My third and final month as the Seamarc intern at Four Seasons Kuda Huraa is now complete. I cannot believe that 3 months have gone by so quickly, but what an experience this has been! (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.)
We have released 5 more turtles in February, four Green sea turtle graduates from our Head Start Programme (Archer, Wukong, Gracie and Bella) and Ollie the Olive Ridley (rescue and rehabilitation patient). Ollie was admitted to our Centre on 15 September 2015, after her front right flipper had been caught in a drifting ghost fishing net near One & Only Reethi Raa (North Male Atoll). The bone in her flipper was still intact, but unfortunately circulation had been lost and the limb was slowly dying. After a successful amputation by our turtle biologist, the remaining stump was wrapped and treated and Ollie remained in care under careful observation.
I had arrived after Ollie, and I saw immense progress in her diving and swimming capabilities. To begin with, she would rarely dive to the bottom of our pools, but by the time her release date had been set, I would often see her resting happily on the bottom.
This month, I have also been helping guests to make coral frames, with the build-a-reef activity and Kuda Mas Kids Club drumming up lots of interest from adults and children alike. A favourite frame-making session was with a lovely family who sponsored a heart-shaped coral frame for their daughter’s birthday. They showed much enthusiasm and interest in the corals, and did an excellent job of attaching the fragments to produce a nice frame filled with bright purple and yellow Acropora humilis fragments.
Following last months’ creation of the new ‘starfish’ site, mapping, re-transplanting and monitoring of all the 109 frames has been completed. I have also finished monitoring the 90+ coral frames near the water bungalows, a particularly fun task due to the abundant fish life. I was regularly swarmed by shoals of snapper, cheeky wrasse and feisty damselfish when I was monitoring at the water bungalows. Unfortunately, Crown-of-Thorns starfish (COTS) are regularly reported at this site and so I also had to remove this voracious coral predator on occasion.
In addition to this, the mammoth task of re-transplanting our House Reef site has begun in preparation for monitoring of this site next month. Our house reef has approximately 750 frames (divided into 8 zones) and due to the large amount of COTS predation over recent weeks, many fragments and frames have suffered mortalities. Re-transplanting and replacing name and number tags at this site is a current priority for the Reefscapers coral team, in order to allow for the recovery of frames and permit more efficient monitoring next month.
My research project is continuing to show positive developments, with 55 out of the 81 fragments showing some growth. These fragments are now fully cemented to the frames and have also started laying down tissue over the cable ties used to attach them … great news!
I have also had the opportunity to go on a night snorkel safari. Using blue-light torches and special orange filters in the dark waters allowed us to see the coral fluoresce. I have always wanted to witness this phenomenon and the corals did not disappoint! The corals appear normal to the naked eye, but with an orange filter over your mask you can witness them biofluoresce with vivid green colours. This is because the filter blocks out the reflected blue light from the torches so we can see more fluorescence.
The true reason for fluorescence in corals remains unclear, although it is thought to act as a “sunscreen” for the coral, protecting the zooxanthellae inside the coral tissues from harmful sun rays. Another theory is that it is an indicator of health on the reef as only living corals will fluoresce. Despite the puzzling theories, witnessing this pretty light show has been one of the many highlights of my internship and something I would recommend for anyone to see.
Thanks for reading.
Emily 🙂
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