Students in Iquitos helped send 3,000 taricayas back to the river

ProyContra reported on November 4, 2026, that Maynas province released 3,000 taricayas, yellow-spotted river turtles, on November 3 at Tipishca beach in the community of San José de Lupuna. The release was the center of the eighth Festival de Repoblamiento de Taricayas, run by the provincial municipality.

The day began at 8 a.m. at the Colegio Nacional de Iquitos, with students, teachers, and officials opening nests on a semi-natural beach at the school. It moved to Plaza Francisco Bolognesi for a presentation of the animals and awards for schools in a contest about taricaya egg consumption. It ended at San José de Lupuna, where residents, tourism operators, students, and partner groups put the turtles in the water.

Six students handed over pet taricayas about four years old: five from Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Salud and one from Colegio Sagrado Corazón. The paper said the students had kept the turtles as pets and chose to return them after environmental lessons at school. The festival also recorded one albino hatchling, the first in four years of the project and among about 10,000 eggs handled in that time. Partners named in the report include Grupo AJE, SERNANP, and the management groups ECOMATSA, ORMARENA Los Yanapumas, and ORMARENA Los Otorongos. The municipality has run the festival since 2019. The news is this release, the six returned pets, and that one albino hatchling. It is not a count of turtles already living in the river.