The Mazunte Project.
The primary mission of the mazunte project is…
to address the canine predation occurring on the Oaxaca Pacific Coast’s important sea turtle nesting sites. We protect many beaches, LaEscobilla, Barra de la Cruz, Morro Ayuta, Mazunte, San Agustinillo, Palmarito, Chacahua, Mermejita, Puertocito and El Tomatal among them. La Escobilla is often the most important beach in the world annually for nesting sea turtles (alternating with El Ostional in Costa Rica). Barra de la Cruz and Morro Ayuta are also ranked in the top 10 in the world for importance as nesting sites. We accomplish this protection through an aggressive spay/neuter campaign, clinical and preventive medical treatment.
In addition to protecting sea turtles, our work enhances the health of the patients through treatment of endo and ecto parasitism as well as treatment of clinical disease. Clinical conditions in the dogs seen frequently in the earlier years such as transmissible venereal tumor (TVT) have been greatly reduced, as has cutaneous larval migrans (CLM) in people, a One Health benefit that is merely scratching the surface.
The state of Oaxaca has historically been one of the poorest states in Mexico, this in spite of the city of Oaxaca being one of the first Spanish colonial settlements. The geography was such that infrastructure development was and continues to be very difficult. There are tremendous public health needs, especially in the indigenous communities, where few speak Spanish, the dominant language being Zapotec. This area also has never had land telephone lines, and electricity did not arrive here until the late 1980s, and then on a limited basis. Again, geography hindered infrastructure development.
Recently, within the past 10 years, eco-tourism has put this area on the map and in the travel guides. Its beautiful beaches, abundance of wildlife, small-scale development and laid-back atmosphere are making this area a destination for the savvy traveler. This provides a great economic boost to the area, but also boosts the local population as well as the canine population. These factors affect our program as well.
When we initiated the program, it took a couple of years before the people developed confidence in our ability to safely operate on their pets, since there had been a number of efforts prior to ours that ended badly for the patients. During those first few years, we had plenty of vets and not enough patients. Now, we are seeing the opposite, where in almost every town we have to turn away patients. This year, of the 20 towns we visited, only two did we not turn away patients, and both of those towns were small and had been visited annually by us.
The first year we came down, we did about 75 dogs in the whole week, now we could do over 500 if we had enough vets. As it was, we did almost 750 this year, giving us a project total to date of approximately 6,000 dogs. Each year, we have managed to increase the number of patients operated, which is absolutely necessary given the increases in population of the towns we serve.
The need for our services increases every year, while the cost of our medical supplies increases as well, making it difficult to sustain the growth we need without a substantial increase in donations to meet our medical needs. Please help improve the companion animal health while at the same time protecting the threatened sea turtle populations in the region.
THE PROJECT:
Operated on over 750 animals in 2019 alone
Successfully helped over 6000 animals to date
Treats every patient with anti-parasitic medication, which has dramatically improves the health of the human population in Oaxaca as well.
Results in the successful release of approximately 40,000 additional sea turtle hatchlings, and the improved quality of life for many family pets.
OTHER INFORMATION: