Posted By: Widecast Costa Rica

We, WIDECAST Costa Rica, are looking for new volunteers or research assistants for our sea turtles conservation projects on the Pacific (In-water studies and daily surveys) and the Caribbean (beach projects) coastline in season 2012. We are especially looking for volunteers working in our Osa In-water project, because we have a lot of work at hand treating sick sea turtles and the mangrove reforestation.

Projects:
Pacific coast
Peninsula de Osa – In-water studies:

This project is located a little bit in the north of Puerto Jimenez on Playa Blanca. This project combines boat trips to conduct In-water studies, a rescue center for sea turtles, a mangrove reforestation project and a support of the local blue flag group. This generates a lot of different duties: beach cleaning, reforestation work, helping in the rescue center and, twice a week, there will be boat trips to conduct research on the in-water sea turtle population. Project staff and volunteers go with our boat to our capture site and use a net to catch sea turtles, mostly Green Sea Turtles. If we catch one, we take them into the boat and take various samples:
- Blood samples to analyze the physical condition of the sea turtle and to look for differences in the females between nesting and feeding period.
- Tissue samples to examine the mitochondrial DNA to reconstruct the lineage of the females.
- Mucus samples from the eyes, the nose and the cloaca to scan for microscopic parasites.
We also collect data recording the size of the carapace and tag them with metal tags in case the sea turtle doesn’t have any tag, before we release them again. But dealing with the sea turtles might seem rough an unpleasant for them, so please be sure that you can handle it.
Playa Sombrero / Platanares (without research assistants):

This project is located on the Peninsula de Osa, south pacific coast of Costa Rica. You would stay in Puerto Jimenez and do daily surveys on the two different beaches closest to Puerto Jimenez. The work focuses on patrols in the early morning until noon. The volunteers leave their accommodations at around 4:30. The distance to Sombrero is quite far which is why we use the taxi that goes to the southern entrance of national park Corcovado, La Leona, but we get off the taxi before. Playa Platanares is closer, it is about one hour to walk from the accommodations. In case, nests are found, we relocate them to a safer place. We do not work with a hatchery. So far, there were no encounters with poachers.
Caribbean:
Our projects on the Caribbean , namely Pacuare and Moin, will start in the middle of February with the beginning of the nesting season of the Leatherback Sea Turtle, lasting until July and the last nests hatching in August. In Pacuare, the season will continue with the nesting of the Green Sea Turtle until October and the last eggs hatching in November. Even though, there is no nesting in December and January, we will continue the work at our rescue center for sea turtles.
Project Pacuare:
This project is in the north of Limón (Capital of the Caribbean Province of Costa Rica), south of Parismina river. The main thread that we address is the poaching and hunting of nests and nesting females. Therefore the project combines night beach patrols, hatchery work and a rescue center for sea turtles. The duties of the volunteers are patrolling the beach at night, hatchery shifts and beach cleaning, maintenance work and helping at the rescue center like nursing sea turtles or cleaning tanks. The project is open year-round. February to
July: Leatherback Sea Turtles and June to November: Green and Hawksbill Sea Turtle. Even though there is no nesting in December and January, there are still a lot of tasks to fulfill. The night patrols encounter poacher frequently, but the project is running a strictly non-confrontational policy by which an escalation of encounters between night patrols and poachers could have been avoided over the last seven years by a hundred percent. The project side is rather remote: no electricity and you have to go there by boat (US$ 35 per person). Also the opportunity to attend Spanish classes can be arranged.

Project Moin:
The project is just a few kilometers in the north of Limón on the Caribbean coastline, therefore it is not as remote as Pacuare (electricity is available) but longer beach. The duties of the volunteers are night patrols, hatchery shifts, beach cleaning and occasional cleaning and maintenance work. But you would stay at a wildlife rescue center with a lot of terrestrial animals like sloths or spider monkeys and can help feeding these animals as well. Since the project is also on the Caribbean coast the dates of the seasons are similar to the project in Pacuare, but we do not encounter as many Hawksbill and Green Sea Turtles as we do in Pacuare. Since the project is quite young there is poaching activities.

http://www.latinamericanseaturtles.org