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Concluding Palo Verde. Part One

As the the waters of the marshland here in Palo Verde recedes for the remainder of the dry season it will ultimately force insects to leave for the season, crocodiles to retreat to the Tempisque river, and signal the end of our stay at the station. We have faced some of the hardest challenges so far here, I am not shy so say I have been reconsidering all the time if I am truly strong-willed enough to face the challenges we are presented as biologists, fragile humans, and citizens in a changing planet.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” Unless it is a research paper that was conceived and turned in a twenty-four hour period, a sobering personal statement by long-term researchers on how much harder it is to find their study animal with the passing seasons, or a dangerous animal that you know is only scared and defending itself the only way it knows how. I was told thick skin is necessary to face the rejection letters ecologists are going to receive several times over a career. But the truth is I am a fragile creature, and all creatures are fragile.

Our first Independent Project was, in my opinion, a success and a big sigh of relief. The time from me wanting to study human development’s impact on protected areas and Bridgett Gross of The College of Wooster(Ohio) wanting to learn more about ants and acacia trees to presenting a research proposal with a hypothesis and complex methods was a time period of about 15 hours. Additionally, we had a four day time period to collect data, and the temperature was at 102F at 9am every morning. I was really stressed out for a day because I did not understand how to use our statistical analysis program, until I calmed down and realized my professor didn’t know it well either and worked with us through using it. After we analyzed our data and answered our ecological questions we had at the beginning of the week my partner and I had about another 24-30 hour period to write up our individual research papers and complete, practice, revise, and present our Powerpoint presentation. I now have two biological/scientifically formatted papers under my belt!

I do not really remember what we even did here in terms of lectures and field trips, but we have two midterms on these things in two days. I was supposed to be studying plant and insect taxonomy as well, but I am only really an expert on mutualistic plants and ants.

Today is our first free day in two weeks, but no one is getting any rest today. By next week we will be back in San Pedro, and I will be with my Home-stay family. They are Cecilia and Carlos Ramirez-Gutierrez, a homemaker and sales agent. My classmates will be with separate families, from physical therapists to bakers. I look forward to a break from biology.

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A strange and terrible tale(Sorry, but this post is disgusting)

DSCN0982 Centipedes are of the class chilopodia. The are arthropods and common throughout the world. All Centipedes have front legs that have evolved to inject venom into their prey, which ranges from small insects and spiders to small mammals such as bats and rodents. Our professor is a sensible person on most dangerous creatures, yet he does not mess around with these things. He kills them on the spot.

I found this in my toilet one day, and somehow Christian had the idea to fish it out and play with it. This thing came back to life in the evening and died over the next night. We have an interesting theme of arthopods coming back to life here.

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Do you need to be in it to believe it?(Cuerici)

Our fireside chat with Don Carlos revealed many issues with oak-forest conservation. Firstly, it is not valued for what it is, rather for what it provides. Illegal hunting and cattle pasture make it a tough place to keep together. The research station of Don Carlos has been struggling to maintain itself for some time. There are simply less researchers and hikers at his site. In fact, he prefers not to have many Costa Ricans at his site because of an environmentally unfriendly attitude present in the Costa Rican culture.

My question that came up at a later discussion what whether we needed trails into the forest at all. Do conservationalists need to be allowed to see the forest they are spending money to protect? I argued that people should not feel they are entitled to accessing any ecosystem. They should feel obligated to protect any endangered forest, even though they may never see it for themselves.

Take the National Forests of the U.S. I own them. I pay for them, yet I may never see the national forests in North Carolina in my lifetime but I expect tax payer money is invest in maintenance and balancing “no man’s lands” with regions that permit cattle grazing or logging. If the American people were truly given free access to public lands, the lands, in my opinion, would all be harvested by the Ammon Bundys for cattle, mining, and logging.

I would much prefer that a self-sustaining land be left to itself without human interaction, to have watersheds as it needs or annual forest fires as it needs.

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Cuerici(From Feb10-14th)

Costa Rica’s high altitude climate is actually home to oak-dominated forest. This particular site was a private research station on the pacific slope operated by hunter and logger turned mountaineer and naturalist Don Carlos. It was incredible to see this after coming from La Cruces, a lower elevation wetter forest. We lived in the clouds, literally!

This site is subject to the same dangers as any tropical forest, where selective logging and apathy for a less iconic forest has made it a difficult ecosystem to inspire conservation practices in. The area is home to high altitude bamboo, which blooms on a 15 year cycle. Migratory birds attract bird enthusiasts(birders) and the bamboo then dies and restarts its cycle.

Higher up than the oak forest is the Paramo(Approx. 2800-3000meters), which I can best describe as sub alpine. Plants here are shrubs and stay low to the ground to encourage a wind boundary and also adapt to intense sunlight. However, our nature walk on the paramo was in fact during a wet storm system and we could only image walking over the continental divide and seeing both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from one standing position. Our second day was much brighter and we traveled to a different location, spending time viewing the pacific.

We were unable to stay too long however, and before we could settle in we arrived in Guanacaste province.

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Cuerici Trout Farm

Don Carlos is at a perfect elevation(2600meters) to raise a farm of Rainbow Trout. The water is cool enough to encourage good growth and the weather is consistent. Don Carlos used to sell trout to sport fishing industries throughout Costa Rica but now limits his selling straight to the market. On our last day we were given a special treat: we prepared trout from harvest up to the point where it would get cooked.

We netted several trout and I learned how to kill it. Even after the act, the trout was still slippery and would wriggle out of my hands! A pregnant cat lived on the farm and enjoyed licking the blood off of my fingers. The next task was to gut and clean the fish. We learned how to cut it up and remove the guts and blood veins. The leftovers were again given to el gato, who could use the extra protein for her litter. Don Carlos was insistent that the heart was edible and proved it by dropping one into his mouth. Mind you, these things are still undergoing the final automatic smooth muscle contractions.

I have eaten a still beating heart…it tasted like unsalted sushi…makes sense I suppose….

Another thing Don Carlos found difficult for Americans was to eat fish heads. So we proved to him we could still do it. The eyes are in fact quite nutritious, but the head is quite bony and difficult to gnaw on. So that is how I got to go through a traditional fish meal.

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(From a discussion with the professions during dinner)

A village needs at least a school, a church, and a convenience  store.

A town is an upgraded village with a bar.

Anything else is like a small city.

My favorite thing to see on the roads are the pit stop restarante y bar(usually with a Coca Cola sign on top) These places have the best vistas but are the only structures around normally.

Costa Rica’s definitions of town versus village