Another nest!

Saturday, July 7th 

Today was a pretty uneventful day. I spent most of the day running through all of our protocols and seeing what equipment we had and what equipment we needed. It wasn’t the most interesting task, but it was definitely an important one.  I’m hoping that the list we sent to the administrative director is seriously considered and that most of our requests are filled. Unfortunately, the organization is seriously underfunded, but according to my past experiences with non-profits that seems to be the case for a lot of them.

While out on our patrol, we ran into Alice (an expatriate from the US who used to volunteer with ARCAS, but now walks the beach by herself). She gathered some tourists to watch a nesting turtle in hopes of having them buy the nest from the parlameros (egg snatchers). Unfortunately, none of the tourists decided to be generous, so we used ARCAS funds to buy the nest. The price was slightly cheaper than last time, but it still was quite expensive. Alice walked back with us and gave us a more in-depth description of how to bury the nest than the one we had received earlier. It is nice to know that she is out patrolling the beaches too due to her passion for sea turtles and her vast pool of knowledge when it comes to their behaviors.