On the Expedition
Protect endangered black sea turtles by helping scientists learn more about these fascinating seafarers at their feeding grounds in Mexico
You’ll work from small boats and sea kayaks on the blue tropical waters of the San Ignacio Lagoon, surrounded by the Mexican desert of Baja California Sur. You'll spend your days on the water, helping researchers search for, track, and observe the behavior of black sea turtles. You’ll assist with capturing and marking turtles to collect data on their size and weight, attaching and using GPS/VHF transmitter tags, helping deploy and recover the underwater “TurtleCams” mounted on the turtles’ shells, and performing seabed biodiversity sampling. You’ll also help continue last year’s studies on turtle mortality in the area, which led to a clampdown by the Mexican authorities on illegal fishing and a subsequent improvement in mortality figures, to improve the data driving this progress.
Meals and Accommodations
You’ll sleep in two-person cabañas in a breezy wilderness camp right on the shores of San Ignacio Lagoon. You'll eat tasty Mexican and Baja cuisine prepared by the project staff and served in an open thatched hut, or palapa, where you can engage in evening discussions about the project and the region. Solar-heated showers are available every other day due to a limited fresh water supply; you’ll have access to both flush and composting latrines, and the camp has limited electricity provided by solar and wind power backed up by small gasoline generators.
About the Research Area
The project is based at a wilderness camp on the shore of San Ignacio lagoon in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The camp is located in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve at the edge of a coastal desert which is surprisingly rich in diversity. The coastal air brings moisture into the desert, so many of the salt-tolerant plants are able to live in the sandy soil. The low-lying areas at the interface between desert and lagoon feature extensive mangroves – densely packed shrub-like trees teeming with both plant and animal life. The research will be conducted within the lagoon and the coastal waters of Baja California from Punta Abreojos to San Juanico. Sea turtles are distributed throughout the research area, making different uses of its various areas and their attributes.