San Juan, Puerto Rico

April 26, 2007

Week 5

First Results!

Our final round of interviews we set up in Week 4 paid off for us tremendously. Because interviews are our primary method of collecting data to set up our final recommendations, we have to make sure that we get all of the information we need from each interviewee. In many cases, such as our first interview at the Cambalache State Forest, going back for a second visit is extremely difficult to fit into our tight schedule. Even though Puerto Rico is relatively small (you can drive to the west coast from San Juan in about 3 hours), it's extremely difficult to get where you need to go when you don't have a car at your disposal.

Our sponsors helped us tremendously by driving us to many locations, but for the majority of our interviews we had to rely on public transportation to get around San Juan and its outskirts. We typically take the Tren Urbano (commuter rail) to work, but we must also take a bus in order to get to the train station. We typically have to devote at least half a day to get to and from our interviews on time. The only alternative is to take a taxi, but this gets very expensive very quickly. We are planning to perform a total of about 10 interviews, and sometimes getting to the interview quickly and inexpensively is more of a challenge than the interview itself.

Interview #1: Sra. Boneta

Our first interview last week was Sra. Wendy Boneta, a huge supporter of WPI's IQP programs in Puerto Rico. She has worked for DNER for about 13 years, and she currently works in the Administration office. We were told that she knew some very valuable information about exotic species management, since one of her previous jobs was to review permit applications for exotic animal ownership and imports. She started out by highlighting the major problems surrounding exotic species management based on her own extensive experience working for DNER:

• Airlines are required to notify the local authorities (DNER Rangers) when shipments of animals are expected to arrive. It is often the case that these shipments pass through airport cargo terminals without undergoing inspections.
• The Department lacks an easy-to-use database for collecting information on exotic species permits. If all the permit information were in one place, it could reveal long-term trends that would otherwise be ignored.
• Disturbingly, inspections for animals entering the Island are only performed when the animals are declared. Otherwise, baggage and packages are not searched unless labeled as animals.
• Lastly, the Rangers do not have a presence in private marinas and docks, and therefore cannot perform inspections of private boats. She also echoed what we had heard before about the lack of a Ranger in the international airport during the night shift.

Aside from this information, she also told us several stories about illegal species smuggling. In one case, a European woman arriving in Puerto Rico was wearing a fox draped around her neck as she walked through the airport. As she waited in line, however, the fox began to wake up from its drug-induced sleep, and it was confiscated by DNER personnel. Even though the fox was visible in plain sight, nobody had thought to check if the animal was actually dead.

Wendy also explained the legal issues entwined with personal inspections. While rangers have the authority to search personal belongings or baggage when an animal is in plain sight, they do not have the right to search otherwise unless they have a court order. One day, a Ranger walking down the street saw a farmhouse with what appeared to be several hundred birds living in an enclosure. By the time he got a court order for a search and returned to the house, the owner had removed all trace of the birds. The potential release of hundreds of non-native birds is a chilling thought for the biologists here.

Interview #2: U.S. Department of Agriculture/APHIS

We journeyed to the USDA/APHIS office located in the outskirts of San Juan in order to talk to Carlos Soto, the Area Epidemiology Officer for Puerto Rico. Our goal was to gain an understanding of how the federal agencies deal with the bird populations on the island, as well as their jurisdiction over the international import process. His job is to track and prevent potential outbreaks of animal diseases on the island, mostly those which spread among birds. He was very interested in our project goals and started out by explaining the relationship that USDA has with DNER, and how they communicate when a diseased bird is encountered.

In Sr. Soto's opinion, the threat of disease outbreaks on the Island is not a growing concern for Puerto Rico. While they experienced an outbreak of Newcastle disease in the 1940s, since then there have been no major disease outbreaks. Since their jurisdiction is the international movement of birds, they are not interested in having a database of birds imported domestically on-hand in their office. In the future, he would like to be able to plot the bird populations in Puerto Rico on a map so that USDA could have a quick reference of where each species is found in the wild. One pressing problem in his mind is the idea that bird importers would be willing to smuggle birds into the Island in order to avoid paying fees for permits and health certificates.

Easter Weekend

After all of these interviews were over, we compiled our information and once again began to re-define our project goals. Once the weekend came, we were able to escape our project work and drive out to the west coast of the island, truly a luxury compared to the noisy and urbanized San Juan.

Our first trip of the weekend on April 7th was a visit to Mayaguez and Rincón, but we also made a special stop along the way. In Camuy, we visited the natural underground caves that run deep below the surface of the forest. Inside the massive main chamber, we gazed at the ceiling hundreds of feet above us in amazement as the moist darkness of the cave filled our senses. The bats living in the smaller chambers did not seem to be disturbed by our visit, but they were mostly asleep during the day. As we exited the cave, we found ourselves at the bottom of a massive sinkhole that rose to the surface hundreds of feet above. As the sun shone in, illuminating the mist in the air, it was truly a spectacular sight.

After exploring the caves we grabbed some lunch and continued on to Rincón, a place on the west coast well-regarded for its beaches. After driving along the coast to find the perfect beach, we gave in to our urges and dove into the water before lying around on the beach until it was time to drive home.

The following day, Easter Sunday, was challenging from the start. While we still had the cars from our west coast trip the day before, the rain clouds threatened to open up at any moment and unleash torrents of water, effectively ruining our plans to grill our Easter Dinner on the beach. Stubborn as we were, we drove along the north coast to Loíza, a popular place for locals to visit on holidays. We spent hours waiting in traffic in order to park ourselves on the beach, but once we arrived the rain started falling on our heads. We piled our trusty $10 grill with marinated chicken, hot dogs, and hamburgers, and prayed for the rain to disappear.

While the rain eventually cleared up and let us swim in peace, it didn't stop us from taking advantage of the moist sand on the beach and building ourselves a massive sand fort. It was definitely the first time that I've spent my Easter on a sunny beach, and I can't wait for our next chance to have some fun in the sun.

Coming Up

In my next entry I will summarize our project results, and I'll also talk about our preparations for the final presentation on April 30th. ¡Hasta luego!