CITIZEN SCIENCE
Three years of Seacow Conservation bioacoustic studies, together with the Barra del Colorado community allowed the identification of core feeding, passage, and threat sites for local manatee populations. “Scientific information accompanied by local knowledge, lets us to understand when and which areas of the Barra del Colorado Wildlife Refuge manatees use the most. Thanks to this we can implement efficient solutions with more precision and reach coexistence with the species,” Sofia Pastor-Parajeles, Coexistence Planning and Operation Coordinator, who has been leading the Seacow program since 2020. After sharing the results with the community, we both agreed to take action by placing four preventive signs in the most used sites by the manatee population, these areas also coincide with the main boat transit routes. Collisions with motorboats represent one of the main causes of mortality to the species throughout their distribution range.
We expect this signs to start having impact immediately, and become a key community element. Barra del Colorado is committed to the conservation of the manatee, as Lucy Abraham a community member commented:
“It is a privilege and I am proud to say that in Barra del Colorado there are manatees, and now with this knowledge we have to protect them even more because they are an attraction that can make my small town grow”.
From water giants to the largest terrestrial mammal, Nai Conservation is strengthening tapir-people coexistence by monitoring seven farms that implemented electric fencing around their crops to prevent tapirs from raiding crops. By now, our results show that we were able to reduce the tapir-farmerconflict in some of the farms. “Observing the farmers relieved and satisfied by knowing that the tapir is no longer raiding their crops, but still passing through their property is really fulfilling, it shows the essential background of coexistence” Jorge Rojas, co-coordinator of Nai Conservation.
