Meet Eduardo, our beloved caretaker for this year's rescued baby turtles
Over 5000 baby turtles have hatched so far this turtle rescue season at the Tapiche Jungle Reserve in the Northern Amazon of Peru!
We have once again broken our own record from 2020 and have collected a total of 11042 turtle eggs inside the Tapiche Reserve. At this point, more than 5000 of these eggs have hatched and all these beautiful and strong baby turtles have begun their lives in our custom-built turtle nursery at the reserve. By starting their lives in the hatchling nursery, the babies have the chance to grow big and strong in a protected environment before we release them into the wild.
All these hatchlings consume a huge amount of food, requiring our team to bring aquatic plants to feed the hatchlings several times per week. Luckily, our devoted local staff member Eduardo has made it his special duty to watch over the little turtle hatchlings at all times. He lovingly cares for the baby turtles and delights in seeing them grow bigger and stronger by the day.
The aquatic plants grow in lagoons around the reserve, and at the moment the water level is still too low to access the lagoons by boat. This means that Eduardo walks through the forest to the lagoons in order to collect the floating vegetation, bringing empty buckets with him. Sometimes this process involves a bit of searching and scrambling, as the aquatic plants are not always easy to access from land and sometimes float away from the shore. Eduardo remains undaunted by the challenge and climbs along fallen logs and branches with lightness and ease in order to collect the freshest and greenest aquatic plants he can find. He then carries the buckets full of aquatic plants back to the lodge for the hatchlings.
If you would like to see Eduardo and the Turtle Rescue Project in action or are interested in helping us care for the hatchlings, please do consider visiting the Tapiche Reserve - the jungle is waiting for you! Contact us to get your trip started.
You can also support Eduardo and the rest of the Tapiche staff in our conservation work with a donation to the Tapiche Jungle Wildlife Conservation Fund, the GoFundMe campaign that our dear friend Louisa set up for us:
https://gofund.me/de48de64
Thank you and lots of jungle love to all!
