Joe Nunez-Mino: An update on all our activities is long overdue, apologies to everyone following our progress.
While I have been away in the UK, Pedro has been kept pretty busy here in the Dominican Republic exploring some new areas (something you can read about further down). While on the subject of exploring new areas, the project has now obtained permits to continue doing research on the solenodon and hutia at the nationwide level rather than being restricted to three of the national parks (which was the situation up until now) thanks to the support of the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources.
While I was in the UK we held a very successful event at the London Apothecary Centre which consisted of a series of talks and accompanying photo exhibition. We managed to raise over £1000 for the project and also raised awareness of the project at several levels. We had visitors from the Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism in addition to representatives from the Dominican Republic London Embassy including his Excellency the ambassador Anibal de Castro. All were very encouraging and pledged their support for the project.
We hope to hold similar events in the future both in the Dominican Republic and the UK. In fact, plans are developing to hold a reception in the Dominican Republic to celebrate the first year of the project as part of the International Year of Biodiversity in October. The UK ambassador to the Dominican Republic, his Excellency Steven Mark Fisher, is to host the event at his residency in Santo Domingo. Further support for the event has also been pledged by the director of the Dominican Republic national zoo, Dr Patricia Toribio.
Let me hand you over to Pedro.
Pedro Marinez: This time it is my intention try to draw a field report of the crew activities during late June through to July which is the time that Joe was taking his vacation back in the UK.
We had a first trip to Parque del Este during this time and set our camp in Boca de Yuma. We soon realised that staying there was a matter of life and death. After almost being eaten alive by a plague of mosquitoes, we decided to move the camp to Guaraguao another one of the park’s cabins in the Bayahibe area. There things went a little bit better although we did not escape the merciless mosquito attack completely but, at least we had electricity and water.
Honestly, not all was that bad during this trip. We found in some areas of the park what we think could be very different evidence from what we have been seeing in the other two parks where we have been working (Parque Jaragua and Parque Sierra de Bahoruco). We definitely need some more conclusive evidence but at the same time the idea that we have encountered something different is very exciting to us.
From Parque del Este we moved to Parque Jaragua where little work had been done there. Parque Jaragua is a different kind of environment, a very dry type of forest with lot of cactus and a tree called Guao, that no matter how far you pass them, you have the feeling that a nest of Amazonian killing ants is heaven.
I hope the next issue brings even better news.
Joe Nunez-Mino: shortly after my return to the Dominican Republic we decided to launch into the field which is where I am writing to you from right now. At the moment I am in very comfortable Punta Cana where we are looking to confirm the presence of solenodon. We have strong evidence that they are here but it is not yet conclusive – camera traps have been strategically placed and the next few days will be crucial. By the way, we have officially launched our twitter site - http://twitter.com/solenodon_joe which we will update whenever and wherever we have a phone signal. This will give a blow by blow of what the team is up to.
The first five days in the field were spent in Parque del Este where we explored very remote areas in the southern part of the park which can be accessed by boat although this is expensive and our budget does not quite stretch to it. Instead we took the much harder route by foot. It involved six hour treks through blistering hot sun and although mosquitoes and sand flies were a problem they were no where near as unbearable as the previous trip that Pedro took to this area. The park hut that we stayed in, Las Palmillas, is right next door to a very popular tourist site. Tourists are shipped in daily in a variety of boats in order to dine on Lobster. The beaches are spectacular in the area, the forest equally so.
A local park guard accompanied us in our surveys in order to become acquainted and trained in the survey methods we use. We found further ‘different’ evidence just like Pedro and the team had discovered further north although we still don’t have anything conclusive. We will continue our quest to establish the whys and why not’s of the evidence we are finding in this region of the country.
Other news includes the fact that the project has now been listed on the website for the British Chamber of Commerce for the Dominican Republic. Although not directly connected to the project its great to report the fact that the Dominican Republic has now released a stamp with a solenodon on it.
Dr Rebecca Coe who is an educational officer from London Zoo will be arriving in the Dominican Republic next week to work along side Ivelisse Diaz Sosa who heads up the educational department at the national zoo. Jointly they will further develop the educational program that will aim to increase the knowledge and awareness of solenodon and hutia amongst school children at the nation wide level.
We hope not to take so long before the next update but remember you can always follow our progress on facebook or for more regular updates on twitter.
Read previous blogs from The Last Survivors project here, and to support the conservation of EDGE species please donate here.
