Project Blogs

Birding, the art of finding and identifying different bird species, either in your backyard or a couple 1000 kilometres away from home, is a growing hobby among many young naturalists. Not only is it a great way to…

Part II of II D’Arros Island in November is nothing short of paradise. Coral reefs teeming with life, bright green palm fronds on white sandy beaches, and calm and flat turquoise seas. Well, usually calm and flat seas.…

Part I This month, the Seychelles Manta Ray Project Team at the D’Arros Research Centre had three satellite tags to deploy on manta rays and we were beyond excited to get them in the water. These tags provide…

After experiencing a rather bumpy start to our first field season on D’Arros and St Joseph Atoll in 2016, we were determined to get some tracks for 2017 and find out exactly where the local wedge-tailed shearwaters forage…

Sitting on one of the stunning beaches of D’Arros Island and looking out over the crystal clear blue water, it’s hard to believe I have already been here for 12 days. After months of planning, paperwork, and organising…

Over the past three years I’ve been conducting research at the Save Our Seas Foundation–D’Arros Research Centre (SOSF-DRC) to better understand the juvenile shark populations at St Joseph Atoll. On six intensive field trips we collected vital data…

While waiting to get my deployed tags back, I decided to conduct a census on D’Arros to try and determine how many Fouquet are on the island. Globally there are over 5 200 000 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, however several studies…

It was an exciting November at the Save Our Seas Foundation’s D’Arros Research Centre (DRC): we identified thirteen new manta rays around the island for the Seychelles Manta Ray Project! Each day, the DRC and Manta Trust team…

Seabirds, like other top marine predators (sharks, cetaceans, turtles and tuna), have been identified as valuable indicators of the state, or health, of the marine environment. In addition, their foraging distributions generally point to areas of high productivity…

D’Arros Island and Fouquet Island are teeming with life in the air, in the water and on land – and even more so at night when thousands of fouquets (wedge-tailed shearwaters) return to their nests. Just as the…

One of the most exciting aspects of conducting marine research is that you can be studying animals that are up to five metres across and have no idea where they are, where they go or why they choose…