Monterrico Hatchery

Saturday, October 6^th

In the morning, a couple volunteers and I put more palms on the hatchery. Every time there is a large wind storm the palms get blown around even though we tie them on...the wind is that strong! It looks a lot better now luckily. Some more volunteers went to the mangroves and came back with another injured bird! We think it is some kind of dove. 

Feeding our new little friend

Afterwards, Sabine, Judit, and I went to Monterrico. We had a nice relaxing lunch with licuados (a watermelon one for me). Later, we visited the Monterrico hatchery. I was hoping to find out more about why parlameros have been preferring to donate and sell their eggs to them. I was surprised by their facilities. Everything was nice and new. We also saw about 100 hatchlings in a small holding tank waiting to be released at 5:00pm. You are supposed to release them right away, but this hatchery holds onto them in order to make money for tourist releases. We questioned them about it and they swore that the hatchlings were from the morning. We have at most 20 hatchlings from the morning, so I could tell they were lying and that they came from the night before. After talking with the employees, we shopped for a bit. While we were in Monterrico, Glenda left again for her vacation days.

One of a few holding tanks...poor hatchlings

On patrol, Bobby (a volunteer) and I found a turtle!!! It was so exciting. We were jumping up and down and hugging. The nest was 101 eggs, which is pretty respectable. Alonso, one of the buyers, stopped by and was shocked to see that some gringos had found a turtle. All he kept saying was “Bueno suerte” or “Good luck.” I told him that it was my 4^th turtle that I have found and he seemed surprised. It was a great night!