Report from Dominican Republic, February 3-14, 2002.
My recent trip to the Dominican Republic was very positive on many levels. Dr. Roberto Maria and I spent 4 days in the field with two keepers from ZOODOM, and captured 8 Ricord’s iguanas, which is a record for us! Only 1 was a repeat from previous trips. That brings our total to 23 individuals that have been sampled over the last 1.5 years. Roberto and I plan to have a draft of the first paper "Health assessment of wild Ricord’s Iguanas" ready for review by mid April, and a second paper "Vitamin D status of wild and captive Ricord’s and Rhinoceros iguanas" ready shortly after that. Roberto will continue to collect data from wild Rhinoceros iguanas, and we will try to find funding to have that serum analyzed, because the comparison of the only two sympatric Cyclura species will be very valuable, even though Rhino iguanas are not endangered at this time. They are considered vulnerable. We also brought back one of the adult female iguanas we caught (with all the proper DR permits, of course) to be included in the captive breeding program at ZOODOM. They did not have eggs this year, but this is the first year they’ve had Ricord’s in that exhibit.
On a fun note, while we were collecting our data from a willing Ricord’s iguana a group of 2nd grade students from Santo Domingo came through on a class outing. They gathered around and one of the teachers asked if I could explain what we were doing. When I explained that I do not speak Spanish I was surprised to learn that these children were attending the International School and spoke English. It was a great opportunity to tell the Ricord’s story to Dominican children! One of the teachers took some photos and she sent them to me – maybe this would be of interest for our web page? They also asked what they could do for the iguanas, and we directed them to Dr. Maria at ZOODOM!
Roberto and I also met with Dr. Alphonso Ferreira, the director of ZOODOM to firm up dates and places for the ISG meeting this fall, at Allison Alberts’ request. The meeting will take place at ZOODOM November 15-18, with a field trip to Isla Cabritos on November 14, and possibly a trip to Park Jaguara in November 13. I’m working that out with Allison now that I’m back. It is very encouraging that the ISG plans to spend 2 days exclusively on development of conservation goals for the Ricord’s Iguana.
We also met with the US Embassy Public Affairs sub director, who would like very much to include some photos of this trip, along with some verbage, about the work Toledo and Indianapolis Zoo has done with ZOODOM in this project. Roberto has already sent a copy of an article written the ISG newsletter, but I’m sure they would accept other photos and text. They would also like to have a link to our web pages
Roberto and I discussed some exchange of veterinary staff, and it looks like he will be sending one of his associate veterinarians to our zoo for about 4 weeks in June. We are working on firming up those plans. He would also like one of our technicians to travel to ZOODOM for a week or so to teach them how to do CBCs accurately. We are considering plans for Jennifer to be that technician, but no firm dates are set at this time.
Lastly, we discussed goals for the future. We met with Dr. Jose Ottenwalder, who has done considerable wildlife work in DR over the years, and is co-chair if the ISG. Most of his work at this time is with the native mammal Solenodon. He suggests that new population assessments need to be done to best determine the next course of action for Ricord’s iguanas. We obtained a copy of a recent masters manuscript written by a Dominican student who did a good population assessment using transects in one small area of Isla Cabritos. We are working on getting that manuscript translated. Next year it would be ideal to conduct some assessments using transects in different parts of the island. If these are done in spring during nesting season we may even be able to mark nesting sites using GPS. That would allow us to return to record hatching in the fall, which has not yet been done for Ricord’s iguanas. We plan to submit a proposal to IZS for this work.
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