Loberia

In September 12 one year ago, i applied as a new volunteer. That opportunity was to make a study and population control for sea lions, on a small island about 15 minutes from Puerto Ayora.

The next day, Bielefeld University from Germany called me to confirm my participation in that project. But this project was to spend 3 months in a small island and for me it was excellent. September 16 we left from Puerto Ayora and in 15 minutes arrived to Loberia (small island), our group were 2 Guys from Germany (a men and a women) scientists, another from Quito (Eduardo) and me.

The first days were very stressful, because Eduardo and me needed to learn how to read TAGS with their number. When sea lions are 1 year old the scientists took them and put a mark with a corresponding number for each of them (the name of the mark is a TAG)

They are placed on one side of their fins. Each island has a different color of tag, we have orange TAG.

After that, everything was incredible, because the sea lions pups started to be born and the male sea lions started to mark their territory and make harems.

We needed to know how many pups were born each season, also we needed to know how many were living and how many had died. I didn´t remember how many were born that I saw and how many shark attacks I saw. Wildlife is amazing, because I could learn so much about sea lions, for example sea lions mothers take care of their young, male sea lion form a nursery to take care of the young sea lions because they could have the opportunity to get a female, the harem owner defends all the females and pups himself.

I saw ocean front sunrises and sunsets for 90 days, I have to learned to cook myself, made pizza in a pan, even after a sea lion got to my tent and a had to sleep in the kitchen.

Sometimes we needed to take adult sea lion and this was very dangerous, because 2 people took their front and hind legs another person took their neck and another person took the data and placed the TAG. Because they are very strong and moved a lot, after 3 months in Loberia we arrived to Puerto Ayora it was like a dream, because our food was limited. In my first day in Santa Cruz I ate a lot of food and smoked my first cigarette in 3 months, but the experience was unforgettable.