For this year, Yasmina and Coralie, intern and volunteer went on board to encounter 4 classrooms with children aged from 6 to 11 years old. Helped by gameboards, cuddly toys, memory game, posters…, booklets, they made the children learn about the marine animals such as sea turtles, marine mammals…. to help at a better understanding of why we need to protect them…

At least, 100 children participated to this morning celebrating the World Ocean Day…

Differents school classes of Tahiti, Moorea, Tuamotu but also from France, Tonga, Samoa, Fijii, New Caledonia and others countries of the South Pacific are exchanging and following the travel of six sea turtles equippeed by staellite transmitters. Children discover all together the great journey of the French polynesia sea turtles.

After exchanging during the all school year on the marine embmematic species we need to proect, through a website (in both French and English) dedicated to the project, a classroom from Moorea will travel over to New Caledonia in May 2015 to encounter the schools they exchanged with during the year.

For now, we are pleased to introduce you the 6 sea turtles, equipped by satellite transmitters between December 2014 and March 2015 on the islands of Tikehau, Hao, Tetiaroa and Moorea, in clicking on the following link : Bula honu.

This project is held thanks to the Ministry of the Environment, In fact, the website dedicated for the project has been realized by the Board of Education of French Polynesia and approved by the in French Polynesia.

<< Click here to read the Press release

<< Click here to follow the sea turtles equipped by satellite transmitters

<< Click here to discover the events in French Polynesia

<< Discover the Solar Impulse program

The last clutch of sea turtle on the island of Moorea happened  in 2004, and only few failed attempts have been registered ever sine in 2006, 2008 and early in the year 2014.

A resident of motu Fareone (small island) called us on Saturday 15th of November 2014 to inform that they have found two baby turtles crawling around, partially  eaten by ants…

Our Veterinarian Dr Cécile GASPAR came right away on site and found 17 babies badly weakened, some eggs that were outside the nest, either partially hatched, either cracked or still unbroken…86 eggs had been laid in total…

At once the team handed out treatments on hatchlings. The cracked and unbroken eggs were buried again in a protected sandy area ensuring that the conditions were the same as the ones of the original nest; these eggs were monitored 24 hours a day. Natural hatching kept on going at a rate of 3 to 7 hatchlings every morning for 6 days.

In total, such an action generates the survival of 37 juvenile sea turtles thanks to one-week incubation more a close supervision.

The 53 surviving baby turtles were placed under observation into pools at the Turtle Clinic of Te Mana o te Moana in the vicinity of the InterContinental Moorea Resort and Spa. Since the beginning of the foundation 10 years ago, she Sea turtle Clinic has sheltered over 350 turtles in 10 years of existing…

For the 37 of them enough vigorous, it’s time to join in the open ocean with no delay…That’s what happened on the 26^th, from the reef in front of motu Fareone where the nest was found. They were released by the school children from the Paopao Elementary school of Moore. This action is as part of the educational program held for the 2014-2015 school year, and called “Bula honu, on the path of the marine turtles”. This project consists in having children from French Polynesia and South Pacific to exchange on the sea turtles thematic via a website, to create a charter and organize the journey to Fidji of the referent classeroom, to encounter their friends of the Pacific. We also had the honor of hosting Maud Fontenoy who came for this special occasion to support and contribute with her own Foundation to “Bula honu” educational program.

The 16 other turtles who have not been released yet remain under observation for few more weeks until they regain enough strength to be released…

Te Mana o te Moana likes to thank the inhabitants of motu Fareone for their reactive and efficient action once they found the nest, the volunteers that have been helping in a daily basis to the well-running of the clinic for 10 years now, and the last but not the least we greatly thanks to the InterContinental Resort and Spa Moorea as well as the Mahana Tours Society  that  provides us a boat everytime a turtle is ready and needs to return to the ocean Thanks also to the Ministry of the Environment …

Click here : to read the entire article on sea turtle babies release

This festival, usually hold in California, exists since 2009 and will be at Monaco in France for the 2015 edition.

 This event was an opportunity for te mana to exchange with ONG, foundations, scientists, producers, engaged towards the conservation of the ocean. p

Among them, Dr Sylvia Earle, representative for the  Oceans whom presented her movie Mission Blue,  Fabien Cousteau with his Mission 31, Dr. Wallace author of the Blue Mind and the projet « one billion baby turtles », and  Olivier Dufourneau, director for the political ocean, Albert Ier whom created the foundation Albert II and Don Walsh dive recordman (-10 916 meters) at Challenger Deep – fosse des Mariannes in 1960, 52 years before James Cameron  and the Deepsea Challenger in 2012.

In partnership with the Mouvement Eco citoyen, which organized the event, a team of te mana o te moana was welcomed onboard the shuttle from Tahiti to Moorea (doing back and forth) to raise awareness of the users to the emblematic species of French Polynesia, explaining the different rules applied for both Marine mammals and sea turtles.

More than 100 students were also invited to participate to this crossing.

Dr Cécile Gaspar, president of Te mana o te moana was invited to this event and we are glad to compt her as part of the new board commitee in order to help at a better understanding of the necessity of preserving our marine ressources in French Polynesia.

In the following of this event, Mr Phillippe Vallat was welcomed on Moorea to discover the foundation and the various educational ressources created by us.

The whole story of the foundation started 9 years ago, thanks to the strong involvment of Dr Cecile Gaspar, joined by Richard Bailey into the conservation of our natural heritage and the protection of endangered species such as sea turtles.

In the meantime, we would like to thank all the generous or helpfull contributors such as volunteers, donors, members, financial partners and institutions who trust in our missions and actions for more than 9 years for now. If you would like to be involved in our foundation, you can become a member, volunteer or support the Sea turtles Clinic.