|
 This Months Success Story! Lavalamp arrived at KSTR in May 2017 after being severely electrocuted, after a lot of of hard work we were finally able to let here go free again at the same spot where she had been found. 🏝️🌿 It took the entire rescue, clinic and rehab team almost a year to get dear Lavalamp back in the right physical condition to release her. The past few weeks we have been observing her movements by night in our football field sized bootcamp area, where she seemed to make great progress in terms of muscle development, general movement and de-socializing from humans completely. Lots of love, from Lizzie in the jungle and Lavalamp from the wild, finally. Photo credit and written by @Lizziesworldadventures Read her entire post @Lizziesworldadventures  Kids Saving the Rainforest was featured in CityRefinery , a lifestyle blog following the adventures of a beautiful family who visited our wildlife sanctuary while in Costa Rica to learn about wildlife & how to protect it. Read about it here!  Last Chance to Donate for the Global Giving AcceleratorThere are only 2 days left in GlobalGiving’s Accelerator! Time is running out! Make your donation today! Thank you for your continued support and effort! Donate Today!  KSTR New Spokes kid Karma's March Article.Karma writes a monthly column in the magazine educating readers on important conservation issues and keeping tourists and locals alike up to date on what's going at KSTR. If you''d like to read her latest article, check it out here! http://www.quepolandia.com/ Read the Article!  Earth Day!
This Earth Day the community of Manuel Antonio & Quepos will celebrate in the most beautiful way ever experienced. A day that celebrates world-wide all efforts for enviromental protection and raises awareness for important causes incl. wildlife conservation, ending of plastic pollution, climate change and more. To celebrate we have united all local NGO´s and experts to offer the community a weekend filled with enviromental education, activities, work-shops, talks and much more. This event - you should not miss. Check the schedule to sign up for the activities you like to join. United we are - the following NGO´s, movements and specialist welcome you - Check out the event!
0 Comments
 By Karma Casey Hello again! This is Karma from Kids Saving The Rainforest. This month I am going to talk a little bit about our beautiful oceans! Here at KSTR, we mostly spend our time rescuing local wildlife and planting trees, but we care about the ocean too! Recently, some of our volunteers pitched in helping a beach cleanup with another great local group, Operation Rich Coast. They organize lots of beach cleanups in lots of different areas, so if you would like to help them out on their next beach clean-up follow them on Facebook at facebook.com/operationrichcoast. I am a very lucky person because I get to go to the Manuel Antonio beach almost every day! One day I was walking, and I found a piece of coral on the ground. It was white, and it still had a little bit of purple on it. I learned at my school, Life Project Education, that white coral is dead coral. I wondered, was this piece of coral being killed by something that humans had done? Coral reefs are very important. They provide shelter, and food for thousands of animals, and they also protect the coastline from wave action, and storms. All the time, people are discovering coral reef plants and animals can provide important medicines for things like arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases. More than one fifth of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed. At this rate, who knows what we are losing!  Climate change is another threat to coral reefs. Coral cannot live if the water temperature gets too high. A major issue is coral being killed by pollution. Many things are dumped into the ocean, such as oil, sewage, and run-off from farms. This pollution puts too much nitrogen in the water, which makes algae grow out of control, blocking sunlight from getting to the coral. How can you help coral reefs, you might wonder. Let me tell you! There are lots of ways you can help! If you are here on vacation, don’t buy coral as a souvenir to take home. Someone probably killed that coral and took it from the ocean to sell to you! If you scuba dive or snorkel, don’t touch the coral. It’s alive! It can easily break, or even get smothered by you stirring up sediment. Don’t leave your trash behind while you are at the beach. While you’re there, bring a couple of trash bags and do a beach clean-up! The trash you pick up will stay out of the ocean! There are more ways you can help protect coral reefs. Conserve water! The less water you use, the less wastewater runs off into the ocean! Walk or ride a bike, cutting down on burning fossil fuels. You can even plant a tree! Trees also reduce runoff, and they help fight climate change, which helps prevent coral bleaching. Kids Saving the Rainforest has a reforestation project in nearby Parrita. We have a goal of planting 94,000 trees. For more info on our tree planting, check out http://reforestationkstr.org. You can donate to plant a tree with us, helping us save the rainforest and coral reefs at the same time! Well, that’s all for this month readers. Thanks for your help protecting our planet! Don’t forget, if you find orphaned or injured wildlife that needs help, contact Kids Saving the Rainforest and we will come to the rescue! We have a brand new phone number just for animal emergencies! Contact us via WhatsApp at (506) 88-ANIMAL (8826-4625). RELEASE OF SQUIRREL MONKEYS AT KSTR
