long considered locally extinct across wide areas of the western slope of northern Central America, the jaguar (Panthera onca) is a top priority for our habitat restoration and wildlife corridor efforts. Teaming up with wildlife biologist, Miguel Ordeñana, Paso Pacifico is working to mitigate the loss of jaguars resulting from hunting and human-wildlife conflict in the Paso del Istmo Biological Corridor in the Rivas province of Nicaragua. Over the past...
Explore San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua with this Gigapan image, which allows you to zoom in and out.
We're pleased to partner with SEEtheWILD, a new organization launched to make conservation the next trend in travel. SEEtheWILD is helping travelers become conservation activists by helping them select eco-tourism destinations which are home to the animals they would like to save. SEEtheWILD was born from the successful initiative SEE Turtles, which links environmentally conscious travelers and volunteers with community-based sea turtle conservation projects. SEEtheWILD expands this model of sustainable tourism to many...
Saturday night Paso Pacífico staff and visiting scientists were rewarded for their good deeds by Mother Nature. They watched the emergence of baby endangered green sea turtles and olive ridley turtles from the sands of Brasilon beach, north of Ostional. Our dedicated rangers rescued one of the newly hatched green turtles from the claws of a hungry crab with some furious digging into the sand. They spent the evening documenting the...
From our friends at PRETOMA and the Wildlife Conservation Society of Nicaragua: For all of you who have been following Pretoma’s activities and supported our campaigns, many thanks. We need your help again. We are finalists in a competition called “Change Makers” to support the work we do in the Nicoya Peninsula promoting a sustainable snapper fishery. Please, take the time (only two minutes) and vote at the following site:...
Thank you to everyone who has voted for our ELLAS program in the NatGeo Ashoka Changemakers Geotourism Challenge. We appreciate all the support! El Nuevo Diario yesterday: La iniciativa “ELLAS” que promueve el Organismo No Gubernamental Paso Pacífico, el cual fue escogida por Geotourism Challenge 2010, auspiciado por National Geographic, Ashoka Changemakers y Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, como uno de los 12 finalistas entre más de 250 participantes de diferentes...
Hoy en La Prensa: El trabajo de un grupo de mujeres nicaragüenses por el desarrollo sostenible podría ser considerado el mejor del mundo, pero para eso necesita votos suficientes que lo certifiquen como ganador. Ese grupo participa de un concurso internacional promovido por National Geographic, Ashoka Changesmakers y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), similar al de las Siete Maravillas Naturales del Mundo, en el que participó la Isla de...
From our January newsletter: The endangered Black-handed Spider Monkey is locally extinct across most of western Nicaragua. Through a grant provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service International Affairs' Wildlife without Borders program, we have begun a monitoring program to document primate populations and to provide employment to local farmers to protect Spider Monkeys at key private reserves across the Paso del Istmo Biological Corridor. Paso Pacífico will also be able to...
From our friend Greg Reitman at The Environmentalist: One of the world’s greatest treasures, sea turtles, is threatened by extinction. With the continued rise of poverty and lack of food resources, egg poaching has become a mainstream commodity and a means for survival. This man-made epidemic has been on the rise for decades, and is most prominent along the beaches of Nicaragua’s Pacific Slope. Poachers, viewed like pirates, roam the...
From Kim Williams-Guillén, our director of conservation science: There are other smaller caves in Masaya. Park rangers know where they are. I have been to only one, which was a cave with a large colony of vampire bats. In the video (also from April 2009) if you look carefully you can see some females with babies hanging on their chests. Many tropical bat species are capable of reproducing throughout the...
From Kim Williams-Guillén, our director of conservation science: This is a video I filmed of nectar bats feeding on a jicaro tree in Montibelli private reserve, which is about 30 minutes from Masaya. This video was filmed in April 2009. It's easiest to watch nectar bats in the dry season (January through April) since that is when many of the tree species in the dry forest flower.
From Kim Williams-Guillén, our director of conservation science: There are two main lava tube caves, and several smaller caves. The largest cave has a colony of what I believe may be thousands of bats, but we have not done any counts. We have captured five species leaving this cave, Pteronotus parnelli, P. personatus, P. gymnonotus, and P. davyi. On one occasion I caught 3 Mormoops megalophylla which was the first time...
We are finalists in NatGeo's Geotourism Challenge on Ashoka's Changemakers website. If we win this challenge, we will receive funding for our watershed and coastal restoration work from the National Geographic foundation, the Multilateral Investment Fund, and the Inter-American Development Bank. The ELLAS Initiative up for a vote is centered around empowering female enviropreneurs to harness market forces and employ voluntary solutions to environmental programs in their local communities. Please take a few...
