IFOP participates in the workshop “Evaluation of the nesting activity of the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) in the Galapagos Islands
October 15th, 2024
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador, Dr. Patricia Zárate, senior researcher of the Department of Oceanography and Environment participated as co-organizer and speaker of the workshop “Evaluation of the nesting activity of the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) in the Galapagos Islands”,
The workshop organized by Dr. Macarena Parra, principal investigator of the green turtle nesting project of the Charles Darwin Foundation (FCD), was aimed at park rangers of the Galapagos National Park Service (SPNG) and had as its main objective to evaluate the monitoring activities of the green turtle nesting in the Galapagos Islands, with a view to optimizing the protocols used and to guarantee the collection of comparable data over time and at a regional level. The Director of Public Use of the SPNG, Mariuxi Farias, gave the welcoming remarks and highlighted the importance of the event to strengthen the capacities and improve the knowledge of the park rangers, who are currently the main people in charge of collecting data at the nesting sites.
Dr. Zárate, who reactivated the research on the green turtle in the Galapagos Islands in 2000, when she worked for the CDF and who currently studies the turtles in the feeding areas of this species in our country, explained “the green turtles that we observe in Chilean waters come from the nesting colony of the Galapagos Archipelago, that is, they are born on the nesting beaches of the islands and travel to Chile to feed, when the breeding season arrives, they return to the islands to mate and nest, this cycle is repeated many times throughout their life.”
Dr. Zárate opened the workshop with a keynote lecture in which she reviewed the research and main results carried out on the green turtle in the Galapagos, highlighting the contribution made by the first researchers in the 70s and 80s, such as Drs. Peter Pritchard and Derek Green and biologist Mario Hurtado. Later, Dr. Zárate focused on the connectivity of the green turtle in the region and the threats that these organisms face in their feeding areas. She explained, “Green turtles that leave the islands leave the protection provided by the Galapagos Marine Reserve, becoming exposed to fishing activity, one of their main threats. The implementation of standardized methodologies in these habitats will allow us to generate critical information for the conservation of the populations of this species in the Eastern Pacific.”
The workshop also included the participation of Dr. Jeffrey Seminoff from the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of the National Marine Fisheries Science Center (NOAA-NMFS) and evaluator for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), who spoke about the latest evaluation process for the green turtle and the importance of maintaining long-term efforts to monitor the nesting activity of this species at key sites in the Galapagos and in feeding areas.
During the workshop, group work was carried out where park rangers, former volunteers, coordinators and researchers evaluated nesting monitoring. From this work, a series of recommendations were developed for the standardization and improvement of the data collected. The event culminated with a practical activity where park rangers and former volunteers, under the supervision of Drs. Parra and Zárate, monitored nesting under different simulated scenarios using models and green turtle shells on a beach at the CDF Scientific Station.
The conclusions and recommendations of the workshop were discussed by SPNG authorities and officials, Dr. Parra from the CDF and Dr. Zárate from IFOP who commented “the population diagnoses of species as long-lived as sea turtles require long time series, with similar monitoring efforts so that they can be compared and applied to the management of this species. Only in this way will it be possible to establish the conservation status and threat level of this species at a regional and global level.”
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