Manuel Antonio National Park.
Well today we had our first day in this region known as the Neotropics or the tropics of the new world, and what a day we had! The morning we spent in Manuel Antonio National Park in the Central Pacific of Costa Rica, considered one of the crown jewels of the national park system of this country; not only because of its beautiful beaches but also because of its remarkable wild life sightings. Today, Manuel Antonio lived up to its reputation. In just a few hours, we were able to see about seven three-toed sloths, one two-toed sloth, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, coatis, raccoons, agoutis, black iguanas, and white-throated capuchin monkeys. What a day we had on this “island” and that is the main reason why we had such a great show. Even though this is a land attached to the mainland, from the point of view of an animal this has become an island of green forest isolated from any other forest by pasture land, crop land, road and cities. The place is so small that it does not have enough resources to support big mammals, especially alpha predators such as jaguars and harpy eagles that control of the population of the medium sized animals. The consequence is that the medium sized animals result in a demographic explosion and that’s why we were spoiled with so many unreal sightings of medium-sized animals today. But it is not all good for these animals who don’t have any predators now because they are trapped as well in this man-made island and have to face inbreeding and heavy human impact without any place to escape.
So the future challenge for preserving this habitat will be to create a biological corridor between this place and some other national park so the resident animals can avoid these problems.
In the afternoon, the ship repositioned to a nearby beach, and we got our snorkel gear sorted and selected so we could explore the water and try out our gear. After some trial and error and some threat of rain, we found a nice rocky area to explore by snorkel from the Zodiacs, and although visibility wasn’t great there, were many fish to see.
So not bad for our first day in the tropics, or as I say “Neotropics.”
Well today we had our first day in this region known as the Neotropics or the tropics of the new world, and what a day we had! The morning we spent in Manuel Antonio National Park in the Central Pacific of Costa Rica, considered one of the crown jewels of the national park system of this country; not only because of its beautiful beaches but also because of its remarkable wild life sightings. Today, Manuel Antonio lived up to its reputation. In just a few hours, we were able to see about seven three-toed sloths, one two-toed sloth, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, coatis, raccoons, agoutis, black iguanas, and white-throated capuchin monkeys. What a day we had on this “island” and that is the main reason why we had such a great show. Even though this is a land attached to the mainland, from the point of view of an animal this has become an island of green forest isolated from any other forest by pasture land, crop land, road and cities. The place is so small that it does not have enough resources to support big mammals, especially alpha predators such as jaguars and harpy eagles that control of the population of the medium sized animals. The consequence is that the medium sized animals result in a demographic explosion and that’s why we were spoiled with so many unreal sightings of medium-sized animals today. But it is not all good for these animals who don’t have any predators now because they are trapped as well in this man-made island and have to face inbreeding and heavy human impact without any place to escape.
So the future challenge for preserving this habitat will be to create a biological corridor between this place and some other national park so the resident animals can avoid these problems.
In the afternoon, the ship repositioned to a nearby beach, and we got our snorkel gear sorted and selected so we could explore the water and try out our gear. After some trial and error and some threat of rain, we found a nice rocky area to explore by snorkel from the Zodiacs, and although visibility wasn’t great there, were many fish to see.
So not bad for our first day in the tropics, or as I say “Neotropics.”
