Building the Dream

EcoTeach Foundation is currently working toward a long-held dream of constructing a sea turtle education center on the Caribbean shores of Costa Rica, the fourth largest Leatherback nesting site in the world.

Our goal was to raise $50,000 to cover the cost of materials and labor needed to construct this building, Las Siete Quillas, and adequately fund the sea turtle patrol program for an entire year.

Over the last two years, the program (which has been largely under-funded) has already decreased poaching at this site by 60 percent!

With additional funds to cover staffing and basic necessities including electricity and telephone lines, this program can become a viable self-sustaining operation.

September 2003

EcoTeach guides give a helping hand

This September EcoTeach guides Pika, Marta, Alex Alvarez, Alex Lopez and Adrian put down their binoculars and picked up saws, hammers and paintbrushes to do their part towards the completion of Las Siete Quillas Education Center. Over the weekend of September 5 - 7 the group worked enthusiastically in intense heat to continue laying floorboards and paint inside and out.

There is still plenty a lot of work still to do on the education center, and station workers and volunteer groups will continue to push on over the next few months to have the building ready for its opening next March.

The turtle season at Estacion Las Tortugas is now officially over. By the end of the 2003 season, 306 leatherback visits had been recorded and 3652 hatchlings had been released by the Station. The poaching rate this year was reduced to less than 1%! The season also saw our first known leatherback from Panama visit the beach.

The female leatherbacks that nested here this season will by now be moving away from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to embark on their feeding migrations. While we do not know exactly where they are going, we are keeping our fingers crossed that these females will survive over the next couple of years the many threats they now face out at sea and return to lay more eggs on this beach.

July 2003

Work begins on Las Siete Quillas Education Center

The EcoTeach Foundation fundraising auction, held on March 2, 2003 at the Space Needle in Seattle was a fantastic success, with over $30,000 raised for Estación Las Tortugas in Costa Rica, helping to fund its important work protecting a vital nesting beach for endangered leatherbacks. It also meant that the dream of constructing an education center on the site as a resource for the local community and visiting student groups will finally be realized.

Work began when the group from Parsons PR of Seattle, whose incredible efforts ensured the amazing success of the auction, arrived at the project site in Costa Rica on May 12, 2003. Alongside station director Stanley Rodriguez and other station employees, they worked through the heat and rain of the Caribbean coast to make concrete posts, dig holes and install the posts for the foundations of the main education center building. And they were rewarded on patrol with bright moonlit nights and several nesting female turtles.

Estación Las Tortugas is very much a community based project. The patrol teams are this year joined by two ex-poachers, Ramón Mendoza and Victor Avarco. The effectiveness of beach protection carried out by Estación Las Tortugas convinced them it would be better to work with the project than against it.

Their experience of working with turtles, their knowledge of the beach, of other poachers and their great sense of fun make them valuable additions to the project.

If you have an interest in supporting the EcoTeach Foundation in their quest to save the Leatherback sea turtles, please contact Pam Perry at 206-789-5668.

Your personal request to friends or business associates really makes a difference.