crocs | Reserva Playa Tortuga

Snakes, spiders and other critters awareness talk was held at RPT

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 03:42:42 +0000

An awareness talk on snakes, spiders, scorpions, and other common critters of the area was held last Wednesday, April 10th, at the Reserva Playa Tortuga.

The talk started with the director of RPT, Oscar Brenes, and followed by the anthropologist and herpetologist Cesar Barrio-Amorós. The talk also counted with the collaboration of Overton Pratt.

The objective of the talk was to summon the neighbors, not only from Ojochal, but from the entire South Pacific area, to talk about these species, of which there is a lot of disinformation at the popular level and create awareness about them.

Therefore, the speakers explained how to identify certain species, how to know if they are venomous or not, what are the places in which they are commonly found, how to act when bitten, among other important and useful information.

After the talk, all attendees enjoyed a dinner that was possible thanks to all the contributions that each person brought, both to eat and drink.

After the break, at dusk, a walk was held with a group of visitors guided by Reserva Playa Tortuga staff. The night walk lasted approximately 1 hour and a half, and some of the species that could be observed were: common opossum, four eyed opossum, cat eye snake, tree Boa, caimans, different frogs, lizards, birds, bugs and spiders. Some of the species photographed are in the following gallery:

10 baby crocs on a nest were found at the Térraba River

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 17:37:54 +0000

Two weeks ago, during a night monitoring at the Térraba River, part of the RPT team found for the first time an American crocodile nest. There were 2 baby crocs already dead and another 8 were born. The measure of the baby crocs were on average 26 cm long.

What we can infer from this finding is that during this months (from March till June) births occur, so one must be alert, specially if a nest is found, since the mother is always near of it, so is advisable to get away of as the mother is especially overprotective on this season.

Another important time to emphasize, is the mating, since males are much more territorial and aggressive. This occurs during December and January. 15 days after mating the eggs are laid, and then nested for 90 days, resulting in births from March to June.

3 GPS loggers were set up in 2 crocs and 1 caiman

admin — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 20:09:29 +0000

As part of the Crocodilian Monitoring Project in August 2017 some staff members and volunteers set up the first of 3 GPS logger on talok (croc in Bribri) of a 2.5 mt American croc, at the Terraba River.

The main objetive of this project is to collect real-time information about the Crocodilians at the Reserve area: their distribution, relationship with the environment, and the human impact on the ecosystem. The research consists of nocturnal monitoring two times per week (depending of the tide) where the eyes of the animals will be detected with flashlights.

The night of the 14th of February 2018, it was set up the second GPS logger on a adult male caiman. That night, beside of setting up the logger, they counted 13 captures, which 3 or 4 were recaptured individuals.

5 days later, the job was finally done, after they setup the third and last GPS logger on a male American croc, of 1.8 mt. From now on this tagged animals will start sending data, which will be collected and analyzed, in order to help the conservation and management of this species by adding new information about its current status in the South Pacific of Costa Rica.

Thanks to all the people involved in this project: volunteers, interns, friends, local assistants, etc.