“The earthquake hit when I was in Kia this morning. There wasn't any damage in Kia but I noticed sea level rising above and below normal. The warning put in place for Honiara was now lifted and no major damages, injuries or deaths are reported here in Honiara. The regions mainly affected are Shortlands and Mono, Gizo town and surrounding Islands, Munda and surrounding islands and parts of Choiseul and West Isabel. Most residents of Gizo are now evacuated to the hill tops and higher ground”.

The Solomon Islands do not usually make a news splash on the international sea turtle scene, but some exciting events and research have been initiated in these islands in the past twelve months. I was first acquainted with the Solomon Islands in February 2006 when we participated in a landmark occasion to draft a tri-national agreement among Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to protect leatherbacks in the region.

Since then, Peter Dutton and Scott Benson from the NOAA lab in California have partnered with researchers from WWF and The Nature Conservancy to assess the leatherback nesting population in the Solomon Islands (from left to right): Ernest, Peter Ramohia, John Pita, Joe Horoku

Some of the exciting work on a recent expedition has been captured very effectively on video by filmmaker John Dutton, and can be viewed at the following link:
http://swfsc.noaa.gov/textblock.aspx?Division=PRD&id=1226&ParentMenuId=212

With the Solomon Islands being so remote, very little news that isn’t related to civil unrest or a natural disaster ever gets out – the video montage below by John Dutton shows life in a typical remote village. As far as we know, this village, Baniata on Rendova Island has not been affected – but many like it have been.
http://web.mac.com/johnkdutton/iWeb/Solomon Islands/Baniata Village.html

Our thoughts go out to friends and their families in the Solomons...

"Lors de mon séjour a Ebodjé (Sud Cameroun) en janvier 2006, Christine la femme de Denis, l'un de nos écogardes, a accouché d'un bébé. C'est moi qui ai conduit tres vite notre infirmière aupres de Christine pour qu'elle l'aide à accoucher. Christine et Denis ont appelé ce bébé "mâle" : ... Jacques Fretey ! ! ! ! ! Etonnant, non ? Il y a donc maintenant (malheureusement pour toi !) 2 Jacques Fretey."

(English translation: During my stay in Ebodje in southern Cameroon in January 2006, Christine the wife of one of our ecoguards, Denis, went into labor. I rushed to fetch a nurse to help with the birth. Christine and Denis have called their baby boy…..Jacques Fretey!!! Astonishing, isn’t it? So now (unfortunately for you!) there are 2 Jacques Freteys!)

Here they are, the 2 Jacque Freteys:

Jacques received encouraging remarks from his colleagues:

Laurent Kelle: “at least this one is expected to be nice”

Peter Pritchard: “Mon dieu! The world is not ready for such a dangerous development. Can anything be done? I think there are legal mechanisms for changing a name in emergency situations like this. Perhaps we should have a conference. PCHP”

Not in the least disheartened, Jacques responded:
“Je pense au contraire que je vais engager une opération de clonage et de reproduction en chaine, afin d'envahir l'univers chélonologique de nombreux Jacques Fretey qui porteront partout la francophonie et mes bonnes paroles!"

(English translation : On the contrary, I think I will clone myself, in order to invade the sea turtle universe with many Jacques Freteys who will spread the French language and my wise words.)

Finally, I had to chime in and call for action:
Manjula: “oh la la! One Jacque Fretey is already a lot of work!! We need to convene an urgent meeting before he clones himself and takes over the globe with “francophonie” and his “bonnes paroles”!!

I think Jacques is still on talking terms with us....

We were small and insignificant in the Atlantic ocean in our tiny zodiac

driven by a very competent Frenchman, François, who brilliantly coordinated Tim’s requirements and data collection needs, breaching/surfacing humpback whales all around, and boat handling.

It was thrilling to have mothers with calves surfacing beside the zodiac

and even more thrilling to watch these giant mammals breach next to you while Tim shot photographs or biopsy darts at them

Watching a whale breach a few meters from you, as many of you know, is astoundingly spectacular and gives one goose bumps. Just between you and me, the treacherous thought of working with whales flitted very briefly across my mind.... to spend the days admiring breaching whales just seemed so romantic...

Too bad turtles didn’t leap out of the water like whales….but then again, a turtle attempting a tail-breach would surely be embarrassingly funny rather than awe-inspiring….Anyway, these unholy thoughts about turtles occupied my mind until I described the experience to Mike James. Such a brilliant chap that one! He calmly informed me that leatherbacks have indeed been observed to do the turtle equivalent of a breach; it is described in an interesting little publication: Engbring, J., N. Idechong, C. Cook, G. Wiles, and R. Bauer. 1992. Observations on the defensive and aggressive behavior of the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) at sea. Herpetological Review 3: 70-71.

There is a photo in the paper showing a fairly respectable "breach" by a leatherback—do take a look—you will be proud! And what more, Mike tells me that he observes similar surfacing behavior in leatherbacks in Nova Scotian waters where he works…amazing! It’s a sight I now dream to see….

Permission to use humpback whale breaching photo was obtained from Aimée Sanders, Mayumba National Park.

Now which turtler’s heart wouldn’t warm to such a sight?!

These were identified as marginated tortoises, Testudo marginata, endemic to Greece. We found four specimens wandering among the ancient stones, the poppies, and the pis-en-lit in the gardens of the Acropolis somewhat incongruous with the modern graffiti, train tracks, and cafes in the background...

