Oro de Cortez Part 3

Turtle Conservation Story

This is a cool article about some of the Sea Turtle work going on in Baja. It was first published in 2005. I've been thinking about posting it for a while. Since I just wrote about Abreojos and my buddies Javier Villavicencio and Isidro Arce are in the article I thought it might be a good time to add the link.

Javier and Isidro are great guys and have done much for their community. Their exploits include starting a Water Keepers group for Punta Abreojos, hosting surfing competitions, helping secure a Marine Stewardship Council Sustainable Certification for their local lobster fishery, managing a sea turtle monitoring program in Estero Coyote, capturing one of the most notorious turtle poachers in Baja, and they still mange to work full time as commercial lobster fishermen. I'll have to post more about them another day.

Turtle Mortality in Magdelena Bay

While it may seem strange to some that I post sea turtle conservation links on a fly fishing board, I think that there are important links between inshore fisheries and turtles in Baja California Sur. The same nets and long lines that kill turtles have severe impacts on the fisheries in mangrove lagoons and near shore waters. And besides sea turtles are cool, beautiful, interesting organisms and seeing them is always a highlight to any fishing trip and parth of the Baja experience.

Hoyt and company are doing great work and finding positive solutions that will help protect turtles and fisheries for the future.

Link to story

Study finds high mortality of endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Baja California

Along the southern coast of Baja California, Mexico, scientists have been counting the carcasses of endangered sea turtles for a decade as part of an effort to assess and eliminate threats to loggerhead sea turtle populations. Their findings, published this week, are shocking: almost 3,000 sea turtles were found dead along a 27-mile stretch of coast during a five-year period from 2003 to 2007.

Led by Hoyt Peckham, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study underscores the enormous impact of bycatch (marine life accidentally killed by fishing operations) on sea turtles. Bycatch and, to a lesser degree, poaching are both significant threats to the survival of the endangered Pacific loggerhead sea turtle population, Peckham said.

"We saw what are apparently the highest documented stranding and fisheries bycatch rates in the world," he said. "But the high bycatch rates offer us all an unexpected conservation opportunity. By working with just a handful of fishermen to diminish their bycatch, we can save hundreds of turtles."

Peckham and his coauthors, whose findings appear in a special bycatch issue of Endangered Species Research, are working to increase awareness of the problems facing sea turtles in Baja California Sur. They hope this report will encourage Mexico's government agencies to finalize creation of a refuge that protects turtles and encourages sustainable fishing in the area.

"We have counted so many dead turtles. We have piles of data on thousands of carcasses. What we need now are conservation actions and viable solutions," said Wallace J. Nichols, research associate with the California Academy of Sciences and a coauthor of the paper.

The authors partnered with local fishermen not only to assess bycatch but also to increase awareness of its far-reaching effects and work toward ending the threat.

"Once they are aware of the ocean-wide impacts of their local bycatch, fishermen often strive to fish more cleanly by switching to different techniques, target species, or areas," Peckham said. "As a result, stranding rates were down in 2008."

In addition, local fishermen are working with the Mexican government to designate a sea turtle refuge that would officially protect an area the researchers identified as a "hotspot" of turtle bycatch.

Conservation tourism offers another potential solution to these problems by giving fishermen an alternative to dwindling, inefficient fisheries, Peckham said. Through training and a steady tourism market, many fishermen and former poachers have come to value sea turtles more highly alive than dead, because conducting tours can yield more income than fishing, he added. One organization that has promoted ecotourism in this area is the Ocean Conservancy through its SEE Turtles program. The program links travelers with critical sea turtle conservation sites so that vacation dollars can both protect the sea turtles and enhance the livelihood of community residents who protect them.

North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles travel more than 7,000 miles from Japan to Baja California Sur to feed and grow in nearshore waters, spending up to 30 years there before returning to Japan to breed. The number of nesting females in Japan has declined by 50 to 80 percent over the past 10 years, Peckham said.

In addition to Peckham and Nichols, the authors of the new study include Tim Tinker, adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC; David Maldonado Diaz and Alexander Gaos of Grupo Tortuguero, a nonprofit conservation group based in La Paz; and Volker Koch and Agnese Mancini of the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur.

Lopez Mateos Sea Turtle Festival

The annual Sea Turtle Festival in Puerto Lopez Mateos starts Friday, August 15th. Hosted by ProCaguama the Sea Turtle Festival features many traditional and non-traditional fiesta activities and is always a good time. The queen is selected based on the success of her clean up campaign - the winner typically collects over a ton of trash from local beaches! The festival mixes music, food, and fun while spreading a conservation message to thousands. This is an event worth supporting.

