Project Background
Since 2003, the Sea Turtle Conservancy has conducted a community-based sea turtle research and protection program in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, an archipelago that includes some of the most important nesting sites for endangered leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles in the world.
The majority of this project was carried out during the 2021 leatherback and hawksbill nesting seasons in Bocas del Toro Panama. All nesting data presented in the report pertains to this time period, though some activities continued well into 2022. Support from World Nomads and the Footprints Network provided essential resources to carry out a program with the following primary aims and objectives:
Project Aims
(A) To secure accurate baseline information about levels of nesting by endangered sea turtles at the newly discovered nesting site at Bocas del Drago, Panama. Also document levels of poaching.
(B) Inspire members of the local community to participate in turtle conservation by training community members to carry out the turtle monitoring and protection program at Bocas del Drago.
(C) Establish an in-water monitoring program to assess the population of hawksbill turtles inhabiting a nearshore reef off the project beach, and also begin documenting the impact of illegal turtle hunting on the reef.
(D) Gradually eliminate illegal turtle poaching at Bocas del Drago and its offshore reef in order to promote the full recovery of local leatherback and hawksbill turtle populations.
(E) Develop ecotourism at Bocas del Drago as an alternative, sustainable source of income for the local community.
Project Objectives
(A) Train a select group of local community members how to track sea turtle nesting, mark nests and collect scientifically accurate data for long-term tracking of sea turtle health and abundance at Bocas del Drago.
(B) Implement a monitoring program to document and track the rate of illegal poaching of sea turtles from the nesting beach and from an offshore reef at Bocas del Drago.
(C) Develop and promote ecotourism at Bocas del Drago in a manner that benefits the local community and demonstrates that sea turtles are worth saving because ecotourism is more sustainable than harvesting turtles.
Project Results
With generous funding from the Footprints Network and World Nomads, Sea Turtle Conservancy conducted a monitoring program at Drago beach. Thanks to this program we can know more about the nesting trends at the beach, the fate of those nests and the illegal activities related to sea turtles in the area. In addition, the STC has done an in-water program to determine where the turtles are in the reef, what they are doing and which stage of life cycle they are in.
A local indigenous community member was hired to conduct the surveys in the area and six biologists from other countries were selected to participate in our Research Assistant Program to help us in the night patrols, surveys, and the in-water program. To ensure that data were collected according to STC’s established protocol, staff held a three-day training workshop for the new monitor and the research assistants to teach them about sea turtle biology, the correct method for applying flipper tags, taking standard carapace measurements, identifying sea turtle species, and marking nests using triangulation. Once they were trained the local beach monitor and the research assistants conducted daily track surveys and night patrols under the Drago Beach Coordinator supervision.
Track surveys
Daily track surveys were conducted in the 4km of the study area. The first 2km have a beautiful white sand beach (Drago) and the other 2km are composed of several small beaches with limited access and no connection between them (Mimitimbi).
The next table (Table 1) includes the final number of nests of each species. Table 2 shows the number of nests that were disturbed by poachers, dog predation or due to the erosion and were not able to finish the incubation period to produce sea turtle hatchlings.
In addition, during the daily surveys the STC local monitor found three hawksbills flipped over, probably by poachers, and he released them. Tracks of two poached hawksbill were found but no sign of the turtles.
Something new in the area was to find another two dead turtles dead at the beach, in this occasion predated by dogs from the closer community. To fight against this new threat, the STC developed two strategies. The first was to put nets on top of the nests to avoid the dog’s predation. They were very effective – none of those nests were predated. The second strategy was to coordinate a dog neuter clinic at the Drago community to control the dog population and educate the locals about how to control their dogs at the beach.
Night patrols
The objective of the night patrols is to find as many turtles as possible to tag them, measure them, check their body condition, and mark the nest to check it two months later to know the survivor success.
One green turtle, eight leatherbacks and 24 hawksbills were fully worked up during the night patrols. Their average size was approximately 86 cm for the hawksbill and 143 cm for the leatherbacks. The only green turtle found measured 106 cm.
Thanks to the presence of the STC workers at the beach the frequency of illegal activities decreases. Even knowing that the STC workers have no legal authority, the poachers know that we are there, and we will alert the police or park rangers if something happens.
Hatchlings productivity and sex ratio
Because a sea turtle’s sex is determined by the average temperature of the sand in which it incubates, rising temperatures may be producing skewed sex ratios among hatchling sea turtles, resulting in greatly more female turtles than is normal in certain sea turtle populations. The pivotal nest temperature that will determine a sea turtle’s sex is both inherited and dependent on species, but the range of temperatures that can produce an all-female or all-male nest is very small – within a few degrees Celsius. STC is in the early stages of developing strategies to evaluate physiological markers of hatchlings to verify whether nests are producing more females than males at its Bocas del Toro study sites, and intends to employ these strategies in the future, when more nest temperature data is available.
A total number of 91 nests were marked in 2021 (18 leatherbacks and 73 hawksbills) to study the hatching and emerging success (Table 3). 33 of those hawksbill nests were selected to develop the incubation temperature study using the dataloggers to measure the temperature inside the nest and estimate the sex ratio that is being produced at the beach.
Dog neuter clinic
Due to the problems that the dogs were creating at the beach (predation of nests and nesting females) the STC staff contacted locals and foreigner veterinarians to support a neuter clinic at the Drago community. Three veterinarians conducted the clinic, and 31 dogs were fixed to control the population of dogs at the beach. In addition, all the locals that arrived at the clinic were informed about the dog predation at the beach and the importance of protecting a critically endangered animal such as the hawksbills.
Environmental education
Environmental education activities were conducted in the school of the Drago community to teach about the conservation, biology, and threats to sea turtles in the area. Those talks were given by the environmental education coordinator to groups of students between the ages of seven to twelve years old.
What’s next?
The project is being established by STC as a long-term research, conservation, and community engagement program in this part of Panama. Sea turtles are very slow-maturing animals, which means that effective conservation work must involve many years of protection efforts to see population increases. Additionally, the systemic threats faced by sea turtles in this part of Panama will not be eliminated quickly. STC is committed to continuing this project for many years in order to protect and recover important sea turtle populations in partnership with the local community.
Can I visit this project?
Yes, STC recently established an eco-volunteer program that allows people to spend a week or more participating in our sea turtle monitoring and protection programs at Soropta Beach and Bocas del Drago, Panama. One can learn about these opportunities on STC’s website at www.conserveturtles.org/leatherback-turtle-eco-volunteer-program/.
Project background
The Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) has been working at several locations in the Bocas del Toro Province of Panama since 2003 to monitor and protect endangered sea turtle nesting populations. The region sees globally important levels of nesting by critically endangered hawksbill turtles and leatherback turtles. However, intense hunting pressure dating back over a hundred years nearly wiped out these nesting colonies.
STC’s work in the region, conducted in partnership with a local indigenous community, has reversed the decline and they have seen an increase in nesting by both species. At the same time, communities in the region are gradually moving away from unsustainable harvesting of turtles and replacing it with sustainable ecotourism.
Nesting activity is concentrated at several relatively undeveloped beaches spread around the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. Over the last 18 years, STC gradually established conservation programs at each of the known major nesting sites in the province.
In early 2019, STC biologists began hearing rumours of a hidden away beach on the outskirts of the archipelago where both leatherbacks and hawksbills are nesting, but where they face ongoing threats from illegal poaching. To investigate, STC set up weekly nesting surveys at this remote beach, known locally as Bocas del Drago, and our studies confirmed the stories. Not only does Bocas del Drago host previously unknown nesting by these two endangered species, the nearshore reef off the beach is populated with young hawksbills that are also being targeted by illegal fishing.
Project activities
Through this new project, STC will employ a successful strategy that has worked at other beaches in the region. First, we will hire and train members of the local community to implement STC’s nest monitoring protocol to give us reliable information about the status of nesting and the level of take by poachers. STC’s staff biologists also will conduct in-water monitoring of the juvenile hawksbill population that inhabits the nearshore reef in order to get baseline information about the size of the population and also to begin documenting impacts from illegal turtle hunting on the reef.