I don’t know how but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) figured out that it is my birthday today (17th June) and I suspect that’s why they decided to make the solenodon the “Species of the day” today.
Its all part of the IUCN involvement with the “International Year of Biodiversity” so please do check out and download the information which is available here (If your reading this after the 17th of June then go here). The whole of the last survivor’s team feel extremely privileged to have one of our species honoured in this way.
I’m off back to the UK for a while for mostly a holiday although I will also be doing a series of talks along with Sam Turvey during an exhibition of incredible images by some outstanding photographers from the Dominican Republic who have kindly donated their work (which will be on sale) to the project. It’s all part of our celebration of international year of biodiversity. For more information about the event in July click here and to book tickets go to http://www.londonapothecary.co.uk/special.php
The BBC coverage we have had this month has been truly amazing and has brought the work we are doing into the limelight. We cannot thank Rebecca Morelle and Simon Hancock from the BBC enough for all the hard work that they put into this. They are now officially honorary members of “The Last Survivors” team for life.
I mentioned in my blog in May that the rainy season appeared to be late this year but it has now arrived in earnest. It delayed some of our field work for a bit but Pedro managed to get out last week into Bahoruco to look for evidence of our two species in some tough to get to sites. Despite getting soaked for two days in a row they managed to get all the work done. While they were in the field they came across the remains of a solenodon, unfortunately it was mostly just bones so it is difficult if not impossible to figure out exactly what the cause of death was. There are quite a few to choose from unfortunately, dogs or poison to name two. Of course it may have been an entirely natural death – lets hope so!
One of the project partners, Dominican Republic National Zoo (ZOODOM) has had visitors from the UK. Namely Pam Broughton from the North Wales Bird Trust who runs a collaborative project doing research and trying to conserve the Ashy faced Owl (Tyto glaucops). This stunning bird is yet another of the amazing species that is only found on this Island. Since her return to the UK she has been spreading the word of our work while we in turn have promised to keep an eye out for any signs of all five owl species found here while we are out in the field. Potentially some of these owl species could be natural predators of solenodon! Pam has also managed to do some fund raising for us, thanks!!!
Cristina, who I told you about in my last blog, has done some amazing work while she has been out here with us. She has managed to interview about 250 people across nine communities near one of the national parks in just under two months. Her contribution to the project in terms of giving us some sturdy base line data on the level of awareness and perception of the two species will prove very valuable indeed.
We have continued to forge away in our efforts to form links with a variety of research and educational institutions in the Dominican Republic. These should be formalised over the coming weeks and will give us a base from which to make sure that the benefits of our work reach as wide an audience as possible. On that note, we will be joined by Rebecca Coe who is an educational officer from ZSL London Zoo for three weeks in August. We are looking forward to Rebecca’s arrival already, she will be advising and guiding our educational program aimed at kids and young adults.
Right, I’m off to pack but I’ll leave you in the very capable hands of Pedro and the rest of the team. I doubt I’ll be missed at all although I am already looking forward to returning in July to find out what has been going. I’ll no doubt not be able to resist check in on the blog to find out!
We were not expecting to write another blog until mid June but there is lots of exciting news that we want to share with you and so it warrants this special edition blog.
Cristina Fernandez Secades, a student from Imperial College, has joined the project. She has hit the ground running and has already had a very productive time interviewing people in villages located near one of the national parks. The Masters project she is carrying out has two main objectives:
1) to establish the level of predation that solenodon and hutia are suffering because of wild and domestic dogs;
2) finding out the tolerance of people to damage of crops/livestock from both endemic and introduced species before a response is triggered, in addition to assessing the type of response created (e.g. poison, traps, hunting, etc).
Arguably the most exciting news is that we have had a BBC reporter and cameraman accompany us for a week while we were carrying out field work. Their time out here coincided with a visit from Dr. Sam Turvey (Zoological Society of London; EDGE) and Dr. Richard Young (Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust) which meant the BBC were able to get the whole “Last Survivors” team in action. Various reports have been produced and will be shown on the BBC website, radio and TV.
The first report, entitled “Ghost hunters: On the trail of a ‘living fossil” is available on line from the BBC website here and you can watch the second report, entitled “The cave of bones: A story of solenodon survival” here.
I’ll post details of other reports and programs on here and on our facebook groups as soon as we know the links and time of showing – so keep an eye on this space!
