Last November, Dr Jacques-Olivier Laloë, a post-doctoral researcher at the Deakin University in Australia, joigned our team to participate to the research and conservation program of nesting green sea turtles. Since 2004, we lead this program on Tetiaroa with an agreement of the Ministry of the Environment.During his stay, he took part in the nesting monitoring program undertaken by our organization . Apart from helping to collect data on nesting females and on nests, he also deployed 25 thermologgers (small devices that measures sand temperature) on the different islands of the atoll. The data collected from these devices will follow up with temperature data that have been collected in the past year through this project. Our objective is to record sand temperature in the nest during several nesting seasons, in order to better understand the risks linked to climate change on sea turtles population. Indeed, the incubation temperature of a sea turtle nest has important implications on hatchling sex ratios.
This is one more step for the research that will help us to better know them.
This project would not have been possible without the generous support of Air Tahiti nui that made it possible for Jacques-Olivier Laloë to travel to French Polynesia. Also, we would like to thank the Ministry of the Environment of French Polynesia who gave us the agreement to undertake such program.
