Ecotourism: La Selva Research Station

On Thursday we travelled to La Selva Research Station north of San Jose. La Selva is a bilogical research station run by the Organization for Tropical Studies, and there are miles of paths through the rainforest that allow scientists as well as tourists to view and study the diverse area around them. It is comprised of 1,614 hectares (3,988 acres) of old growth and disturbed tropical wet forest. La Selva has an extremely rich species diversity, including more than 1,850 species of vascular plant flora, 350 species of trees, more than half of the 886 species of birds in Costa Rica, five of the six species of felines in the country, more than 70 species of bats, approximately 500 species of ants, and thousands of reptiles, amphibians and other insects. It was one of the first protected areas in Costa Rica, and it brings guests from all over the world to view nature at its finest. La Selva participates in ecotourism by educating its visitors about the importance of species diversity, the effects of global warming, and about some of the current experiments that scientists are conducting at the station. They hire local employees and train local guides, as well as providing services for hotels and other parts of the tourism sector of the economy. The research station at La Selva works to promote environmental consciousness and the importance of species diversity for life on earth.

While at La Selva, we wnt on 3 different hikes through the rainforest. The first one was in the afternoon on Thursday, and we saw a bunch of really exciting animals and plants. There were huge caterpillars on the ground, and tons of poison dart frogs all over the place. These tiny frogs are red with blue legs and are lethal if eaten. We also saw monkeys playing up in the canopy and toucans flying from tree to tree. That night a few of us went on a night hike looking for snakes because there are supposed to be thousands of snakes all over these forests. We didn't see any snakes, but we saw plenty of huge spiders and other insects. In the morning we went on our last hike, and we saw at least 10 different species of birds. We learned from our guide about many of the plants in the area, including one plant that sends some of its roots down from the middle of its stem.