As a guest of Chan Chich, you are no doubt curious about the history of the Gallon Jug area and the inception of one of Belize's finest eco-lodges.

Gallon Jug

At one time, the venerable 150 year old Belize Estates Company owned roughly one fifth of the entire country, about one million acres including much of the northwest corner of the country. From the turn of the century until the 1960's, timber, mainly mahogany, cedar and santa maria, were selectively logged from this area. Gallon Jug, originally a logging camp located where the current GJ offices are, was named after a B.E.C. foreman, Austin Felix, discovered many discarded items from a Spanish camp, including a number of ceramic gallon jugs.

During the mid-1980s, Belize Estates Company was purchased by Belizean Barry Bowen and subsequently divided into four parcels. The parcel retained by Bowen is over 130,000 acres, and with the Rio Bravo Conservation area to the north, gives protection to about 400,000 acres of tropical forest. Farming efforts at Gallon Jug farm (a cleared area of less than 3,000 acres) now focus on coffee, cacao and an ambitious cattle project using English Hereford bloodlines to improve local stock. It is hoped that these agricultural activities will allow the remainder of the land to remain forested.

Chan Chich

In 1985, when Barry Bowen led a crew of bushmen to the old site of Gallon Jug to start the process of re-opening the area, one of the men in the party, an old chiclero named Tenico, mentioned a long-forgotten chiclero camp named "Santa Maria", which was located next to a large Maya site near the Chan Chich Creek. The next time that Barry and his wife, Dixie, flew out from Ambergris Caye, Tenico led them to this Mayan site. After chopping their way through the forest, they eventually got their first look of what was later to become the site of Chan Chich Lodge, which translates as "little bird" in Mayan.

In May of 1987, work began clearing the thick jungle underbrush. It soon became clear that the lower plaza would be perfectly suited for construction of the lodge, but it would be necessary to obtain official approval for the project from the Department of Archaeology. The commissioner himself spent a week at Chan Chich to supervise the digging of post holes and trenches, and determined that the construction was not damaging in any way since the old plaza floor was weathered beyond repair. Furthermore, the existence of the Lodge would protect the temples that had been heavily looted, not to mention discourage the hunting and growing of marijuana that had been common for decades.

Trees harvested from the newly cleared fields were processed and used in the construction of the lodge; posts, stick and thatch harvested from the surrounding jungle. All of the finished milling was done at Chan Chich, as well as the construction of all the windows, doors and beds. The Lodge was opened on December 4, 1988 to a group of seven adventurous tourists who had no idea what to expect.

Wildlife Conservation Society biologists, Bruce and Carolyn Miller, have been resident in Belize since 1986 when they came for a one year project. They have been based at Gallon Jug since 1990 when they were invited by owner Barry Bowen, who gives infrastructure support to them, to base their conservation studies here.

Over the years, their conservation projects have focused on several themes at both regional and national levels (please see www.wcs.org/belize.com for more information). The Gallon Jug Estate is strategically located at the heart of La Selva Maya, the Maya Forest, the largest contiguous block of forest north of the Amazon. It is also an important link in the regional Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

Bruce's research focuses on bats where he has pioneered the use of acoustic survey methods of Neotropical bats. Each species has a unique vocal signature and the acoustic survey methods provide information on not only species that are present, but also relatively abundant. The methods allow researches to survey high in the air over streams and into the forest canopy. Many species previously considered rare throughout the Selva Maya have been found to be relatively abundant in the Gallon Jug area. Gallon Jug provides a biodiverse rich venue for training field biologists from around Central and South America in the use of the acoustic methods. Curious about the bats? Checkout Info On Bats for details.

Over the past two years, Carolyn has tried to determine the density of jaguars occurring on the property using remote camera-traps. The camera stations are laid out in a carefully spaced system that theoretically will photograph each jaguar using its territory in a 60 day period. The resulting jaguar photos are matched based on unique coat patterns to determine how many individuals are present and learn a bit about how wide-ranging they are across the property. All of this data is extensively analyzed to get a density estimate. In 2004, the density estimate was 11.28 jaguars/100 km2 which could translate to approximately 46 jaguars across the Gallon Jug Estate. To date, this is the highest density using this protocol documented anywhere. The study for 2005 has just drawn to a close so it will be interesting to see whether the density numbers will approximate those of 2004.

tbc