Mission Fiji Begins
Departing from Nadi yesterday afternoon, we began our 17 hour transit to the remote islands of the Lau Province for our Fiji research mission. Lau Province is one of 14 provinces in Fiji. It is located in the South Pacific …
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Seven Basketballs!
It seems as if every urban cleanup these days involves dragging a shopping cart out of the muck and ours was certainly no different. The Living Oceans Foundation headquarters sits right beside a small wetland a stone’s throw from …
Palmerston Atoll – part 2
One of our aims in coming to Palmerston was to transport official representatives of the Cook Islands Marine Park Steering committee to this remote island. The committee is on a fact-finding mission, to determine what people think of the marine …
Palmerston Atoll – Part 1
For the last 3 days we surveyed the reefs around the remote Palmerston atoll. We were privileged to dive the reefs around Palmerston and to make a shore visit to meet its inhabitants and discuss our coral reef research with …
Latitudes
During this mission in the Austral and Cook Islands, we have covered more miles than any other Global Reef Expedition mission. During this month we will have surveyed 8 different islands in two countries and the Golden Shadow will cover …
Humphead Wrasse
In Rarotonga, I joined the Golden Shadow to research the presence and distribution of Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) on Aitutaki and Palmerston. I aim to collect this data to add towards a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) analysis I’ve just completed …
The Fish of the Austral Islands
After starting the barcoding of the total fish fauna at Moorea (Society Islands, French Polynesia) in 2006 under the BIOCODE project (http://mooreabiocode.org/), CRIOBE has spent the last 7 years continuing the genetic barcoding of coral reef fishes over the 118 …
Where’s the Coral?
Upon arrival in Rurutu we made a shocking discovery – the reefs were nearly devoid of living coral. We learned that the island had been devastated by a bad outbreak of crown of thorns starfish (COTS outbreak) that occurred in …
A Whale of a Tale
Back in November/December 2012 we were in the Tuamotu Islands on our second mission in French Polynesia. During that mission we had two local researchers (Nina and Bertrand) looking at turtle abundance on the atolls. We would drop them off …
“Let’s name the zones, the zones, the zones of the reefs…of Raivavae and Tubuai”
Coral communities on the first two islands in the Australs were very unusual, compared to all other reefs we looked at in French Polynesia. Unlike other fore reef communities, a very wide shelf surrounded each island, extending from the reef …