In many cases efforts to protect turtles will also result in improved fisheries. In the Magedelena Bay region and other parts of Baja California, Conservation Tourism is a growing industry with gray whales in the bay from January to March and great opportunties to observe loggerhead and other species of turtles.

For information on turtle trips check out See Turtles.

VI Festival de la Caguama en Puerto Adolfo López Mateos

El Sudcaliforniano
12 de agosto de 2008
Arturo R. Corona

Ciudad Constitución, Baja California Sur.- Será el próximo viernes 15 de agosto cuando inicie el VI Festival Internacional de la Caguama en Puerto Adolfo López Mateos. Lo anterior lo dieron a conocer integrantes del grupo ecologista de Conservación Pro Caguama de origen extranjero que opera en esa región del pacífico.

Cabe mencionar que desde el año del 2003 el Grupo de Conservación de Procaguama, junto con las autoridades de la Delegación Municipal de Puerto Adolfo López Mateos, comenzaron a celebrar la existencia de este lugar único en el planeta donde se concentra la tortuga amarilla, antes de iniciar su migración a las aguas de Japón, donde anida.

Esta especie de tortuga marina se encuentra altamente amenazada de extinción, por lo que la comunidad de López Mateos, junto con otras comunidades de la costa de la península de Baja California trabajan coordinando esfuerzos desde el 2003 para revertir esta situación.

Por su rol ecológico y su valor cultural, la tortuga amarilla constituye un tesoro que debemos conservar. El viernes 15 de agosto se iniciará el festival con un desfile o gallo, donde se presentarán la reina de la Caguama Gisselle I y la princesa Cristel. Además, las Borargas de tortugas amarilla, golfina y laud también estarán presentes.

El desfile terminará en el muelle del Carapacho, donde se presentará un grupo de música local y se realizará un baile de inauguración. Las actividades deportivas comenzarán temprano en la mañana del sábado 16 y el templete abrirá a las 7 de la tarde con la banda Los Intensos de Sinaloa, en el Muelle del Faro.

Habrá diversos números artísticos, entregas de premios y reconocimientos y el cierre estará a cargo de "Los Grandes del Pardito". El delegado de López Mateos, Diego Ivan De La Toba, participará en el evento y también se espera la llegada del presidente municipal y del gobernador para el cierre del evento.

Mangroves and Bahia Magdelena Conservation

Here is a link to an article that provides a good summary of the scientific paper that I linked to in my July 22 post about Mangroves.

Making that Deep Sea Connection to Mangroves

The article provides a good link to a story about the Magdalena Baykeeper group.

Magdalena Bay stretches for roughly 130 miles along the Pacific Coast between Loreto and La Paz and its mangrove lined channels are the biggest fish nursery on the Pacific Coast. This area is critically important for many species of sport fish, sea turtles, and is one of the three main gray whale calving lagoons.

Two New Links

I added two new links to my list today.

One is ASUPMATOMA - a great organization protecting nesting sea turtles on the beaches north of Cabo San Lucas. In the summer of 2002 I worked as a volunteer for this group and found some GIGANTIC roosterfish on a hidden beach. I got lots of follows but no bites in the pounding Pacific Surf. I think it would have been impossible to land them with a fly rod in the big beach break but I really wanted to try.

The other link is to Baja Trekker - a great source of information on the ecology and conservation of Baja California's natural resources.

Baja Conservation Links

There are a lot of people doing great things in Baja California. A couple of groups that could use your support are:

Eco Alianza de Loreto is a recently formed group that I look forward to working with in the future.

Propeninsula is a conservation leader in the region especially with the protection of sea turtles and is a member of the Grupo Tortuguero. Propeninsula hosts the annual sea turtle conference in Loreto. Generally in the last weekend in January, the meeting is always a good time.

Iemanya Oceanica works to protect sharks and rays in the Sea of Cortez. These species are critically important to the ecological health of the sea. Several Sea of Cortez guides who specialize in fly fishing are former commercial shark fishers and the one's that I have spoken with prefer the life of a sport fishing captain to the difficult life of commercial shark fishing. The long lines and gill nets used by shark fishers indiscriminately kill many sport fish and damage the ecosystem than sport fish depend on. Hopefully, low impact fly fishing can provide livelihoods for more of these hard working and knowledgeable tiburoneros. I urge everyone to release sharks and until populations of these long-lived and slow growing species can recover, avoid targeting them at all.

The American Fisheries Society has a Mexican Chapter. I plan on contacting them soon and seeing what I can learn about scientific research on fish populations in the Sea of Cortez.