Bottlenose Dolphins, Blue Waters, & Blackbirds in Belize

Scanning the blue horizon miles off the coast of Belize, my eyes finally catch a brief glimpse of gray. My wife drops the underwater microphone over the side of the boat while my daughter readies the video camera. A series of clicks over the speakers confirms the sighting – after more than an hour of searching, we’ve found the bottlenose dolphins that have brought us here to the Mesoamerican Reef.

Before my visit, I’d seen many pictures of impossibly turquoise Caribbean waters but was never entirely sure I believed them. Maybe the colors were manipulated, I thought. I’d seen beautiful ocean views in Costa Rica, Mexico, the US Virgin Islands, and elsewhere, but nothing quite matched the hues of those photographs – until I saw the electric colors of Belize’s coral reefs.

Setting out from Belize City, my family and I had traveled 25 miles by boat through the brightly colored water to Turneffe Atoll, out in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. Our destination was Blackbird Caye (named for the grackles that hang out on the beaches), site of the Oceanic Society’s marine research station.

Turneffe is the most biologically diverse coral atoll in the entire Western Hemisphere, home to mangroves, reefs, sandy islands, lagoons, seagrass beds, and more. The atoll also boasts the country’s only population of offshore Antillean manatees and the country’s largest population of saltwater crocodiles, while the mangroves are a nursery for many species of fish and other wildlife.

Upon arrival, we settled into our comfortable little cabin to watch the sunset and get ready for dinner. The local staff prepared fantastic meals of popular Belizean dishes for our family and the student group that was sharing the station during our visit. After an early night to bed, we woke up the next day ready to explore the reefs.

Our first stop was a reef near Calabash Caye, one of the best protected in the area. Among the elkhorn, staghorn, and brain coral, we saw Queen conch, lobster, and a small school of Caribbean reef squid. With its combination of hard and soft corals and schools of colorful fish, this reef was one of the healthiest I’ve ever seen in the Caribbean, comparable only to those of Tobago. After lunch, we also explored the reef in front of the station and were lucky to witness a brief view of a graceful eagle ray swimming by in addition to many fish.

The Oceanic Society opened its station in 1999 with the goal of studying the incredible amount of ocean wildlife in the area and protecting important habitat on Blackbird Caye. After years of research and advocacy, this area was declared a marine reserve in late 2012, finally affording protection to some of Belize’s most important ocean habitats. In addition to its contributions to the reserve, the Oceanic Society has contributed in other ways to the protection of this area, including testifying on the potential impact of oil drilling on dolphins (which was ultimately stopped) and providing employment and educational opportunities for local residents.

We had perfect conditions as we headed out the next morning to look for bottlenose dolphins. A flat sea made searching easy, helped by a lack of wind and good visibility. Accompanied by the Oceanic Society’s Eric Ramos, a laid-back graduate student studying marine mammals, we explored several lagoons surrounded by mangrove islands in our search.

Along the way, we saw a barge chugging along, carving out a bright blue line on the shallow ocean floor. While this area feels almost untouched by tourism, this boat on its way to supply a large new resort being built on a nearby island was a sign that even the new protections aren’t always enough to prevent damage to this fragile ecosystem. Fortunately, the country has largely been spared the coastal overdevelopment that has plagued Cancun to the north.

Soon we found Pat and Cat, a bottlenose mother and calf, who were feeding in the area called Grande Bogue. Cat, the calf, stayed close to mom as they cycled between feeding and resting. They both kept their distance from the boat but gave us a couple of opportunities to capture them with our cameras, underwater video camera, and audio recorder. On one pass, the calf, Cat showed our underwater camera its belly, a common behavior of young dolphins, allowing Eric to identify it as a male.

Eric has spent the past couple of summers here in Belize studying how the different vocalizations (clicks and whistles) correspond to their various behaviors. He is focusing on studying dolphin sounds, an increasingly important area of research as noise from boats and other human activities grows. One of the behaviors Eric is researching is the dolphin’s use of low-frequency sonar to stir up fish out of the seagrass beds to feed.

After lunch, we headed out again, this time finding another mother and calf known to researchers as Sawfin and Chance. Older than Cat, Chance ranged farther from mom as they moved around a lagoon near the research station. They made several passes by the boat, with this calf also showing its belly (though we already knew Chance was a female). They too bored of our presence after a while and moved on under the cover of the blue waters.

That night over dinner, we chatted with the station’s staff and students, reliving our experiences and hearing more about these amazing animals. In a single day we learned more about dolphins than we had from years’ worth of documentaries and movies, including how they communicate, what their daily life is like (hunt, rest, repeat), and how protective the mothers can be.

We also saw first hand some of the threats that the marine life of this area faces like increasing tourism and boat traffic. The research carried out by the Oceanic Society will help those who manage the marine reserve better protect dolphins and other wildlife.

