CITIZEN SCIENCE

Local youth leaders from our citizen science project “Vida entre Volcanes” on the northwest side of Costa Rica organized the third Christmas count together with members of the Tenorio-Miravalles Biological Corridor Committee and local businesses. This is an important step forcommunity-based conservation processes, as it will be theirfirst independently organized activity as part of the processof empowering communities about conservation actions at the local level and increasing their active involvement.

“Seeing how local youth raise their voices, get involved and actively take ownership of a process is a clear indicator that we are on the right track. Expect more about this bird count results in the next newsletter. ”

Sofia Pastor-Parajeles.

Moving to the southern part of the country, the Oncilla Conservation team held a workshop where 23 people participated (12 women; 6 indigenous) representing 9 Biological Monitoring Brigades of the Amistad-Pacific Conservation Area. Now more people know how to use the data analysis program CameraSweet, which enriches the results obtained from the monitoring. In addition, contacts were established for future collaboration, and a field trip is already being coordinated with the Las Tablas Brigade to carry out joint monitoring of the oncilla populations in the area, which is an area of interest and priority for the conservation of the species.

FROM THE FIELD TO THE COMPUTER

As a team we must ensure that our actions and decisions are evidence-based. In the highlands community of Herradura de Rivas, 9 species of both wild and domestic “carnivores” were identified from the catalogued files obtained from camera traps placed in chicken coops/traps by the Oncilla Conservation team. Although several wild species were identified as having a high potential to generate conflict with local producers (e.g. tayra, ocelot, raccoons, opossums, small wild cats), the only animals captured directly causing problems (preying on eggs) have been domestic dogs. A strategy to address the issue of responsible ownership of pets such as dogs and cats is now being proposed to address several real and potential threats such as disease transmission (zoonosis), competition for prey, direct attacks and conflict with local producers.