Impact of 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on environmental education and leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) nesting monitoring in Pacuare Reserve, Costa Rica

Abstract

Sea turtles are one of the most difficult species to monitor due to their life cycle, as they spend over 90% of their lives in the ocean. Most practices used to assess species trends are implemented on nesting beaches. Pacuare Reserve has been protecting four different sea turtle species since 1989 and receives hundreds of students annually who assist with gathering data to assess each species' conservation status, primarily on the leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). However, in 2020 the COVID-19 lockdown led to the confinement of almost two-thirds of the human population, resulting in serious economic difficulties for Pacuare Reserve's operation which depends on student groups and visitors for its funding. Environmental education significantly decreased and night censuses operated from only one of two research stations to reduce costs. Census duration doubled in order to continue monitoring 5.7 km. We predict that these challenges negatively affected monitoring efforts, as measured in terms of poaching, turtle encounter rate and nest protection. Our findings reveal that the poaching rate slightly increased from 2019, possibly due to fewer censuses per night. Nest management was modified due to logistical challenges; however, a new relocation zone resulted in high hatching success despite relocating nests much farther than in previous seasons. Furthermore, researchers encountered a higher percentage of nesting turtles. Overall, the global lockdown due to COVID-19 did not weaken leatherback nesting monitoring efforts. This analysis provides lessons learned for similar efforts worldwide to ensure their robustness during times of fluctuating human and capital resources.Pacuare Reserve DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13075823.v1.