Volunteer with dolphin research in Belize with the Oceanic Society

Volunteering in Mexico’s Riviera Maya

Head south from Tulum, Mexico until the paved road becomes dirt and you’ll have arrived at Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. A rare oasis in the Mexican Riviera’s crunch of large resorts, this reserve protects remote beaches, lagoons, coral reefs, mangroves, and more. Few of the millions of people that visit the Yucatan each year leave a positive footprint but volunteer tourism company Global Vision International (GVI) is one who puts it travelers to work on a dizzying array of programs.

Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve

I recently met up with GVI’s Country Director Lluvia Soto to visit their Pez Maya (translates to “Mayan Fish”) research station, run in partnership with Amigos de Sian Ka’an (a Mexican non-profit), to learn more about their work in the area. Along the slow drive navigating the unpaved road’s giant potholes, Lluvia introduced me to the various options open to people who want to give back to this special area.

My main interest was their new sea turtle conservation project. Green turtles and loggerheads nest on one stretch of beach in Sian Ka’an but local organizations haven’t had the manpower to work at this beach until now. GVI recently launched a new partnership with Flora, Fauna y Cultura de Mexico (a local NGO that is also a partner of SEEtheWILD) to have people patrol this beach for the first time. From May to October each year, volunteers will walk the 3 mile stretch, working with researchers to collect data on the turtles and make sure their nests are high enough up on the beach to avoid the high tide. Learn more about this volunteer program here.

While poaching doesn’t appear to be a problem on this remote beach, plastic waste is. Despite being miles from any town, the beaches in Sian Ka’an are routinely covered by trash floating up from around the world. At their nearby basecamp, volunteers do their best to stem this pollution with weekly beach clean-ups, collecting as much as a ton of waste in a day. They have also set up a recycling project at Punta Allen, a community located inside the reserve.

In addition to sea turtles and collecting plastic waste, GVI runs a wide variety of programs benefitting local residents and natural areas. Their coral reef research project has resulted in some of the best data of any stretch of beach along the entire Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. Volunteers who commit to a 6 month stay can get their dive PADI divemaster certification while exploring the beautiful coastal waters.

Their social programs include volunteering at a children’s center, assisting local veterinarians, and more. GVI’s support for local communities goes beyond volunteers; their Charitable Trust provides scholarships for students to go to school or get trained in various fields. Lluvia embodies this program, as she started out as a scholarship recipient and is now a community leader, helping GVI extend its reach across the Yucatan Peninsula to benefit both local communities and wildlife.

4 Wild Animals You Can Protect On Your Next Vacation

It seems that every day another news article comes out about animals facing extinction. The list of reasons is seemingly endless including loss of habitat, the wildlife trade, and climate change. What the media rarely covers is the stories of hope, where communities come together to protect the animals that live around them.

There are many of these stories around the world, where dedicated conservationists are coming up with innovative ways to help these endangered species recover while improving the lives of local residents. Many of these programs include volunteer activities for travelers to participate in research and conservation programs. 

Here are just a few of the opportunities for travelers to help wildlife:

(credit Elizabeth Moreno)

• Green Sea Turtles in Baja: Years ago, many turtle researchers wrote off Baja’s turtles as beyond saving.  However, an award-winning network of fishermen, scientists, and local residents called the Grupo Tortuguero formed to study and protect the region’s five species of sea turtles and numbers are rebounding. A new locally run business called RED Sustainable Tourism is helping these conservationists recruit volunteer help for their turtle research. Participants camp on a small island in Magdalena Bay and help to set nets to catch green turtles at sea and collect information on them before returning them to the water.

(credit Wild China)

• Giant Pandas in China: Pandas live in isolated patches of mountain forest in central China. Their numbers in the wild have dwindled to less than 2,500 due to conversion of forest to farmland and other uses. The World Wildlife Fund’s China program is working to expand protected areas and encourage local residents to protect their forests. Travelers with Wild China can track pandas in the Wanglang Nature Reserve, visit a panda breeding center, and support WWF’s efforts to train local residents as tour guides.

• Penguins in South Africa: More than half of the 18 species of penguins around the world are considered either threatened or endangered. The African penguin population has decreased 95 percent since preindustrial times due to competition for fish with fishermen and other threats. Earthwatch Institute has worked with local researchers for the past decade to study and protect the penguins living on Robben Island, famous for the prison that once held Nelson Mandela and many others during apartheid.  Volunteers will help collect data on the penguins including growth rates of chicks and survival rates, key information that is needed to develop long-term protection plans.

• Dolphins in Belize: The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef is the world’s second longest reef and is home to hundreds of marine species, including several species of dolphins. The Oceanic Society runs a marine station based on Turneffe Atoll that acts as a central location for researchers to study bottlenose dolphins, manatees, and others.