Category: Blog
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Conservation News August 2026
## Frogs, forests and forest cocoa: five stories from the tropics Seventeen years ago, a Panamanian golden frog vanished from a mountain stream and never came back. This spring, a small team waded into a similar stream carrying mesh pens full of captive-bred frogs, determined to find out whether the species could return home. That…
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The Holy Grail of Birds
Most species in a tropical forest are rare – there aren’t many of any species, but there are lots of species. Therefore finding a particularly elusive and naturally rare bird in a sea of trees is an amazing experience. Lucy tells us of her experience with the ground cuckoo.
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Purple Haze
Plants in the tropics have evolved in many ways to combat being eaten by herbivores. In the Americas, where mega fauna found across Africa and Asia are absent, it’s the invertebrates that exert the most herbivorous pressure on plants. Don’t underestimate their effect, an ant may be degrees smaller than an elephant but their sheer…
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Road Repairs!
It is the start of the dry season here in Cocobolo Nature Reserve which means the team can get back and do some much needed work. The local staff have been holding the fort, so to speak, since last July but now Michael, Kurt and volunteers, Trev and Lucy are on the ground raring to…
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The State of Tropical Forests: Year End 2021 …… Good News and Bad News
To have a chance of averting the most extreme climate disaster the biodiversity crisis, and related food and refugee crises, the world must halt tropical deforestation and degradation and restore significant amounts of former forested areas. We are continuing to head in the wrong direction, but is there some light beginning to shine? Through 2020…
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COCO NEWS Summer 2021
Dear supporter, We bring you this newsletter after over a year. It has been a testing and hard year but we have news and a special ask. COVID-19 and impact on endangered species COVID-19 has impacted everybody’s lives. Our hearts go out to all of those who have lost loved ones or who themselves have…
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Merlin Tuttle’s Adventures with Bats
Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation Comes to Cocobolo (By Teresa Nichta) We spent two-weeks at Panama’s Cocobolo Nature Reserve, to do a survey of bat species in this tropical hotspot while giving “in the field” workshops to our participants. Our survey results were impressive and unexpected, recording more than 600 bats of 53 species, more than half…
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My Research Adventure – Ryan Thompson
My name is Ryan Thompson and I am a rising high school senior at Menlo School. Because I had demonstrated commitment to ecology and sustainability, I was awarded a HAND Foundation grant to study tropical ecosystems in Central America and explore the use of satellite imagery to assist researchers. I was drawn to Cocobolo because…
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BugCamp – Come discover the insects of Cocobolo in August!
We’re excited to introduce our new activity to discover the insects and other small animals of Cocobolo – starting August 2017: BugCamps! BugCamps are week-long immersion trips to experience firsthand the rainforests and cloud forests of Central Panama and discover the amazing diversity of tropical insects and other small animals. They’re designed primarily for people…
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Avian Research
CREA has been studying Cocobolo’s rich avifauna, both residents and migrants, since 2007. To study the bird populations of Panama, we rely on the following methods: mist netting in Cocobolo Nature Reserve, identification, measurement and release; early-morning bird walks to identify residents and migrating species; bio-acoustics to identify birds by their call. Climate change and habitat loss are affecting…