Manuel Antonio National Park and the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Wow! What a start to our adventure we had today, indeed we couldn’t ask for a luckier day. Today the morning found us at Manuel Antonio National Park where we had an early start with a wake-up call at 5:45 am in order to disembark by 6:30 am, so we could explore the Park before it opens to the public! We began our trip in fine style; on our first hikes we saw howler monkeys, white-throated capuchin monkeys, red-backed squirrel monkeys, sloths, white-nosed coatimundis, long-nosed bats, and Central American agouti. And that was just what mammals we saw, but there were birds too! We saw Black-hooded Antshrike, double-toothed kite, Chestnut backed antbird and many others whose names have vanished from my mind right now, but I think you get the picture that we had a great time there.
This special place is also very interesting from the point of view of Conservation because even though it is attached to the mainland, it is effectively a small green island surrounded by cropland, houses, and pasture-land, and so it is basically a small living laboratory where we don’t know if it is big enough to maintain the wildlife it has nowadays. Indeed, there is proof that it is already too small to keep healthy populations of the large mammals and birds that need large tracts of primary forest to survive, and perhaps our only option for the future is to create biological corridors between this and other protected areas. Then the wildlife will have an option to move between this small island and other bigger areas, and hopefully avoid in-breeding with their close relatives. But that is an answer that only the future will let us know.
In the afternoon we moved to San Josecito beach where we had a great time playing with our snorkel gear, relaxing on the beach and on the short hikes where the stars of the day were the Scarlet macaws and the Toucans flying over our heads. Back on board the ship we had a beautiful sunset and cocktail hour with our evening recap.
Wow! What a start to our adventure we had today, indeed we couldn’t ask for a luckier day. Today the morning found us at Manuel Antonio National Park where we had an early start with a wake-up call at 5:45 am in order to disembark by 6:30 am, so we could explore the Park before it opens to the public! We began our trip in fine style; on our first hikes we saw howler monkeys, white-throated capuchin monkeys, red-backed squirrel monkeys, sloths, white-nosed coatimundis, long-nosed bats, and Central American agouti. And that was just what mammals we saw, but there were birds too! We saw Black-hooded Antshrike, double-toothed kite, Chestnut backed antbird and many others whose names have vanished from my mind right now, but I think you get the picture that we had a great time there.
This special place is also very interesting from the point of view of Conservation because even though it is attached to the mainland, it is effectively a small green island surrounded by cropland, houses, and pasture-land, and so it is basically a small living laboratory where we don’t know if it is big enough to maintain the wildlife it has nowadays. Indeed, there is proof that it is already too small to keep healthy populations of the large mammals and birds that need large tracts of primary forest to survive, and perhaps our only option for the future is to create biological corridors between this and other protected areas. Then the wildlife will have an option to move between this small island and other bigger areas, and hopefully avoid in-breeding with their close relatives. But that is an answer that only the future will let us know.
In the afternoon we moved to San Josecito beach where we had a great time playing with our snorkel gear, relaxing on the beach and on the short hikes where the stars of the day were the Scarlet macaws and the Toucans flying over our heads. Back on board the ship we had a beautiful sunset and cocktail hour with our evening recap.
