Vanuatu 2024- Plans are progressing!

 11/16/2023

Our home base on Moso Island... Tranquility Resort.
Video of our 2023 trip

This January, we will make our 4th trip to Vanuatu to continue our hawksbill turtle research.  We have 2 students who will join Laura Jim and Marc Rice to travel to Vanuatu to deploy up to 4 Sea Trk iridium satellite tags on post-nesting hawksbill turtles.  We will be on Moso Island from January 5, 2024 to January 14, 2024.

Slide show giving introduction to our co-investigators and Moso Island.

 Project Purpose

There are several nesting beaches in Vanuatu and the population of nesting turtles has been declining for many years.  The purpose of this project is to identify the internesting behavior,  migratory paths and the home range foraging habitats through satellite tagging of post-nesting hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata).  This knowledge will help to address population declines that result from human interactions in foreign foraging areas as well as during the nesting season in Vanuatu.

We arrive in Port Vila at 1505 h on 1/5/2024.  We are scheduled to be picked up by the resort van and transported ~25 Km to Havannah Harbor where we will catch the 1700 h boat to Tranquility Resort... at least that is the plan at this time!!!

Project Partners

We work directly with local liaison, Francis Hickey, Coordinator, Traditional Resource Management Program at Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Tranquility Resort, and village chiefs and their families.

Research Location
Moso Island is an island off the northwest coast of Efate in Vanuatu. There are two villages on Moso Island, Sunae and Tassirki with a total population of approximately 250 people. Most of our work is completed on the northern coast of the island.

Previously Tagged Turtles
Seven post-nesting hawksbill turtles have been satellite tagged with three of them traveling to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, three of them traveling to New Caledonia and one of them traveling to Anietyum Island, Republic of Vanuatu.  




Figure a illustrates the tracks taken by the three satellite tagged post-nesting hawksbill turtles that traveled to the Great Barrier Reef, Austraila,  Figure b shows the tracks taken by the the three satellite tagged post-nesting hawksbill turtles that traveled to New Caledonia and the one that traveled to Aneityum Island.




Our latest track (2023) shows that Makala traveled from Moso Island across the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.  The time of travel was 73 days and the distance traveled with approximately 2280 km.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March 14, 2024

Image
3/14/2024 Current trajectories of our 4 post-nesting hawksbill turtles as of 3/14/2024.  Makala (2023) and Vatu Mau (2024) seem to be in their home forage grounds while Vonu e Rao and Bule Lapa are still migrating.  Our guess is that Vonu e Rao and Bule Lapa are headed for the Great Barrier Reef where Makala currently resides. 2/16/2024 Current trajectories of our 4 post-nesting hawksbill turtles as of 2/16/2024.  Makala (2023) and Vatu Mau (2024) seem to be in their home forage grounds while Vonu e Rao and Bule Lapa are still migrating.  Our guess is that Vonu e Rao and Bule Lapa are headed for the Great Barrier Reef where Makala currently resides. 2/13/2024 All three hawksbills have left the nesting beaches of Moso Island.  B elow is a video of their trajectories since they left. Vatu Mau appears to have reached its home range on the southern reefs of New Caledonia, Vonu e Rao apprears to be headed across the Coral Sea with a likely destination of the Great Ba...
Read more

Updates From Vanuatu

Image
Sunday, 1/7/2024 Sunday Afternoon - 1500 h We are leaving for a night on the nesting beaches at 1600 h but we wanted to share a few photos of the morning dive. From Laura:   We had a wonderful day this morning diving at Owen's Reef with such beautiful soft corals, gorgonians and vibrant coral. When asked what was the most interesting Luke and Zane shared "the colors of the reef"! We are a little short on time so when we are unable we will try and tell a little more about the images.  In the meantime, please enjoy! Sunday morning: currently 1020 h We woke up at 0530 this morning to the view below: The view from our Fare at 0530 h on Sunday Morning. Loojking back to Fare #1 in the early morning sunlight. The team is now off to make a dive out on Owen's Reef before lunch.  We are scheduled to make our first beach night tonight, leaving at 1600 hours for the beach area to set up camp, have dinner and begin our beach surveys at around 2000 h. Below are some pictures of the...
Read more

Thursday, 1/11.2024

Image
 1/11/2024 Dive at Moso Caves included a cuttlefish, blue dragon nudibranch, octopus, white tipped reef shark and many other beautiful organisms!  We were in good spirits as we headed to our last night of field work. By 8:30 pm we located a nesting turtle. Luke and Zane observed the full nesting process using the IR binoculars! All of the satellite tagged turtles are transmitting and are still in the area which leads us to believe that they will be nesting again before they leave for their forage grounds. On the way out for our last night of monitoring. sunset at out campsite. Sitting on the beach and having dinner.. what a view. Tonight it was spaghetti, with French bread and fried bananas.  Paul also brong some very tasty vegetable sandwiches.. Laura appreciated them! The monitoring team at the end of the third day. Luke and Zane were able to take video of the egg laying process using the IR binoculars.  The clips show the excavation of the egg chanber, the deposit...
Read more