Kids Saving The RainforestKids Saving the Rainforest is in the process of establishing a reintroduction program for squirrel monkeys. Central American squirrel monkeys, also known as Saimiri oerstedi, are nearly extinct in Panama and are threatened in Costa Rica. There are only 4,000 individuals living in the wild, mostly in Manuel Antonio and Corcovado National Parks, located on Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. The low population of Central American squirrel monkeys makes reintroduction programs of these species very important to sustain the population and help reproduction. In order for the release to be successful, the monkey’s behavior and its predator responses are tested to see what chance the animal has to survive in the wild. The project requires sustained long term observations and research to ensure a successful reintroduction into the wild. One of our volunteers, Margarita Samsonova, is dedicating her time to observing candidates for release and has been testing their ability to respond to predators. The predator experiments were set on the monkeys six times using the scents of predators who are also rehabilitating in the rescue center. Scents of animals who hunt squirrel monkeys in Costa Rica such as dogs, white- faced monkeys, kinkajous and hawks were used along with their recorded vocalizations to test predator response. Pieces of cloth were placed in the predators’ enclosures overnight and then placed with the vocal recordings in the squirrel monkey enclosure the next day. A few of the squirrel monkeys had previously been kept as pets, so it is crucial to observe their reaction and behavior to get an idea of whether the release would be successful or not. It was observed that only four of the six candidates displayed “appropriate” behavior and reacted to the predator sound and smell the same as a squirrel monkey in the wild would. Two of those candidates didn’t approach the cloth with scent, meaning that they sensed the predators’ presence and didn’t want to risk danger. The other two squirrel monkeys, after some time observing the cloth, did get the food from it but retreated to eat it, which could mean that they saw no presence of predators and decided to quickly grab the food—a normal behavior of squirrel monkeys in the wild. The remaining two individuals came right to the cloth once it was put out; they didn’t react to any vocalizations and didn’t move from the cloth to eat the food, which could mean that those animals were domesticated and may have lost their natural instinct. The testing of behavior will continue until the beginning of April and the planned release is in mid-April. It is believed that pre-release monitoring and experiments will help to determine an estimation of which of the candidates would have high survival rates during reintroduction. We celebrate Women in ConservationTO MARK INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, WE CELEBRATE SOME OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN WHO'VE CHAMPIONED NATURE OVER THE YEARS. The world celebrates International Women's Day on 8 March – a day to mark women's achievements. International Women's Day is also an opportunity to fight globally for gender equality. We're celebrate the day by showcasing the accomplishments of some of the world's most amazing female environmental activists.  Jane Goodall: Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her over 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania in 1960.[4] She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots programme, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. She has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since its founding in 1996.[5][6] In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace.  Berta Cáceres rallied her fellow indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam. She was murdered in her home on 3 March 2016. As an indigenous, environmental and human rights activist she knew well the risks she faced and said publicly that she knew she was top of the army's list of wanted human rights fighters. But, she added, it would never put her off fighting for "our territory".  Minerva Hamilton Hoyt: The wonders of Joshua Tree National Park draw in millions of visitors every year. But without the efforts of Minerva Hamilton Hoyt, the park — and more importantly, the diversity of cacti species within it such as the odd and endearing Joshua tree — might not exist today. Hoyt recognized the need to protect and preserve these desert environments, and her work included exhibitions of desert plants, founding the International Deserts Conservation League, and serving on a California state commission where she recommend proposals for new state parks including Death Valley, the Anza-Borrego Desert, and Joshua Tree. Her tireless campaigning on behalf of stoic and fragile desert landscapes led to President Roosevelt’s administration to designate more than 800,000 acres in the area as the Joshua Tree National Monument in 1936.  Celia Hunter: fought alongside Mardy and Olaus Murie to safeguard the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and became the first female president of a national conservation organization--The Wilderness Society. She played a major role in the passage of legislation that protected over 100 million acres in Alaska. On her dying day she wrote a letter to Congress urging the protection of the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling. Conservation would benefit if more women were actively involved. That is the message from TBA Director Dr. Rosie Trevelyan
|
AuthorThe Kids Saving the Rainforest staff Archives
July 2018
|
Kids Saving the Rainforest
RSS Feed
|
|