The forest ranger came to us!!

Mikel Olano one of the forest ranger of Gipuzkoa came to us last week. He had a very interesting and exiting talk with our students. Students asked him about his everyday work. They were very curious about what a forest ranger do. And it was very funny and interesting when they discovered that to be a forest ranger is much more than to be in the forest!!

They also talked about the general biodiversity in our area, and about the importance of keeping safe and healthy the local animals, plants and trees. One of the animal that the students showed interest, was Gypaëtus barbatus L. Nowadays, there are only 3 G. Barbatus individuals in Aralar (the mountain area close to us) which are very carefully monitored with radio-equipment and GPS. Mikel has a great personality, we all fell about when he explain how they caught the 3 m length G. Barbatus to put the GPS.

He also talked about the dangers of invasive species. One of the example was the turtles that we use in our house aquariums. Actually, some of our students have this kind of turtle at home!! “But what hapen when we get bored of the turtle?” People throw their turtles to the river and that is very dangerous because they can change the biodiversity of the area. They compete with the local species.

After the interview we are all more aware of the invasive species and the jobs that the rangers do.