Academic News: Center Director Dr. Francisco Ollervides
Right this very minute, our students are having a field lecture by Professor Salvador Garcia on co-management practices for Magdalena island. The entire group will have lunch in Puerto Magdalena and then head for a hike across the island to do a field exercise on the Pacific Ocean rocky shore with Professor Camila Henriques. When everyone comes back, we will have our weekly Center community meeting.

In this meeting, I am sure we will all comment on the visit from Cascades Academy. This high school group from Oregon participated in our turtle mortality exercises and in two turtle overnight trips; heard various lectures; completed several field exercises in the mangroves, town and the local cemetery; and assisted with a community project to clean a major street in our town.  I am very proud of all my staff and the students for what we accomplished.

We are also wrapping up the semester in terms of classes and with very exciting developments in our Directed Research investigations. Our three groups (turtles, whales and aquaculture) gave us a glimpse of their progress in a series of preliminary results and discussion presentations which were enriching for all of us present.

The lectures from the Coastal Ecology Course (CEC) included a visit to a set of Tuna cages, a guest visit and lecture by Dr. Volker Koch on Population Dynamics and the ever-thrilling Mudflat safari field exercise. A joint class of all three subjects included an aquaculture debate between small and large-scale project proposals for Magdalena Bay.

For the Economic and Ethical Issues in Sustainable Development class (ECO), we also learned about techniques for conflict resolution. The final classes on conservation ethics, activism, and captivity of marine mammals will be delivered this week.

For the Principles of Resource Management course (PRM), we have had two sets of student management strategy presentations, a class on optimum levels of pollution and field exercises to San Buto aquaculture facility, and a class involving the sea urchin fishery. All three classes will be wrapped up next week.

The students had a two-day weekend, when most decided to go camping at the dunes on perhaps the windiest day of the year! Those who stayed back caught up with work, sleep and laundry. Our students also enjoyed a cooking class organized by our Student Affairs Manager with our cooks.

Finally, my faculty and I have been placing our portfolios in Spanish and in the format of a local university, UABCS, because we are about to sign an agreement where our curricula will be offered for Mexican students (and credit) in the near future. My staff has also been preparing proposals, abstracts and posters for upcoming meetings in Veracruz, Vietnam, and New Jersey! Stay tuned…

Student News: Student Affairs Manager Pearl Ly
The Gray whales have left San Carlos, but we here at the Center for Coastal Studies are still busy with academics, Center activities, and community projects! 

During our Mexican cooking class, led by our wonderful Doña Lilia, the students and I were taught how to make flour tortillas, various salsas, and stuffed chiles.  The class was enjoyed immensely by all and we requested another class this week. 

Our students had a two-day weekend that was spent catching up on homework, relaxing, or traveling to Isla Magdalena, across the bay, to camp and hike.      

We have dedicated more time to community projects, including participation in a San Carlos trash pick-up with visiting students from Cascades Academy and the start of three new projects.  Before the semester is out, the students will be finishing a sea turtle conservation-themed mural in the plaza, starting an organic gardening project, and giving a compost workshop for our Center.     

Student Reflections
“Thanks to The School for Field Studies' Center for Coastal Studies, I have had the opportunity in Baja to see and do things in three months that some people never see or do in all their life. When I first arrived I saw Gray whales, and as the semester has continued I have continued to see countless Gray whales right in my ‘front yard.'  I had never seen whales in real life, and it was a breathtaking experience.  During a camping trip to Loreto, I was able to see Blue whales, the largest creatures on Earth.  In La Paz, during our final group camping trip, we encountered Humpbacks.  UNBELIEVABLE!!  Also during this camping trip, I had the adventure of swimming with sea lions.  They were so playful and beautiful to watch, especially being in the water with them.

On a daily basis here at the Center, I have been able to continue doing research with sea turtles, more specifically Black sea turtles, Chelonias mydas.  While camping in different areas of Bahía Magdalena we ‘tortugueros' were able catch, tag, measure, and release many sea turtles safely back to their homes.  This will help the Center determine many things in the long run, such as growth rate, distribution, and population abundance of sea turtles in the bay.  Also, we have completed several mortality walks.  We visit different communities of the surrounding area and look for carapaces of dead sea turtles.  We count how many are found, measure them, and mark them so as to not count them again.  Now, we are soon going to present our findings to the community and share with them our proposals of how to better manage conservation efforts in the area.

In the past two and a half months in Baja, I have been able to learn so much about conservation biology, sea turtle biology, and Mexican culture.  My 14 classmates will be wonderful assets to my future.  Now we have each other across the U.S. and in Mexico to call on with concerns or input about things going on in our own lives.”
-Mamie Kruse, Belmont Abbey College

“We got a two day weekend last week because we had gone for two weeks straight while camping in La Paz. Eight of us decided that the best thing to do with our time off was to hire a panguero to take us out to Magdalena Island to go camping. When we got there, we hiked over to the Pacific side and went swimming. Then we tried to set up our campsite in the dunes, but there was a sand storm and even when we were inside the tent it looked like it was snowing. We decided to hike back and camp behind a hill so we would have protection from the wind. Even though we were in a desert, we all found enough wood to have a bonfire. My friend Virginia created a sleigh out of drift wood and rope so that she could drag massive amounts of wood down the beach at one time. We stayed up late playing games around the fire, listing to coyotes and making wishes on falling stars. The next morning when we were packing, Sara and Ben found a scorpion and a rattlesnake. I was so excited because I had wanted to see a scorpion in the wild while I was down here - it was so amazing! We hiked back to the village of Magdalena hoping to have lobster for lunch, but unfortunately the restaurant was closed. A couple of us hiked up the mountains so we could look down the steep cliffs to see the Pacific side. The view was incredible and we did not want to leave.”
-Leigh Knudsen, Radford University

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