The charity was established to offer some much needed monitoring, preservating and research to the extensive Peruvian coast while offering education to young and old.
Over the past month we been engaging with a variety of projects. Most frequently is the registration of sharks and rays caught by local fishermen. For this we go to the somewhat chaotic beaches where the fishermen land their boats and plead with them to allow us to measure any sharks and rays they catch. Surprising they are often more than happy to allow us to take measurements and muscle samples of the fish. Rosanna, our main senior at the charity, said it has taken over three years to build a good relationship. One man (Marco) even gave me two fish for my lunch! However, it's very disappointing to see so many tiny (50-80cm) sharks, mostly hammerheads (Sphyrna zygaena) landed. Weirdly the locals don't consider the baby sharks to be sharks. Apparently only the large animals are considered sharks by people of Peru. Crazy, they even have a separate minimus catch size for sharks and tollo (baby shark).
Another project we frequently help on is the logging of stranded turtles and sealions. There is a surprising amount wash up on the beaches. Over a 2 hour walk along the beach we would usually find at least two of each animal. Most of thm are in the late stages of decomposition but some a more fresh. We take size measurments to be logged in the database along with GPS information.
Aside from that we have spent time conduction in water habitat assessments for hawksbills turtles which are pass through Peru but no one knows why. Also, going to schools to give talks to the kids and marine life (something I hope to do more of), IDing whale shark photos to be used for a comparison of databases and finally a fair measure of beach cleans (so much plastic!!). Soon we will move to Los Organos a town with many turtles. Learning more and more Spanish everyday but still a long way to go!
https://www.ecoceanica.org/
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