Data Fast growing urban areas as drivers of sea turtle nest predation (The Leatherback Trust ©)

With the constant urban growth, food subsidies production increases, consequently attracting opportunistic wildlife species. Food subsidies favor opportunistic species proliferation, resulting in strong competition and/or predation on other species. High availabilitity of these resources near protected areas, can threaten the target species conservation. In Costa Rica, within Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas buffer zone, urban development has growth exponentially in recent years, resulting in Northern Raccon population growths. Raccoons started predation on endangered sea turtles within the National Park, predating 100% of all Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) nest in a single season. Given these negative effects, we used camera traps to assess diferent trash containers in the buffer zone of the National Park and determine their effect on wildlife species attraction. Also, we assess the behaviour of these species in relation to trash collection dynamics to generate management recommendations.

Our hipothesis was that depending on the desing/material of the trash container and trash dynamics, wildlife species can increase their access success and feed on Food Subsidies inside the containers. Also, due to the effects of urbanization and PAFS availability on wildlife species, negative effects due to predation are expected to be evidence in PNMB
This data base contents the raw data on the observations made with camera traps during the study period, and nest predation-urban growth data in in Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas.