Panterra :: MySchool Journal - Day 1

Panterra Cultural Adventures

Daily Journal

Narval Expeditions
Dive/Natural History Trip

Day 2 - part 2 - Photo Gallery

Isla Pardito - Sea Turtle Monitoring Program

Fishermen from Isla Pardito, Felipe Cuevas and his father Palo, find us on
the beach to let us know they are ready for our help in their turtle monitoring
program. This was the pilot of Panterra's involvement in a sea turtle monitoring
program set up by a consortium of local fishermen and conservation groups.

The net is set up and monitored for a 24 hour period. When we
were picked up on the beach we were midway into their program.

The turtles are netted and then retrieved every 4 hours. Even in the middle of
the night. The nets do not hurt the turtles and allow them access to the surface to breath.

Palo and Felipe start retrieving the turtles. On this
day a record 16 turtles were caught. The two species
of turtles were Hawksbill and Black (green) turtles.

We helped the turtles out of the net.

Very gently and carefully.

We had retrieved 6 turtles in this particular 4 hour period.

All the recording material and support equipment gets organized first.

Next the turtles go through ...

a series of measurements...

... to include identifying males and females (in older turtles).

They are then weighed...

tagged.

Finally, freedom (released) ...

... and off it swam back to sea.

The divers eventually joined us and we all headed out in the
pangas to the area where the remaining turtles were to be released.

Palo and his son Felipe, get ready to release
the turtles close to where they were captured.

A few of us were able to actually hold and release the turtles.

Once released they headed back out to sea.

The turtles had remarkable speed.

We snorkeled the area the turtles were released in and the area was alive
with an assortment of sea creatures such as this Puffer and two Moray eels.

We went back to check the nets for any additional turtles but we only
found a couple of Cownose stingrays caught up in the net. They were released.

The beautiful island of Isla Pardito.

Packing up the days catch to take to La Paz.

Part of the days catch - Cownose stingrays.

An ongoing collection of whale bones found on the nearby beaches.

Our last stop was to the homes of Maria and Clara who make
handcrafted jewelry (for sale) from the treasures they collect on the beaches.

Does it get any better than this!
(Beautiful photo Staish!!!)

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