Baby Taricaya Turtle Hatchlings Released Into the Wild
As many of you will know from our previous updates about our Taricaya Turtle wildlife preservation program, Aqua Expeditions has for a long time been working with naturalists at the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve to help increase the size of the endangered Taricaya Turtle population.
This past October, 42 Aqua Expedition’s guests, with the help of our Amazon team, had the special experience of burying recently harvested Taricaya turtle eggs in nests at our private embarkation spot in Nauta order to guarantee their safe hatching. With expert naturalist guidance and very careful handling by our guests, a total of 278 turtle eggs were distributed into 10 sandy nests.
It takes around 30 days for the baby taricaya turtles to hatch and on the 12th of November, the baby turtles began emerging from their shells.
On the 23rd of November some more incredibly lucky Aqua Expeditions guests had the joy of safely releasing 109 turtles into the river of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve!!
This incredibly special project is all made possible through coordination with the Chief of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, who provide technical support for this important wildlife preservation program in the Peru’s Amazon.
We were also lucky enough to see three slightly older Taricaya Turtles happily thriving in their natural habitat, one of which had a visit from a beautiful butterfly!