Ecuador - An Eco Trip

by Genevieve S.

Last week, the Jungle Club had an amazing visitor - Dr. Glen Page came to talk to us about his research in Ecuador. Here is some of what we learned. Ecuador is along the equator and is extremely hot. Flamingos, dolphins and penguins all live in Ecuador. Almost all of the mangroves there were cut down to make shrimp farms for foreign shrimp companies. The mangroves were a nursery for many kinds of creatures like shrimp and plankton that filtered the water. All of the farms failed when the shrimp got a disease. Many local people in Ecuador are very poor, but they are working together to improve the ecosystem by making orchards, keeping bees, and raising fish where they once raised shrimp. Some of their ideas can even be used to improve the environment in the US.