Vida Milenaria - Mexico (2013)

Vida Milenaria is a research nonprofit organization based in Tecolutla, Veracruz, Mexico, a nesting site for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Fernando “Papa Tortuga” Manzano has made it his life’s work over the past four decades to help bring this turtle population back from the brink of extinction. Manzano has now launched a project to tag and track Tecolutla’s nesting females. The initiative promises to improve scientific understanding of the population and provide vital information for future conservation efforts.  

With a 2013 SWOT grant, the nonprofit has purchased flipper tags and applicators, as well as calipers to apply tags to adult females during the 2014 nesting season. Long term, the mark-recapture study should inform understanding of population dynamics and size, nesting site fidelity, and connectivity between populations.