Turtle-wise, on July 9th, the box nursery was ready for operation after collecting 90 buckets of dry sand, or 1.6 tons. We have begun filling this nursery on July 17th, the first time in three years due to the pandemic. By the end of July, we had placed 81 boxes in the nursery, 40 were either left in place or relocated, and 1 nest was poached.
We were hoping to replace the Styrofoam nest boxes with biodegradable material, but that is not possible as the only biodegradable boxes are too small, but that may change soon (See image below).
We are extremely grateful for the many recent donors: Melissa McCann, Georgia Hanson, Patricia Schmidt, Jennifer Nelsen, Jayce Salloum, Dorothy Reilly, Lalo de Avila, Marci Farmer, Rickey Burke, and Susan Stephens. Without your donations, our work would be nearly impossible. If you can help us go to our PayPal account and help, it means a lot to us.
July volunteers: Juan Flores and family, Karen Sorum and Hallie Loveridge, Trinity Niko, Marci Farmer, Jessica and Mark Hiller, Cristian Garcia, Esteban Millard, Jennifer and Claudia Tsai, Veronica Bishop, Angie Dean, Roman Schlichting, Ryven Schlichting, Louie and Louise Christensen.
Our new 2022 nursery permit will allow the use of the Dune Buggy, Can-am, and the Honda CRV on all our nesting beaches. We are still looking to purchase or rent a small trailer that the Can-am can pull. It must be 6 to 10 feet long and no wider than the Can-am or 43 inches.
We would enjoy a few nice Facebook “Comments” from some of our 230 former volunteers, and if you have any interesting photographs or videos we can post on our Facebook site, or Instagram send them to either Jessica Schmidt or me, and we will share them for everyone to see.
Weather-wise: Temperatures during the day were in the low 90’s° to high 80’s°, while nighttime temps were in the mid to high 70’s°. Again, cloudy warm days. 3.22 inches of rain in July, and for the year rainfall came to 7.42 inches. By the end of last July, the rainfall total was 26.63 inches. The river has been totally dry.
Town and country-wise: Regular gasoline is around 4.61 dollars per gallon. The exchange rate is around 20 pesos per dollar. Most home construction has slowed down, as most trucks carrying building materials have ceased at last. Tourism has slowed down a little this month due to heat and humidity. On June 16th, like magic, a larger than a normal number of June bugs showed up at my door wanting in, along with hundreds of flying termites. The only insect I enjoy this time of year is the sound of the Cicada.