by Dr. Chris Moorman
During spring break 2010, eight students in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences and one student from Zoology traveled on a 9-day study abroad trip to Nicaragua to learn about the country’s people and culture, wildlife, ecotourism industry, and local coffee production. The unique opportunity was offered through a partnership between NCSU and EcoQuest Travels. Trip leaders Chris Moorman, John Connors, and John Gerwin facilitated student learning, but the hands-on experiences did most of the teaching. For the first five nights, the group stayed at the Finca Esperanza Verde outside of San Ramon, Nicaragua. The Finca has rustic but beautiful accommodations and fantastic Nicaraguan food. Finca Esperanza Verde is a shade-coffee plantation and hosts eco-tourists from countries around the world. While at the Finca, the group learned about shade-grown coffee production, captured and banded birds using mist nets, saw other wildlife such as an eyelash viper and olingos, and got to know the local Nicaraguan staff.
The next two nights, students stayed in Granada, the oldest settlement in Central America. The group visited two volcanoes in the area – the active Volcan Masaya and Volcan Mombacho. On the first afternoon in Granada, students took a sunset boat tour of Las Isletas, small islands in Lake Nicaragua that were created by a past eruption of Mombacho. The next day, the group visited Domitila Wildlife Reserve, the first private reserve created in Nicaragua. Domitila offers one of the best examples of dry, tropical forest in Central America. The last night of the trip, everyone stayed at Montibelli Nature Preserve near Managua.
Montibelli is another example of dry tropical forest but lies at a higher elevation than Domitila. While at Montibelli, students caught over six bats species in mist nets, saw two species of mouse opossums, and learned about pineapple production. The trip was a great success; the group saw or banded over 200 species of birds (over 70 individuals banded), saw or captured 23 species of mammals (heard or saw mantled howler monkeys at five different locations), and saw or captured 25 species of reptiles and amphibians. Although most Nicaraguans are very poor, they are friendly and welcoming. The students were excellent and each brought a unique perspective to the experience. Plans are to offer the trip again during spring break 2012.
– Excerpt from student journal – “… for the majority of the day, I wasn’t thinking about the travel or home. I had missed a few people, but the trip was still so vivid in my mind that it was hard to think of much else. If I had the money, I would have bought one of the Los Isletas islands and moved in permanently. The entire trip has just left my head swimming or that may be from the exhaustion of writing this at 1:00AM. Still, the trip has given me some sort of direction in my life. Whether for good or bad, I am no longer content to simply live my life. I used to see life as a sort of race where one tried to do their best till the end, but now I want to make my life meaningful, to have an impact. I don’t care if that impact is small or large, affecting one person or many, I just want to make a difference.”
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All photos courtesy of Dr. Chris Moorman (from top to bottom: NCSU students learned how to make tortillas; two keel-billed toucans eating fruit; female royal flycatcher was an incredible capture that did it’s cobra dance when in the hand; fruit bat; vine snake).