Continued from Belimbing Series:Permission

Yes, the thought of a tsunami crossed my mind several times either while falling asleep or while walking along the beach where the mountains dropped steeply down to the sand. I had learned about the impermanence of things through the concept of “maya” or illusion in Hinduism, I had watched Buddhist monks create the most exquisite sand “mandalas” only to destroy them to symbolize the impermanence of life, I had been taught about continental drift and plate tectonics in school, and yet somewhere I had foolishly believed in the permanence of land…. until the tsunami last year. I realized that parts of the Nicobar Islands where I had spent a very memorable period of my life 15 years ago no longer existed… And among the many memories of the Nicobars that Irian Jaya brought back me, one was of the Nicobarese living along the coast--many of them probably didn’t survive the tsunami, but their unconditional kindness that made a 21-year old’s first sea turtle project in those remote, primitive conditions so much more comfortable all those many years before cannot be forgotten...

TO BE CONTINUED...

I was on the old stomping grounds of Satish Bhaskar, Chris Starbird, Martha Suarez…

Before starting my project, I had to first get permission from the Saubebah village Chief and the villagers to work on their beach; Bas Wurlianty from the WWF-Indonesia office in Sorong (in the red shirt) introduced me to the village and translated my request for permission.

The village decides what can and cannot be done on their nesting beach whether it be flipper tagging, PIT tagging, satellite telemetry or my hatching success experiments…..Incidentally, the village does not allow flipper tagging on this beach because they believe that the drop in leatherback nesting numbers has been caused by a researcher who flipper tagged in the 1980s and then lured their leatherbacks with a huge magnet to his country….

TO BE CONTINUED...

So, to continue from where I left off in the Belimbing Series….I was feeling 21 again this summer…

Getting to Jamursba-Medi took several days …by the time I left Los Angeles and arrived in Jakarta, I was into the third day of my journey having lost a day to the mysterious international dateline –bizarre feeling to know that May 22, 2005 never existed for me. Among the first things that struck me about Indonesia were the beautiful smiles of the Indonesians – the most grim faces could relax into amazingly charming smiles. After spending the day in Jakarta mostly re-energizing on ‘nasi goreng,’ I checked in for my night flight to Sorong, Papua. After foolishly inquiring if the mileage on this local airline could be registered on one of my accounts, I found myself in a little room trying to explain to three patient and encouraging Indonesians my desire to register the miles—the hopelessness of my request eventually made us abandon the subject and shift the conversation to one of their uncles who lived in San Francisco. Eleven sleepless hours later I was in Sorong in easternmost Indonesia. Another 24 hours later, after minimum sleep, I was on a 6-hour boat ride to the beach.

I finally arrived at the beautiful Jamursba-Medi beach in the evening of the fifth day of my journey:


Carl Safina, who joined me on a later trip summarized the journey well – he said he had been concerned about malaria, but he didn’t realize that he would die simply from the lack of sleep! Neither of us had spent so many continuous waking hours trying to get to a nesting beach before…

TO BE CONTINUED…

We indulge in the arts at the Mus�e d'Orsay

Mike James and Edo Goverse select a dinner dish from a mouth-watering menu at a charming Mediterranean restaurant in the Quartier Latin

Relaxing at a cafe in Saint Sulpice

A few anxious minutes are spent wondering why the instant photo machine at the Metro is not spitting out the photographs...

...but they pass quickly...phew!

And every night, we returned to "Le Guichet," the train stop for our hotel in Orsay

It was a jolly group that explored Paris every night...only Charles Trenet is needed in the background to complete the effect!!

My reverie was disrupted by the ridley “dancing the samba” – a term used by some Brazilians to describe the amusingly vigorous side to side rocking movements of an olive ridley camouflaging her nest…

Here is Bas' reaction to the planned study:

To find out what experiment these people are discussing, planning, and laughing about, you will have to be patient and wait to hear all about it at the Sea Turtle Symposium in Greece ...

Okay, another hint: it is the same species that is responsible for the brown pile in the foreground of the below photo:

Yes, you probably got it! It is Loxodonta africana, the African elephant. Having seen only ghost crabs, raccoons, green iguanas, monkeys, freshwater turtles, monitor lizards, tyras, and the elusive jaguar on nesting beaches, it was rather thrilling to discover that there are corners of the world where elephants come down to the beach�We walked a long ways on Sett� Cama beach (north of Gamba) at dusk hoping to catch a glimpse of these giants of the forest, however, we didn�t see any. But early morning, they showed up at camp and below is my only photograph of them as they walked by foraging in the trees around:

Yes, somewhere in the darkness of that photo is an elephant :) Alexis Billes (ECOFAC/Kudu Programme Coordinator in Gabon) and I tried to follow them and almost bumped into the rear end of one of them as we turned a corner! Besides elephants, hippos can be seen on the beach or in the surf as well as wild buffaloes, but no hippo or buffalo sightings for me on this trip�

Prior to the Symposium, some sea turtle researchers met at St. Catherines Island to discuss Atlantic leatherbacks. Presentations and discussions kept everyone quite busy at the retreat (the results and recommendations from this retreat can be found on the Caribbean Conservation Corporation website), nevertheless, our generous hosts and organizers made sure we had opportunities to explore this beautiful island. Here are a few glimpses of what some of us saw, heard, and learnt on these excursions...

We learn about the geology of the island from Gale Bishop:

We marvel at egg cases built by the moon snail:

Jim Spotila tries to convince skeptical sea turtlers that he is indeed holding a leatherback skull :)

Jean-Yves Georges and others listen carefully as Graeme Hays explains some turtle issue in the sand:

And finally a long beach walk revives us all for more lengthy discussions...

The cooperation of and feedback from the fishermen has been encouraging and the number of fishermen involved continues to grow. As sea turtles are generally not a targeted species, there appears to be less political friction surrounding fisheries/sea turtle interactions in this region than elsewhere. And certainly the tireless efforts and dynamic involvement of Mustapha and Wafae in this project have contributed to establishing successful collaborations with the fishermen.