Sunday, August 22, 2010

Jaguar Reappearance

It’s been a while since we last saw evidence of Jaguars in the vicinity of base. But in recent times the elusive felines have decided to venture into our marine turtle survey site at night and prey once again on the unsuspecting nesting females of the beach. With two recent records of kills as close as Mile 16 4/8 (1 mile from base), it is a strange change in activity levels.
Both of these turtles were discovered on night walks. Despite not being what we intend to discover on these surveys, volunteers have enjoyed the extra excitement that it has caused. Lauren Hallett, a 6 month intern, returned from her night walk to report she had experienced “...90% of a jag sighting. It’s probably as close to a jag as I will get!” This followed finding a turtle which had been killed probably less than a minute before the team arrived at the scene.
The patrol leaders however do not share those feelings. “It’s pretty scary encountering a dead turtle at night, it takes you by surprise.” Said Field Coordinator Richard Phillips.
It is fair to say that we all agree that it is a very interesting turn of events that will provide some interesting information for our jaguar predation of marine turtles study.




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