whats happened to the animals in puerto rico since maria

On September 20, Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, wiping out its electric grid, crippling its water supply, and displacing tens of thousands of people. Shortly later on the storm, Governor Ricardo Rosselló called the crisis a "humanitarian disaster."

Some of the island's about imperiled wildlife and their habitats also took a hitting.

This past April, NATURE aired Viva Puerto Rico, an episode about the isle'due south vibrant wild animals focusing on three iconic animals: manatees, leatherback turtles, and the Puerto Rican parrot. We checked in with some of the people involved in conserving these animals to run into how they weathered the storm.

MANATEES

At the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Center, manager Tony Mignucci and his squad had 4 manatees to protect: Guacara, 12; Aramana, vi; Tureygua, 2; and Mabo, not yet 2. (You may recall from Apr's episode that Aramana was released into the wild, but Mignucci's team noticed that he was losing weight and had to bring him dorsum to the Eye to bulk up.)

Guacara and Aramana remained in their tanks during the storm, which is typical protocol for a disquisitional care facility like theirs, according to Mignucci, who is also a marine sciences professor at Interamerican Academy, where the Centre is located. "Animals are usually left in their tanks, and the water is lowered, then six hours before the hurricane hits, it becomes a thing of human lives that take to exist saved and secured," he told NATURE in a phone interview in late October.

Mignucci's squad besides cleared the area effectually the tanks from debris that could otherwise fly in and injure the animals, and put water hyacinth in the water to serve every bit a snack, as well as a protective buffer.

Simply Mignucci had other plans for Tureygua and Mabo, the latter of whom still requires canteen-feeding. He loaded them into the back of a option-upwardly and took them habitation, where they hunkered down in his swimming pool. "I mean, what can I practice? The hurricane is coming. I'm not going to leave the footling kids behind!" said Mignucci. During the storm, he noticed that the youngsters lingered at the bottom of the pool, abroad from the choppy surface. They were pool guests for iii weeks.

IMG_5421

Mabo awaits delivery to Tony Mignucci'south swimming puddle. Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Center.

IMG_5414

Tureygua and Mabo, the Middle's 2 younger manatees, spent iii weeks in Tony Mignucci'due south swimming pool, where they fascinated his dog Casper. Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Eye.

Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Heart.

Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Center.

Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Centre technician Natalia Jiménez canteen-feeds Mabo. [Under the authority of USFWS Permit # MA231088 &/or MA791721 & PRDNER CSN LOA 2014-2019 &/or PRDNER Endangered Species Scientific Let] Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Heart.

Fortunately, all four manatees under the Center's care survived and were uninjured. Their tanks and filters also remained intact, but the pumps were damaged.

Other infrastructure fared even worse. The Category 4 storm destroyed the Eye'south veterinarian clinic, laboratory, quarantine pools (where new arrivals go), and the tent where the team cultivates water plants to feed the manatees.

The Center has suffered "easily a quarter of a million dollars in amercement that we are raising funds for," said Mignucci. "We have heavy work until early of next yr to get back into the routine." Just importantly, the team is yet able to go on the manatees safe and salubrious.

"I recall the main message is that even though nosotros accept been devastated by a hurricane, both at the human being level and at the wildlife protection level, we're standing up, shaking it off, and starting once again," said Mignucci. "Puerto Rico se levanta (will rise)."

PARROTS

A wild Puerto Rican parrot (Amazonia vitatta) in Rio Abajo Forest, Endangered Species Recovery Project, Puerto Rico.

NATURE's Viva Puerto Rico episode also focused on the Puerto Rican parrot, a verdant bird endemic to the isle. The U.S. Fish and Wild animals Service (FWS), along with the Puerto Rico Department of Environmental and Natural Resource (DRNA) and the U.S. Forest Service, manage a recovery program designed to bring the critically endangered species back from the brink.

In the wild, Puerto Rican parrots currently alive in 2 locations: El Yunque National Forest in the northeast, and Río Abajo State Wood, farther west. Meanwhile, aviaries in the vicinity of each forest house captive birds every bit function of a convenance program that has been essential to bolstering the population. (A third group of captive birds in Maricao State Forest, in the southwest, were transferred to the aviary nigh El Yunque shortly subsequently the hurricane.)

In preparation for the hurricane, caretakers moved the captive birds into shelters, and rode out the tempest in close proximity. Ricardo Valentín, an aviculturist with DRNA, knows the drill well. He's been working with Puerto Rican parrots for near three decades, and lives at the Río Abajo Aviary for the bulk of each week.

"Allow's put it this style: by the fourth dimension we go a tropical storm alarm, we already are preparing for a hurricane," said Valentín in a phone interview on November 1.

All captive birds—approximately 400 of them—survived the storm. Notwithstanding, in that location were some stress-related deaths during subsequent days, according to Tom White, a wildlife biologist with FWS who, along with his wife, sheltered with the captive birds at Luquillo-Iguaca Aviary, near El Yunque National Forest.

The storm took a price on infrastructure, too.

At the Río Abajo Asylum, fallen copse and droppings trapped Valentín and biologist Brian Ramos on site for eight days. "Non only that, we lost electricity and the water system was severely damaged. And that's the thing, the water system is underground—information technology was that bad," Valentín said.

While Valentín's house and the larger bird cages survived relatively intact, most of the smaller cages at Río Abajo Aviary were destroyed, he said. Thankfully, Luquillo-Iguaca Aviary escaped with less infrastructural harm.

Parrot habitat, however, is in tatters.

At Río Abajo, about fourscore percent of the forest was severely affected, Valentín estimated. "At that place was and so much damage that the just copse that remained with whatsoever kind of fruit were the [royal] palms," he said. The silverish lining is that the impairment was patchy, leaving spots of surviving flora amongst the wreckage. "In that location are areas that are still very useful for the parrots, and areas that will take a long time to recuperate," Valentín said.

