What goes on in the rainforest when we’re not there? At Portasol Rainforest & Ocean View Living community in Costa Rica, they’re finding out with the help of a few hidden camera traps.
Camera traps placed in the rainforest at Portasol – located on the Central Pacific Coast between Manuel Antonio and Dominical – have captured images of such exotic Costa Rican animals as this ocelot, followed by a tayra and a nine-banded armadillo. The cameras have been placed in the 200-acre Portasol Biological Reserve and on property lots nearby.
“We attach them to a tree where animals pass by. They are motion activated and work at night with special illumination,” explained Stefano Luconi, Portasol client services manager. “We want to show people the biodiversity and nature that we have here in Portasol.”
Every few weeks, they pick them up to check the images. So far, they have caught on film the ocelot, tayra and nine-banded armadillo, along with an agouti, collared peccaries, a Great Tinamou and her chicks, male and female Great Curassows, a skunk and an opossum.
Other wildlife that Luconi, other staff and Portasol residents often see roaming around Portasol’s vacation bungalows and homes, include basilisk lizards, red-eyed tree frogs, poison dart frogs, toucans, trogons, geckos, iguanas, white-faced capuchin monkeys, sloths and coatis.
Portasol’s nature reserve is part of a large biological corridor that connects with three of Costa Rica’s most well-known national parks – Corcovado, Manuel Antonio, and Los Quetzales. A wide range of microclimates and topography on Portasol’s 1,300 acres of pure rainforest along the Portalón River Valley allow for high wildlife diversity.
The Costa Rica sustainable residential community, in the coastal mountains near Matapalo Beach, has building lots for sale and offers tourism hospitality with unique vacation rentals.
Article by Shannon Farley
