Editor’s note: A second Spanish-only guest blog, from Gene’s shipmate Nathalia Tirado Sánchez, describes how a family vacation to the tropics when she was five ended up with them staying to live on the Galapagos. At that age, she remembers feeling like she had gone back in time, to a place where dinosaurs (marine iguanas) still lived. Volunteer work with the Charles Darwin Foundation fostered a strong desire to do work that was connected to the ocean life of the islands. Today, she is studying the relationship between ocean conditions and the zooplankton of the Galapagos. At the end of her post, she talks about how important it is to her to teach her children and the rest of their generation about the unique ecology of the Galapagos so that those who love the islands and want to live there have the information they need to preserve the place they love for future generations.
Editor’s Note. Two of Gene’s shipmates on the Mabel, whom he invited to guest blog, submitted their posts in Spanish, with no translation. Biologist Jerson Moreno is describing the activities he has been involved in since he started working the Galapagos in 1998, most of them involving monitoring small marine animals such as fish and lobster. For those who don’t speak Spanish, any web-based translation program can give you a rough idea of what he has been up to.
My main role within the Charles Darwin Foundation is to be aware of the safety during the field activities in the marine and terrestrial areas. I also participate in the different marine research projects that are going on. In the ecological Monitoring after seven years of participation; I identify and take notes of the number and size of the fishes inside the transects we run across the entire Marine Reserve of this wonderful and unique paradise.
Since 2006, I’ve been an Associate Researcher at Marine Ecosystem Monitoring Program of the Charles Darwin Foundation, and also an Associate Researcher at Nazca Institute of Marine Research since 2003.
