Blog Entry One

Week One (Jan. 23-27):

This week included mostly measuring ocean levels from low and high tide. This means measuring the distance from the beginning of the beach line to the water line at both the highest tide and the lowest tide. I did this on beaches on the three islands, Mahe, Praslin, and La Digue to see how the location of the islands may change the amount of beach lost with rising ocean levels. I found that the worst case of beach loss was on the northwest coast of Praslin, whereas during high tide, there is no beach left. The locals have built rock piles in attempt to keep the water from diminishing the land behind the houses but have found that as the water levels continue to rise, the rocks will become obsolete. Many houses along this coast are already vacant in preparation for this unstoppable water rising.

Other than this, I had a proper introduction the giant tortoises that I will dedicate a lot of my time to in the next month. They're big.

I've sent time in the rain forests on Praslin marking trees to avoid the poaching  of the Coco de Mer. The Coco de Mer is like a giant coconut, about the size of my torso, that is the national symbol for the Seychelles. The issue is, although it is illegal, many of the native people want to harvest them to tell to tourists or use for their homes, etc. This becomes an issues because the seeds take seven years to become fully grown and when people are cutting them down at such an alarming rate, the Coco de Mer trees don’t have the time or resources to regenerate. What we did was mark the trees, each with a specific number and counted the number of seeds each tree had. We will return in a week or two to see if the numbers stay constant or if there is poaching in that area. 

The Seychelles is one on the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The people of the Seychelles have recently enforced a policy to keep their islands clean from pollution due to the effects it has on their oceans.

Introduction Blog

My project is the conservation of species in the islands on the Seychelles. I start my project on the island of Mahe and then travel to Praslin and La Digue. On these islands in the first ten days on my project I will be collecting the data of the beach levels to see the changes of oceans levels in comparison to previous years. Afterwards, I will travel to the island Curieuse where I will spend the last month of my time away for my project. Here, I will collect the majority of my research on the Coco de Mer, mangroves, beach levels, sea turtles, land tortoises, birds, sickle-fin lemon sharks.  After I complete my research in the Seychelles, I plan to obtain the research collected by this group in previous years and compare it to what I find in my research. On top of this, I will compare the changes that I found with the data collected in other islands such as Hawaii, Malicious, the Philippines etc.  I think that this is an important topic to research because global warming is a pressing issue and the effects that the changes global warming causes to species on tropical islands. I think it is also important to talk to the local people in the Seychelles and see how these changes in the environment effect their lives.

My in-school advisor is Mr. Bayer, who was very enthusiastic about the idea of my research project. My one-site advisor is Brooklyn Norton, who has done the research trip I am doing twice, works now for the research group I am working with.