Volunteer Researchers Discover Joy of Learning In Their ‘Ideal’ Vacation

Sea turtle No. 14 was a fighter.

It had been hoisted out of its tank and placed on the ground prior to weighing. Now Brian Dunbar was trying to wrap the turtle in a net so that it could be suspended from a hook on a nearby scale.

But No. 14 didn’t want any part of the procedure. It struggled frantically, as if trying to swim away.

Dunbar used most of his 200 pounds to pin the animal on the ground while another man wrapped the net around it. Only when the turtle was trussed and dangling helplessly from the scale’s hook did it stop moving, and then it blinked indifferently, seemingly unimpressed at either the effort needed to subdue it or the 39 pounds it registered.

Dunbar stood up. “Geez, they’re strong animals,” he said, shaking his head.

All Work Volunteered

Weighing sea turtles was not exactly typical work for Dunbar, 30, an electrical engineer from Carson City, Nev. But he had journeyed nearly 1,000 miles to Bahia de Los Angeles, a rustic Mexican fishing village at the edge of the Gulf of California, specifically to do it.

Dunbar was part of a small group of Americans that had paid $450 to help Mexican scientist Antonio Resendiz care for and weigh the 40 sea turtles he keeps in captivity at a small beach camp north of the town. During their visit the volunteers also assisted Mexican scientist Horacio de Anda with research on the diet and mortality of sea lions.

The trip was arranged by the Foundation for Field Research, a nonprofit group based in Alpine. The foundation sponsors scientific research worldwide by charging people to help with the research (the cost depends on location, equipment needed and other factors); 75% of the money is then funneled to the scientists involved (the remainder goes for travel, food and administrative expenses).

“We’re basically a granting agency,” explained Tom Banks, 38, who helped organize the foundation in 1982 and serves as its treasurer. “Through the use of volunteers, we provide grants of equipment and funds to scientists.”

The projects sponsored include everything from investigations of Indian rock art in the Arizona desert to studies of birds in the tropical forests of Belize. Banks said the foundation’s seven-member board, which includes several scientists, selects the projects based on their scientific importance as well as their suitability for nonexpert volunteers.

No Shortage of Hardships

An average of two research trips are coordinated each month, nearly all of them to remote, wild areas where amenities are few and hardships abound.

For instance, the half-dozen people who participated in the trip to Bahia de Los Angeles had to live without electricity or telephones. A single pit toilet served the entire camp, and showers were taken by hanging up a plastic bag and letting the water inside trickle out a hose.

Temperatures approached 100 degrees daily, and the sun was both powerful and relentless. So what did these intrepid volunteers get in return?

No more than this:

The sight of a blazing orange sun rising over the blue-green expanse of the Sea of Cortez each morning, while the cries of shore birds mingled with the hoarse barks of sea lions far offshore;

The chance to visit unpopulated islands, skimming across the serene surface of the ocean in a small boat accompanied by pelicans, whales and sea lions;

The feeling of well being that came from knowing they’d done something--no matter how small--to help scientists learn more about the area’s astounding diversity of wildlife.

“Here you’re helping out a little bit, maybe doing some good. And the scientists are very dedicated,” said Bill Buser, a retired engineer who formerly worked at the Naval Undersea Center, which has been incorporated into the Naval Ocean Systems Center.

“Besides, down here you don’t have somebody’s hand in your face all the time, and that’s the way I feel when I’m in a hotel, where everyone expects a big tip,” he added.

Buser had been to Baja California by car and sailboat. “But I still shouldn’t be out here,” he joked, referring to the heat. “Heck, I’m 71, and everyone else (on the trip) is a bunch of kids.”

Keeping the Mind Active

From Buser’s perspective, they were. But like him, they had come because they wanted to combine the relaxation of a vacation with aid for a scientific cause.

Gail Hansen, 36, a security guard on the Alaska pipeline, noted that when she flew from Prudhoe Bay to San Diego to join the foundation trip, she left behind windy, snowy, 26-degree weather. “You don’t know how good this warm breeze feels,” she said.

“I almost went to Hawaii for a vacation. But when you work in a construction-type environment like I do, you can become mentally lethargic. You need to do things to keep your mind active.” She figured that learning about marine life while aiding the researchers in Bahia de Los Angeles would fit the bill nicely.

Jeri Scheller, 31, who lives with her husband on a 36-foot sloop anchored in Half Moon Bay, about 15 miles south of San Francisco, said she needed to get away from the stress of her job as a medical technician at UC San Francisco. “But I like the idea of helping these scientists rather than just spending money on myself,” she added. “I might like to switch careers and do what they’re doing--as soon as my boat’s paid for.”

