Plenty of animals in Osa pensinsula

Hello again.

As I wrote in my last report, I went to the Osa peninsula on the Southwest Pacific Coast after coming back from Curacao. I spent 3 weeks working with Osa Conservation. Most projects I stayed 4 weeks but this one was more expensive. They told me that it was because the area is very popular for tourists and people who want to work with them. The reason it is so popular is because it’s known as the most biodiverse part of (the already very biodiverse) Costa Rica. Osa Conservation is right next to Corcovado, the biggest National Park of Costa Rica. Therefore it recieves many reseachers and interns from both North- and South America as well as from Europe. During my time there I figured that it’s indeed a special and biodiverse place. One of the interns was studying a complete new termite species they discovered recently. Other people had been building different types of arboreal bridges to find out what sort of animals would use them and which structures and kind of material is more preferred by them. Unfortunately many researchers were away during the Christmas holidays, so I couldn’t participate in their fieldwork. Luckily there was also a seaturtle project and the seaturtle team had to patrol the beach every night for green turtles and olive ripley turtles that would nest at the beach. In contrary to my project in October, here there’s no pouching for the eggs, but there are racoons and coatis that would still predate the nests. The beach area we had to patrol was much smaller, so it was no so exhausting as at Playa Hermosa in October.

It was also the time for the baby turtles to hatch, so during patrol we also had to check the nests in the hatchery so see where turtles started to come to the surface. Many times only a few from the nest would be already at the surface, others would be crawling upwards or still be asleep and only be at the surface next morning. Therefore we also had to go to the hatchery every morning to release those ones. (Luckily the turtle team was big enough so we as volunteers only had to go a few times a week). Though the first time I released the baby turtles was very special and beautiful, actually every time we released them was a beautiful moment, hoping that enough of them will survive their fragile babytime and live long enough to become adults.

There were two species of sea turtles nesting on the beach, the green turtle and olive ridley turtle and it was interesting to see the difference between both species. The baby green turtles are bigger and also much more awake once they are hatching. On the video you can see that the moment we release them at the beach, the green turtle babies go much faster than the other ones.

Next to seeing all these turtles, I indeed saw many other animals and can admit that the chance to see animals is higher than anywhere else in this country. At our place we had spider monkeys passing by almost every day and every morning around 4.00am we heard the howler monkeys waking up. (compared to them, a roaster is a really silent animal). Scarlet macaws and parrots flew over every day and toucans could be heard (and seen if you know where to look for them) frequently. The project had a lot of trails through mainly primary forests where I saw my first squirrel monkeys in the wild. Primary forest means that the forest is original and tropical trees had all changes to grow, so next to animals I was really impressed by the size and height of some of the trees.

A high biodiversity and chance to encounter animals also has a backside though. On the trails, that were full of leaves that fall off during the dry season, the chance to have snakes hidden under it is much higher. Knowing that, definitely made it more adventurous all the times we went out on the trails, especially when I went on my own. And we did see several snakes while walking, sometimes sleeping next to a tree, other times moving next to the paths or even on the roof of the dinner area on the campus. One time though when I was looking for animals with two other volunteers, although looking around all the time, one of the other volunteers accidently did step on a poisonous baby fer-de-lance snake. Luckily it didn’t get offended and just moved towards a tree the moment it got free from the human shoe.

In the end there was just one animal that I started disliking, being a big male coati, who came in our dorm rooms almost every day. In the beginning I had some energybars there, locked in a box, but coatis turn out to be better than racoons in opening bags, zips and boxes. Removing all food to the central kitchen (the only place that could be really locked off for animals) didn’t help; next day it went for my teabags and even opened the bag with silica sachets. After putting these away, he didn’t do any more damage to my stuff. (although he still might have come in the next day). But the next week, I had a banana in my bag hanging on my bed during the night. Coatis are diurnal and still a bit afraid of humans, so it should be fine to have it there only during one night. Well, this coati didn’t know that it was not noctural and came back that night while I was sleeping, trying to steal my banana. After chasing him off, that morning I checked my bags again to be sure there was really no fool or anything interesting left. That day he got so frustrated when checking my room that he started eating my toiletpaper. Some animals really don’t know when to stop annoying people. On the other hand, some interns at the project told me they had snakes under their house, so things can always be more unpleasant.

Looking back I can say that, although I had to pay a lot of money and couldn’t join most of the wildlife programs, I absolutely liked my time there and the 3 meals we got prepared every day with lots of salade and vegetables were very good and professional.

After my stay at Osa Conservation I spend a little week on the other side of the peninsula as a tourist, where I did some snorkeling, hiking and swimming in a little desolate river, hoping to see some rare animals like tapirs and pumas. I saw some tracks but didn’t get the luck to see them live.

Last week I started my last project here in Costa Rica, on a place in the mountains where it’s much cooler. But I’ll tell you about that next time.

I wish you all some warmth, knowing that it’s really winter there. Hold on, when I’m back in a month, I will bring some sunshine.