Turtle News from Ecological Group of Costa Verde Frank D. Smith - Ecological Group of Costa Verde
January 5, 2014

Four HP dinosaur printers

Hola Volunteers, Supporters and Readers  

By the end of December almost 83,600 hatchlings were released from both nurseries while the box nursery still contains 18 nests and the beach nursery has 32 late season nests. To date, we have recorded 1,165 nests and by the end of the season we may release over 88,360 baby turtles. The good news this season is that the box nursery produced an outstanding 88.32% survival rate (not a record but it's close!).

Weather-wise in San Pancho: Daytime temperatures were more or less in the high 70°s to mid 80°s. Night time temps in the mid 60°s.  Except for unseasonal rain there have been no outstanding weather events. Very light winds at times and mostly clear skies. December rainfall was 3.05 inches (5 inches at my house). Total rainfall for the year was 44.15 inches.

So what's up with the rain? We rarely receive any large amounts in December. To me, it looks as if heavy moisture off the Pacific was carried inland via the sub-tropical jet-stream which delivered an unheard of 5 inches of unseasonal rain.

Volunteer-wise: November volunteers: Joslin and Summer Bertrand, Aimee, Brian and kids, Jack and Summer Williams, Catherine Gockley, all from the US - Zsofia Cserhati, Hungary - Norma Patricia Rodriquez and Manuel Murrieta all from San Pancho.

For years finding enough volunteers has been a problem, in December 1999, we had received about 26 good applications with another 50 other inquiries. This December we’ve received only 6 applications and 8 inquiries. Why? Difficulties acquiring sufficient volunteers began on 9/11 and became worse after Wall Street tanked the world's economy. I believe that many people today, young and old, do not have the discretionary income that would allow them to comfortably join us.

Town and country wise: Tourism is back to normal, this holiday season was busy, while new construction and remodeling is at a near standstill. La Patrona restaurant and polo facility has closed and will reopen in November of 2014 at their new location just outside of town. The sewer plant has been built but like the gas station and the intersection in front of town, they have all been mañanatized (delayed). The peso/dollar has been stable: 12.7 cash, 12.85 checks to the US dollar, regular gasoline is $3.64 per gallon.

A little less than half of this season's Homeowners Directories have been printed and sold. Although when I was about to print another 16 copies when I discovered that our last good printer had given up the ghost and, try as I may, I couldn’t get it or the other three printers to work. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time! A week before Christmas when we were planning to double our efforts to bring in donations. A task that seemed impossible since last year's sales had dropped by 27% compared to the previous five years. And over the past two years we have lost over a dozen good donors.

In any case, over the past twelve years these four HP dinosaurs (see image above) produced over two thousands copies of the Homeowners Directories. To make a long story short, we purchased a new Brother HL-3040CN laser printer mainly because of its print quality, ease of filling the toner cartridge and no limiting chips.

Nevertheless, the purchase has set us back financially and to recover this expense we will have to make a spirited effort to sell even more copies of the Homeowners Directory and t-shirts in the coming year. If you have not received a copy of the Homeowners Directory, please, drop by the house or call me at (311) 258-4100 and I will deliver.

Sunset hatchling releases began yesterday. Look for the yellow dune buggy in front of the malecon. Also, bear in mind that at this time of year we do not have hatchling releases everyday.

Have a wonderful New Year,

Frank D. Smith
Director, Grupo Ecológico de la Costa Verde, A.C. (Project Tortuga)
San Pancho (San Francisco), Riviera Nayarit

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