For Dunbar, the trip was a chance to learn more about rugged Baja California and its marine life. “I love camping and the ocean, and I hate tourists in flowered shirts,” he said. “But it feels good to be able to help an environmental cause, too.”

The Beginning: Mission Valley

After a 6 a.m. rendezvous in front of a coffee shop in Mission Valley, the volunteers set off in one of the foundation’s vans. Almost 12 hours later, the van pulled into Bahia de Los Angeles, where Resendiz greeted the travelers and showed them to their accommodations--a row of tents on the beach about a mile north of the town.

Resendiz, 33, a tall, bearded man with seemingly boundless energy, has been studying sea turtles in Bahia de Los Angeles since 1978. Several species of the big seagoing reptiles are found in the area, but, according to Resendiz, they have become increasingly scarce due to overfishing.

The marine scientist is studying some 40 turtles that he maintains in cement tanks. In addition to monitoring the animals’ diet and growth rates, he tags and releases several of them every year, and coordinates efforts to locate and protect beaches where the creatures nest.

Until 1984, Resendiz’s research was funded by the Mexican government (the Mexican Department of Fish still pays his annual salary). But the devaluation of the peso and the country’s ensuing budget problems forced him to look elsewhere for money to continue. “It’s just so expensive to support people in a (remote) place like this,” said Resendiz. “You need food, gasoline, personnel to protect the beaches . . . . “

Relate to the Public

“Antonio needed a lot of help maintaining his tanks” and other equipment, Banks said, explaining why the foundation decided to support Resendiz’s project after learning of it two years ago. “Plus, it’s easy for us to get volunteers to work on sea turtles--they have an emotional appeal--and he’s the only one working with sea turtles in all of Baja California and northwestern Mexico.

“But we also look closely at the scientist,” Banks continued. “A guy may have the greatest project in the world, but if he can’t relate to the public, we won’t work with him.” Resendiz, expressive and engaging, can talk to almost anyone.

Through the foundation he now receives not only funds for supplies but also volunteer labor. The turtles must be weighed and measured monthly, and the tanks and even the turtles must be scrubbed clean of algae almost every week. “It helps keep them healthy and the water clean,” Resendiz said.

“But the loggerhead turtles can be really difficult to handle. They don’t like to be weighed at all. That’s why I need people to help.”

Scheller, Dunbar and Hansen were among those to tackle scrubbing the turtles and tanks soon after they arrived in camp. Though it was hard work, Scheller clearly enjoyed the chance to handle the turtles, which live for up to 60 years and grow to a weight of as much as 550 pounds, while using an ordinary kitchen brush to clean their shells.

“They’re so strong,” she said. “You kind of have to sit on them to get them to sit still.

“But they’re really very sweet.”

Studying Sea Lions

Although Resendiz planned to use the volunteers to help him look for nesting sea turtles and their eggs along nearby beaches at night, those plans were scuttled when the turtles failed to nest as expected. According to Resendiz, the turtles, which use their sense of smell to locate the right beach to lay eggs, were prevented from nesting by millions of rotting sardines that littered the beaches.

He blamed the problem on commercial sardine fishermen in the gulf, who discard excess dead fish that don’t fit into their holds.

For the volunteers, the disappointment of not being able to see nesting sea turtles was at least partially offset by a visit to a sea-lion rookery, located on a small, rocky island south of Bahia de Los Angeles. The group approached the rookery in two small boats, disrupting the rest of nearly a thousand of the animals and sending them swarming into the water, splashing and barking noisily.

Once ashore, De Anda directed members of the group to collect sea-lion feces in small plastic bags. De Anda uses the feces to analyze the diet of the animals, as part of a study he is doing on whether sea lions and fishermen compete for the same species of fish.

With the aid of the foundation, De Anda has been able to study sea lions on Baja’s Pacific islands as well as in the Gulf of California. So far his research shows that most sea lions prefer fish that are of little or no commercial value.

“I send my reports to the Department of Fish in Mexico City,” De Anda said, “so that if (the department) receives pressure from fishermen to reduce the population of sea lions, it will be able to (use my reports) to say that the sea lions are not competing with the fishermen.”

After dutifully collecting feces for half an hour or longer, most of the volunteers entered the water with snorkels and face masks to get a close look at the sea lions underwater. De Anda explained that the group members should swim out toward the sea lions and then retreat.

“If you keep trying to approach them you will just chase them forever, but if you turn back they will follow you and come very close,” he said.

The advice worked remarkably well. Scheller emerged from the water a few minutes later smiling broadly. “I got within a few feet of them,” she said excitedly. “They were looking at me like they were saying, ‘What are you doing? ‘ “

Dunbar was grinning, too. “I can’t think of a better way to spend a vacation,” he said.