You may have noticed the next bit of news already, namely the fact that the project now has its own logo. This eye catching logo was designed and donated by Ivan Mota from “Unknown”. We hope you love the logo as much as we do. This image will be representing us and will be used in all the material we produce in order to educate people and increase awareness of the endangered mammal species of the Caribbean.
We have made a major update on the website to enable all of you to track our progress on establishing the past and current distribution of the Hispaniolan solenodon and hutia. You can check out the map as it currently stands here. Don’t forget that this is a dynamic map that will be regularly updated so keep coming back to it to see where we have managed to find signs or even seen our two secretive mammals.
Finally, Joe Nunez-Mino will be back in the UK in July and will be giving a series talks along with Dr Sam Turvey. The Apothecary centre, where the talks are being held, will also be hosting an exhibition with a selection of photos from some very talented Dominican Republic photographers. These photos will not simply be about solenodon and hutia but also include photos of some of the other unique fauna and flora of the island along with photos of people and landscapes. The event is ticketed and photos will also be on sale with all proceeds benefiting the conservation project. For further details of the event and how you can get tickets please go to the Apothecary Centre website.
One bit of news from the field work that we’d like to share with you is the fact that this week we got a report of a solenodon family that had been cornered by dogs and captured by local villagers. Luckily, we were contacted on this occasion and after rushing to get to the remote area where the solenodon were, we were able to ensure their prompt release after checking that they were in good condition and had no injuries that may have impacted on their chances of surviving. The project will continue to try and make more people aware of these mammals at the same time as we learn more about them in order to reduce these sorts of incidents from occurring.
Another update coming soon with more details about the BBC visit along with Sam and Richards’s time in the Dominican Republic.
Back in the UK you have been experiencing the arrival of spring, here on the Island of Hispaniola we are still waiting for our next season to start in earnest – namely the rainy season.
The island is currently experiencing a bit of a drought and although this is not a good thing in general, it has meant that we have managed to avoid any major soakings since our last update. That’s not to say that no rain has fallen, it just means we have not been caught out in the field when it has. However, instead we have had to cope with searing hot temperatures in order to look for solenodon and hutia in remote sites which can only be accessed via very long treks through areas of dry forest with little or no shade. It’s been tough going!!
Luckily for the Dominican Republic and unlike its neighbour Haiti, a lot of its land is still covered in forest which has allowed it to withstand the worst effects of the current drought relatively well. The main area where we have been working since our last update is the north of sierra de Bahoruco national park where it seems that since the creation of the park there has been some natural regeneration of the forest in what was previously agricultural land.
Happily we found lots of signs of solenodon in the area and we managed to capture two individuals in order to take genetic samples. Unfortunately we did not encounter any hutia populations. While working in this area we were very lucky to be able to stay in a small community called Puerto Escondido at the Tody Tours campsite which is owned by Kate Wallace. Kate and her bird touring company is yet another organisation that has leant its support to the project, something we are particularly grateful for since it meant we were staying in relatively luxurious comfort after our very long sweaty treks into the surrounding forest.
Solenodon have been in the national press over the last few weeks since at least two individuals were caught by local villagers in an area that was being cleared for agriculture. This area, named Hato Mayor, is in the east of the island and is the same area where a farmer caught a couple of solenodon 44 years ago, causing a lot of debate in the national newspapers back then. There is some cringe-worthy TV footage of one of the animals caught recently which you can watch here. Sadly these animals were caught during the day (remember they are strictly nocturnal!) as they searched for a new home after their habitat was destroyed. One animal was later released while another was taken to the National Zoo (one of the project collaborators) to be taken care of while a new location for it to be released into is found.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources has called for a halt to any further land conversion in the area until the status of the solenodon community is established. We held a press conference in order to lend our support to the ministry and to inform the wider public of how solenodon are fairing in areas where forest is being allowed to return and in other areas where its being cut down – this all reflects the very mixed picture for solenodon across this large Caribbean Island.
We have been holding a series of talks for kids aged between 4 and 14 at the Kids Museum in Santo Domingo, the capital city of Dominican Republic. Kids from all over the country came to the talks and it was interesting to see how few of them (less than 1 in 10 on average) knew about their last two endemic non flying land mammals. They were all fascinated to find out about them and their obvious pride in them was easy to see. Hopefully it will inspire some of them to take an active role in conservation in the future.
The international press have continued to show a lot of interest in the project and we did a couple days of filming with a Brazilian TV programme called “Wild Adventure”. An hour long programme about the project will be televised later on this year in one of the most widely viewed wildlife programmes in Brazil.