In December, we worked with our surf ambassadors to organize an environmental education workshop and coastal clean-up. We're really proud that Nicaragua's growing surf community has embraced a culture of conservation. This project is made possible through funding from the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association's SIMA Environmental Fund.
Last night our turtle rangers spotted a Leatherback sea turtle nesting on Playa Brasilon. They watched over her while she deposited 78 eggs in a nest which they will guard. Because the Pacific Leatherback is very close to extinction, we are happy to start the new with this, our very first leatherback nest on Brasilon Beach.
From this weekend's Science Roundup: One of the major uncertainties about global climate change is the effect of clouds, which cool the climate by reflecting incoming solar radiation back to space, but also warm the climate by trapping heat that might otherwise escape. So as the planet warms, will clouds change in ways that counter warming by greenhouse gases (a negative cloud feedback), or further amplify it (a positive cloud...
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species of the Day is the Wrinkle-faced bat. The Wrinkle-faced Bat, Centurio senex, is listed as ‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. This striking-looking bat inhabits moist and dry tropical forests of Latin America, from Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. It is considered to be an uncommon species throughout its range, although occasionally it can be locally abundant under certain conditions. Wrinkle-faced...
From the tropical forests of Nicaragua, Happy New Year! This ocelot cat (Leopardus pardalis) was photographed just this month in a forest we are working to protect. Paso Pacifico scientific intern Robert Euwe caught this image in a motion-detecting "camera trap". Paso Pacifico thanks you for your support in 2010 and welcomes your continued interest in the year to come. Sincerely, Sarah Otterstrom Executive Director Donate on-line by Dec. 31st to receive a...
From the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Nicaragua Sea Turtle Conservation Program we are pleased to announce the new WCS-Nicaragua Youth Group blog. This blog has been created by a group of young adults from Pearl Lagoon, located on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, as a tool that allows them to broadcast their activities in support of sea turtle conservation while learning computer skills and engaging them in collective writing. We...
From this month's CAVU newsletter: The first of CAVU’s three films released this year was created in collaboration with NGO Paso Pacífico. “Paso del Istmo” is a narrow ribbon of land between the vast Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean which harbors remnant dry tropical forest, and species such as spider monkeys, yellow-naped parrots, freshwater bullsharks and mass arrivals of olive ridley sea turtles. It is a crucial land bridge...
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species of the Day is the Green Turtle. The Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas, is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. This long-lived and highly migratory species is found in tropical and, to a lesser extent, sub-tropical waters throughout the globe. The Green Turtle has the most numerous and widely dispersed nesting sites of the seven turtle species. Green Turtles...
(Liza Gonzalez Director of Paso Pacifico in Nicaragua meeting with the Nicaraguan National Surf Team) This year's Central American Surf Championship took place on November 19, 20, and 21 at Madera San Juan del Sur Beach in Nicaragua. Paso Pacifico partnered with Nicaragua's National Surf Team to promote the preservation of a healthy marine habit in Nicaragua's Paso Del Ismo. The event featured 80 of the best surfers in Central...
From this month's Science Roundup: Sustainably managing common natural resources, such as fisheries, water, and forests, is essential for our long-term survival. Conventional analysis assumes that groups struggle to manage common natural resources because of free-riders and people who will maximize short-term self-benefits at the expense of long-term sustainability (the so-called "tragedy of the commons"). However, behavioral laboratory experiments have shown evidence that "conditional cooperation" -- individual cooperation contingent upon the cooperation...
ScienceNow has good news for those of us planting trees: "Research shows that deciduous tree leaves, such as those from the maple, aspen, and poplar, suck up far more atmospheric pollutants than previously thought."
My first time to Nicaragua, I spent a week in an old pick-up truck we parked on a hill each night so we could jumpstart it each morning. We traveled the Paso del Istmo biologicial corridor from one "unconnected" place to another. Along the fertile coasts and in the arid mountain forests, we saw (or heard) amazing wildlife, and met dedicated people who were excited to share everything they knew...
Earlier this month, the first ever Census of Marine Life was published, a culmination of a decade of research. Nearly three thousand scientists from around the world worked together to establish an oceanic baseline for future study. The census includes over 240,000 marine species (presumed to be 25% of the total number of species in the worlds oceans) and has three points of focus: diversity distribution abundance "The census found...
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