At the same time, the STC will work with the local community to show everyone how turtles can be more valuable alive than dead by developing sustainable ecotourism based on the nesting turtles. Bocas del Drago is somewhat remote, but it can be reached via car from the Caribbean tourist town of Bocas, which opens the possibility of taking tourists to Bocas del Drago to observe turtles nesting at night for a fee.
This venture can employ numerous local community members and generate sustainable income for the community that is greater and more sustainable than the money generated by killing turtles for their eggs, meat and shells. STC has considerable experience setting up such programs in Costa Rica and at other beaches in Panama, so they are confident this project will be successful as well.
Project aims
- To secure accurate baseline information about levels of nesting by endangered sea turtles at the newly-discovered nesting site at Bocas del Drago, Panama. Also document levels of poaching.
- Inspire members of the local community to participate in turtle conservation by training community members to carry out the turtle monitoring and protection program at Bocas del Drago.
- Establish an in-water monitoring program to assess the population of hawksbill turtles inhabiting a nearshore reef off the project beach, and also begin documenting the impact of illegal turtle hunting on the reef.
- Gradually eliminate illegal turtle poaching at Bocas del Drago and its offshore reef in order to promote the full recovery of local leatherback and hawksbill turtle populations.
- Develop ecotourism at Bocas del Drago as an alternative, sustainable source of income for the local community.
Project objectives
- Train a select group of local community members how to track sea turtle nesting, mark nests and collect scientifically accurate data for long-term tracking of sea turtle health and abundance at Bocas del Drago.
- Implement a monitoring program to document and track the rate of illegal poaching of sea turtles from the nesting beach and from an offshore reef at Bocas del Drago.
- Develop and promote ecotourism at Bocas del Drago in a manner that benefits the local community and demonstrates that sea turtles are worth saving because ecotourism is more sustainable than harvesting turtles.
Project outcomes
- Two species of endangered sea turtles nesting in Panama will benefit from reduced hunting pressure. By the end of the project, the number of turtles illegally poached at Bocas del Drago will be reduced.
- The local community living near Bocas del Drago will benefit from a sustainable ecotourism model that provides income for the community while also protecting endangered turtles that are an important part of the local ecosystem.
- A long-term nest monitoring and turtle protection program will be implemented at Bocas del Drago, which will provide critical ongoing information about the health and status of nesting hawksbills and leatherbacks, as well as a population of juvenile hawksbills inhabiting nearshore reefs.
What's covered in project cost
The total budget for this project is $44,500. The STC is seeking $20,000 through The Footprints Network to help contribute to the remaining costs of the project. See itemized budget below:
- Salary for Project Manager: $6,742
- Salaries for local community nesting monitors: $6,742
- Transportation to and from Bocas del Drago: $450
- Boat operations and in-water monitoring equipment: $1,350
- Food for project personnel: $2,250
- Beach monitoring research supplies: $1,346
- Rental of lodging facility at Bocas del Drago: $1,120
Project partners and community involvement
The most significant partners in this project will be numerous members of the local community, some of whom are indigenous Ngobe-Bugle Indians, who will be hired and trained by STC to conduct nest monitoring and protection activities.
Part of a larger strategy
For 60 years, STC has conducted sea turtle research and protection on the Caribbean coast of Central America. This project fits with the organization’s long-term strategies and goals for sea turtle recovery. Sea turtles are very vulnerable to illegal poaching in the region – an activity often conducted out of necessity to generate income in areas where there are few prospects for employment.
By initiating ecotourism based on taking tourists to see nesting turtles, communities can be shown that turtles are worth more alive than dead – and that the income will be sustainable. STC has initiated exactly this sort of strategy at places like Tortuguero, Costa Rica, a community that hosts the largest nesting population of green turtles in the world.
Once hunted nearly to extinction, the population is now very robust and healthy because the community has turned to ecotourism rather than turtle hunting as a source of income. The STC will achieve the same results at Bocas del Drago, Panama.