On a completely unrelated front, we are in the grips of election madness here in the Dominican Republic with a major congressional election happening ten days after the one in the UK. The whole country will be electing 32 senators and 178 local representatives. Every road and village is covered in all the different flags representing the various parties, its definitely making the whole place very colourful and interesting to drive through as we travel to our field sites.
Thanks from all “the last survivors” team for your support and encouragement. Don’t forget to get in touch with any questions or comments.
by Pedro Martinez and Jose Nunez-Mino The Last Survivors
JOE NUNEZ: As always, we have been pretty busy since our last blog posting. Pedro will tell you all about our latest rounds of field work but first I want to take the opportunity to update you on other fronts.
We have had our first training session over Skype with Daniela Rusowsky (www.funkproductions.wordpress.com) who is teaching all of us how to use a camcorder effectively in order to produce a series of infomercial films targeted at various audiences (kids, teenagers, organizations and for the international community). We have all had a bit of practice with the camera now and are having a good laugh filming each other, will let you know how this progresses. A series of PowerPoint presentations have also now been created for the educational department at the national zoo which is a great opportunity to let more people, particularly young people, know about these remarkable mammals.
The number of individuals and organisations which are showing an interest on the work we are carrying out is growing steadily. We are really keen to get as many of these to participate actively. It will be an ongoing process since they will be crucial in order to create a sustainable long term project. Particular thanks has got to go to ecological foundation of Punta Cana for allowing us access to their land as well as covering the cost of our food and lodging while working there. We have also had support from The Nature Conservancy and the National Geological Survey in the form of GIS layers (basically different types of electronic maps). These maps have already proven really helpful in planning our research and will be crucial later on in the project in order to analyse our results and come up with some management and monitoring suggestions.
Unfortunately I’m stuck in the office for the time being doing essential administrative stuff that I have been putting off. I’ll miss not being out there with our great team for the next week or so but the need not to stay out of the forest for too long will urge me on to get the less exciting but just as essential work out of the way. Right, I’ll hand you over to Pedro…
PEDRO MARTINEZ: On February 1st 2010, I officially joined the project “The Last Survivors“. Right away, we headed out to pick up Nicolas and LLeyo, the other two members of the field team. During our first night, we took a walk into the forest looking for some solenodon and hutia in order to collect tissue samples for genetic analysis. Thirty minutes later, LLeyo emerged with a solenodon in his hands. Amazing! The following day, we set up camp up at Pelempito (an area in the south west of the country inside Sierra de Bahoruco National Park) from where we started the field work.
A few days later, we moved to Fundacion Punta Cana in the East of the country where we found good evidence of both hutia and solenodon. From Punta Cana we returned to Santo Domingo for some office work, and to plan the next steps of field work. Having generated a series of the random points following the elevation gradient (from about 400m to over 2000m) within Bahoruco we headed back out to the field. Three days of heavy rain almost ended our expedition; however, we got lucky on the fourth day when a sudden change in the weather made all of us feel a lot better.
After three days of work in Pelempito we moved to a place known as cabin number two which is an old disused sawmill, one of the many distributed across the country, previously used for cutting down thousand of pines for timber. According to Nicolas, who by the way is a great story teller, it was here where a dog killed five solenodon in one night. According to old park guards, solenodon use to be common here and even use to scavenge near the cabin. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
So far, this last phase of the work has been the most demanding one, basically due to the steep slopes and the difficulty of getting into and out of some sites, particularly the ones in the tangling cloud forest. However it was definitely worth while. To our surprise, we found evidence of both hutia and solenodon in some parts of the upper Cordillera. The evidence suggests that they mainly occur in areas where broadleaf patches were relatively close by. We initially planned to go to one site a day but moral was high amongst the group and almost everyday we managed two sites.
We also had the chance to verify the story that Nicolas’ son, Yimell (an aspiring young biologist who came along with us), had told. He claimed that he had seen hutia dung in a mangrove area near the town of Pedernales (very close to the border with Haiti). At first there was a certain sense of disbelief about it, so, on our way back to Santo Domingo we stopped by the mangrove area and found clear signs of the presence of hutia, it was unbelievable.
Finally, the team this time will split in two. I will be working with Nicolas and LLeyo back in the area around cabin two and Joe will stay at the office finishing necessary reports. We will miss you man!!!!