GRID survey habitat data for Playa el Coco beach (nesting sea turtles) - Pacific, southwestern Nicaragua July of 2013

Falk Huettmann
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:13:15 PDT

This GRID survey was done at the beach of Playa de Coco - near a globally relevant sea turtle nesting beach (La Flor). Playa el Coco (latitude 11.15382, longitude 85.80051, geographic datum WGS84) is situated at the Pacific Ocean in southwestern Nicaragua, approx. 20 km far from San Juan Del Sur and approx. 30 km far from the Costa Rican border, just adjacent to La Flor. We did our grid-based habitat survey on 8th and 9th of July in 2013. The GRID points are geo-referenced by latitude and longitude (decimal degrees, WGS84, +- 10 meters acuracy) and were visited only once (no 3 repeats because it consists of sand and private property) and no species information (mostly empty sand beach). From 25 regular GRID points 9 were inaccessable because of private land holdings or very bushy forests. We took photos for every point (horizontal, vertical, sky), more details can be seen there. This grid can be used for change detection, shoreline location, develeopment, and beach erosion questions over time for turtle nest habitat, for instance. Known sea turtles for this region are predominately Olive`s Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea, TSN 17384), other species could potentially occur too. On the beach, we also detected Black-throated Magpie-Jay Calocitta colliei 558992, Balck Vulture Coragyps atratus 175272, Groove-billed Ani Crotophaga sulcirostris 177839, Great Kiskadee Pitangus sulphuratus 178301, Magnificent Frigate Bird Fregata magnificens 174763, Black Oystercatcher Haematopus bachman 176475, Sooty Tern Onychoprion fuscatus 824105, Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis 174685, Neotropical Cormorant Phalacrocorax brasilianus 554375 and Banded Wren Thryothorus pleurostictus 563460). This dataset is an MS Excel format and less than 1MB in size.