It'due south also encouraging that Puerto Rican parrots aren't picky eaters. They're generalists, able to swallow the leaves, fruits, or seeds of more than 40 species of copse and shrubs, co-ordinate to Valentín. "That helps them in this situation, where virtually of the food is destroyed, but at that place is withal some kind of food in the woods," he said.

Valentín noticed the parrots' survival instincts kick into gear soon after the storm, when he witnessed more than 30 birds foraging on the basis equally if they were chickens—a rare behavior for a canopy-dwelling bird.

Of the roughly 134 to 150 wild birds thought to exist living in Río Abajo State Wood earlier the hurricane, at least xc accept been confirmed alive, according to Valentín. He attributes the high survival rate to supplemental food that his squad provided during the aftermath of the tempest. "We fed the wild population and avoided losing birds to starvation or having the flock disperse and carelessness the wood looking for nutrient in far off places," he wrote in an electronic mail.

At the aviary in Río Abajo State Forest, aviculturist Ricardo Valentín witnessed a sight he's never seen earlier: more than 30 birds foraging on the basis, "as if they were chickens." Courtesy of Ricardo Valentín/DRNA.

The house that Ricardo Valentín lives in at Rio Abajo Aviary, before Hurricane Maria. Courtesy of Ricardo Valentín/DRNA.

The same firm subsequently the Category 4 storm. Courtesy of Ricardo Valentín/DRNA.

The scenario is more dour at El Yunque National Forest, where the wild parrot population is much less accessible to the aviary, which is almost a 25-minute drive away.

"El Yunque National Woods looks similar it was completely burned," said Marisel López-Flores, the FWS project leader of the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Plan, in a phone interview on November 1.

Debris and fallen copse have made information technology difficult for her team to attain the areas of the woods where parrots are known to live, and determining the status of the wild population has been challenging, she said.

Before Hurricane Irma striking in early September, conservationists counted about threescore parrots in El Yunque National Forest—the most since 1967, according to Jafet Vélez-Valentín, an aviculturist at Luquillo-Iguaca Asylum. After Irma, an incomplete survey located well-nigh 35. Only it's unclear how many birds survived Maria.

"We have had some sightings, only we can't exactly tell how many birds we have right now," said López-Flores. "Hurricanes are a natural dispersal of birds," she added. When the convenance season arrives in January, she hopes her team volition take a better idea of how many birds survived, considering parrots typically return to their breeding sites.

TURTLES

Nesting season for vulnerable leatherback sea turtles—featured in Viva Puerto Rico—had ended past the time Hurricane Maria struck. But critically endangered hawksbill turtles were in the pinnacle of their egg-laying, according to Carlos Díez, the sea turtle coordinator for DRNA.

The hurricane made landfall in the southeast, a crucial area for hawksbill nesting. Earlier the storm, conservationists had counted virtually 350 nests in the region, which includes beaches in the municipalities of Humacao, Yabucoa, Maunabo, and Patillas. During a November 1 telephone interview, Díez predicted that "nesting production is going to exist very low" this flavor.

Since our call, conservationists have started assessing the damage to nesting beaches, and the immediate picture is grim. At Humacao Nature Reserve, the about important hawksbill nesting site in mainland Puerto Rico, they estimated that all xc nests that had been incubating earlier the tempest were lost. The nests had comprised 53 percent of all nests laid there this season, co-ordinate to Díez. Preliminary assessments in Maunabo and Patillas have also revealed major nest loss, he wrote in a follow-up email.

The hurricane likewise completely obliterated native coastal vegetation, which helps protect nesting hawksbills from predators, along some beaches.

"In Puerto Rico we take a serious problem of coastal urban development, so the combination of losing the coastal vegetation and erosion by hurricane Maria, together with urban development, is a major threat for this [critically] endangered species," Díez wrote.

In its wake, the storm also left a lot of droppings, including felled copse from kokosnoot plantations and the vestiges of fences designed to prevent sea turtles from crossing the route. These types of obstacles can hinder hawksbill turtles from finding nesting sites, and hatchlings from reaching the ocean, according to Díez.

Still, life has found a way; mere days after the hurricane, hatchlings were reported in Patillas, Díez said. And he has received reports of nesting action in Maunabo and in Humacao.

A sea turtle nested on a beach in the municipality of Humacao taken on October 27, 2017. Courtesy of Carlos Díez/DRNA.

Meanwhile, off the w declension of Puerto Rico on Mona Island, where formal surveys have continued uninterrupted, researchers have counted more than 700 hawksbill nests and documented few losses, co-ordinate to Díez. But he cautions that the number is depression compared to nest tallies during previous seasons at this fourth dimension of twelvemonth.

For his office, Díez is peculiarly concerned nigh the hurricane's impact on coral reefs, which are of import feeding grounds for hawksbills, as well as the endangered green turtle. "The hawksbill turtles, they feed on sponges, and also they use the corals every bit shelter," he said.

Unfortunately, according to Díez, dramatic coral fragmentation and seagrass droppings have been observed along Puerto Rico's coasts, and sponges and other invertebrates have done up on many beaches, including forth the islands of Culebra, Vieques, and Mona. He hopes to secure funding for a rapid assessment of the feeding grounds and bounding main turtles foraging there. (He wrote a funding proposal by headlamp.)

Despite Maria'due south upheaval, Díez thinks sea turtles volition recover. "I am even so optimistic that turtles and native littoral vegetation would come back. However, information technology may need some help from u.s. to exist sure the natural process of recovery can continue," he wrote. "Of course, for this to happen, we need also to recover."

meadehathow.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/wildlife-featured-viva-puerto-rico-weathers-hurricane-maria/

Share this post