Every Egg Counts!!

My fav Guatemalan conservation organization, ARCAS, is starting a campaign to help reconstruct two hatcheries that will house Olive Ridley and Leatherback Sea Turtle eggs for their 2013 turtle nesting season.  I volunteered with ARCAS back in 2009 and had such a wonderful experience protecting the turtles and their eggs against the countless poachers!  Please read below and share with all of your family and friends!! :)

Campaign Overview

Support sea turtle conservation in the rural town of Hawaii, Guatemala by helping to build a secure hatchery for sea turtle eggs.

Our Goal

Help us save leatherback and olive ridley sea turtle eggs and hatchlings in Guatemala by helping us build a new hatchery!

Our Background

Despite their endangered status, virtually all sea turtle nests in Guatemala are poached and the eggs sold as a supposed aphrodisiac. This practice has contributed to the decline of leatherback and olive ridley populations in the Pacific Ocean. To counter this, the government established an egg donation system whereby local egg collectors are allowed to harvest nests as long as they donate a dozen eggs per nest to a local hatchery, and that is where ARCAS (the Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Association) comes in! With the help of international volunteers, ARCAS solicits donations of sea turtle eggs from local collectors, reburies them in one of its two hatcheries and after an incubation period of roughly 50 days, releases the hatchlings into the sea.

Your Contribution

Now this is where you come in! ARCAS’s main Hawaii Hatchery is over 18 years old, severely deteriorated by the wind and salt blowing off the Pacific Ocean, and is in urgent need of reconstruction. The hatchery can no longer accommodate the growing numbers of eggs that ARCAS collects and is no longer a secure place to incubate eggs. Holes in the protective fencing and the walls of the hatchery allow predators to get inside the hatchery and steal precious eggs and hatchlings.

Help us raise the money we need to build a proper and secure hatchery! Your donation will have a direct conservation effect, ensuring the survival of the endangered sea turtle eggs and hatchlings of the beaches of Hawaii!

Important Note! 

Because there is no PayPal service in Guatemala, our friends at the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) have kindly offered to act as our fiscal sponsor for this campaign by allowing us to use their PayPal account to process payments.

Both WIDECAST and ARCAS are nonprofit organizations so your donation is tax deductible (in the US). Please feel free to email us at arcasguatemala@gmail.com with any questions.

Tipping Point Goal: $2,500

Total Funding Goal: $6,800

How your money will be used: 

$2,500 covers the most essential materials that will allow us to start building the initial structure for the hatchery: all the cinder blocks, fencing, cement, and wood.

$3,400 covers all of the costs of building one hatchery including labor and transportation costs.

$6,800 covers all of the costs of building two hatcheries including materials, labor, and transportation costs.

If we were lucky enough to raise even more, we would use additional funds to rebuild ARCAS’s third hatchery in the fishing village of El Rosario, 6kms to the east of Hawaii. Additional funds could also go to building educational exhibits or to covering the salary of a hatchery manager.

Materials	Total Price
Blocks	Q3,330.00
Cement	Q1,850.00
Sand	Q950.00
Wood (3/8")	Q825.00
Wood (1/4")	Q399.00
Wire	Q100.00
Plastic fencing	Q6,400.00
Door	Q1,200.00
Labor	Q7,000.00
Transportation	Q4,000.00
TOTAL Quetzales	Q26,054.00
TOTAL $	$3,383.64