Halloween is often associated with bats, which can lead to some pretty widespread misconceptions. For instance, have you ever heard someone say, “He’s blind as a bat!” If you have, you may want to keep reading… Can you be blind as a bat? Despite this popular phrase being recited across pop culture, bats aren’t actually blind. Though they have small eyes, their vision is just fine! What’s the longest living...
Your support for our sea turtle program is vital for the future of the hawskbill sea turtle in the Pacific Ocean. Recent research by members of the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative (ICAPO), including members of our team, collected genetic samples from critically endangered hawskbill sea turtles. Samples were collected from both juvenile turtles that were feeding in mangroves and on reefs, and adult female turtles that were nesting on beaches...
Thanks to donors like you, we continue to capture evidence of jaguars, which are keystone predators in western Central America. This past spring, we came across a jaguar and her cubs! While we couldn’t catch them on camera, we did get this video of a juvenile male jaguar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJ6NVyLfUs Our efforts to protect forest habitat in partnership with communities and landowners is helping jaguars and other important animals recover from...
World Female Ranger Week starts today, June 23rd, and ends on June 30th. Organizers of this special week interviewed five of our women sea turtle rangers as part of their mission to “amplify the world of female rangers around the world.” We hope you’ll consider donating to our World Female Ranger Week fundraiser to support the work of these amazing women! Hear from them below. Liessi Calero exhuming sea turtle...
Paso Pacifico rangers kicked off Global Big Day across twenty-two locations with fifty enthusiastic citizen scientists. From dusk to dawn, the rangers documented a total of 233 species! Global Big Day is an opportunity for bird enthusiasts across the globe to participate in citizen science. Founded in 2015, this celebration of birds has continued in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, with some adjustments, of course. With various supplemental apps and...
Yellow-Naped Amazon Numbers Are Declining in Most Habitats The yellow-naped amazon parrot, native to coastal regions from southern Mexico to northern Costa Rica, is currently hovering on the brink of extinction. This is due in part to habitat loss caused by agricultural development, as well as heavy poaching into the illegal pet trade throughout Central America. In the 1990s, almost 100% of known nests in southern Guatemala were poached. A...
Why These Parrots Are Popular Pets The yellow-naped amazon parrot is a highly popular pet in Central American households and elsewhere. In addition to being colorful, it is at least as intelligent as the average toddler and is naturally social, curious, and playful as well. These birds have long lifespans and are skilled at mimicking human speech. Outside of their adolescent period, they’re also less likely to bite, which adds...
Osmar Sandino es el coordinador de ciencias marinas para Paso Pacífico. ¿Que es el plástico? La palabra se refiere a un grupo de materiales sintéticos fabricados a partir de hidrocarburos. A nivel mundial se producen más de 400 millones de toneladas cada año. El principal problema que representa el plástico, deriva de los procesos de empacado y envasado; dichas actividades representan más de un tercio de todos los plásticos fabricados. La...
By Latoya Abulu for Mongabay The idea of a “pristine wilderness” in conservation efforts — a natural zone free of people — is an erroneous construct that doesn’t reflect the reality of how many high-value biodiverse landscapes have operated for millennia, a new study says. In fact, enforcing this concept can cause environmental degradation of these areas when their human inhabitants, such as Indigenous peoples and local communities who have...
By Jason G. Goldman One of the best places in the world to see whales in their natural habitat is in Latin America. The waters around the continent include some 64 species of whales and dolphins: about three-quarters of the planet's total cetacean biodiversity. That might explain why whale watching tourism has grown around 11% each year there, a rate that three times the annual growth of global tourism and...
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