New Caledonian manta rays dive deep

This 2018 video says about itself:

“New Caledonia, Mother of the Coral Sea” features the incredible diversity of the Coral Sea in New Caledonia and how it provides for the people of New Caledonia — where nature and people are inextricably linked. The film features the different sides of New Caledonia — from Noumea, its capital city, to the magnificent Ouvea, referred to as “the closest island from Paradise”, and the bountiful life — turtles, sharks, manta rays, and large schools of fish — that blossoms in these waters, and are respected as culturally-significant totems.

Local community members, Marie-Lucette Taoupoulou, Pierre Kaouma, Marjorie Tiaou and Marino Tiaou take us through their world and their way of life. They share about their bond with nature and their aspirations of preserving this bond for generations to come. Conservation International and the Manta Initiative are working with partners to conserve the Coral Sea and its diversity — before it becomes endangered.

Narrated in French, with English subtitles, the film, produced by Blue Sphere Media, also features CI’s Marine Program Coordinator Mael Imirizaldu and Manta Initiative researcher Hugo Lassauce. …

The Mother of the Coral Sea has won a Silver Award for Best Documentary Short and an Honorable Mention for Best Cinematography at the Independent Shorts Awards in Hollywood, and has been officially selected to screen at the International Ocean Film Festival.

From PLOS:

Reef manta rays in New Caledonia dive up to 672 meters deep at night

Declining ray species dives much deeper than previously recorded, perhaps to access scarce zooplankton supplies

March 18, 2020

The first data collected on the diving behavior of reef manta rays in New Caledonia considerably extend the known depth range for this vulnerable species in decline, according to a study published March 18 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Hugo Lassauce of the University of New Caledonia, and colleagues. These results add new information on the habitat use of the species in a region where manta behavior has not previously been studied, and increase their known depth range by more than 200 m.

Reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi) are declining worldwide, in large part due to fishing pressure. More detailed information on the distribution and habitat use of the reef mantas is necessary to inform conservation and fisheries management measures to ensure the long-term survival of the species, now listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Pop-up satellite archival tags (PSAT tags) are one of the most effective methods to investigate fine-scale movements and habitat use in manta rays, but until now, there have been no such studies conducted in New Caledonian waters. In the new study, Lassauce and colleagues report the results from nine PSAT tags deployed in New Caledonia, recording the world’s deepest known dives for reef manta rays.

All tagged individuals performed dives exceeding 300 m in depth, with a maximum depth of 672 m. Most of the deepest dives occurred during nighttime, possibly to access important food resources. The authors hypothesize that these results may indicate zooplankton abundance in the surface waters surrounding New Caledonian coral reefs is insufficient to sustain reef manta rays. According to the authors, many of the marine protected areas throughout the known range of reef manta rays are coastal and do not extend into deeper offshore waters. As deep-water fisheries increasingly exploit this zone, the study highlights the importance of incorporating offshore waters and deep-water foraging grounds in manta conservation initiatives.

The authors add: Tagged Manta rays (Mobula alfredi) from the never-studied-before population of New Caledonia showed unprecedented deep dive behaviour. More frequent and deeper dives than ever recorded before, Manta rays of New Caledonia set a new depth range to 672 meters.

New Caledonian snorkeling grandmothers discover sea snakes

This sea snake video says about itself:

Filmed 1991 on various places of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

Adults of most species grow to between 120-150 cm (4-5 ft) in length with the largest, Hydrophis spiralis, reaching a maximum of 3 m. The lung has become very large and extends almost the entire length of the body. They can remain submerged for as much as a few hours. Most sea snake species prey on fish, especially eels. The majority of sea snakes are highly venomous. If bitten cardiac arrest can occur after 6-12 hours. All music by Smartsound royalty-free music.

From Macquarie University in Australia:

Underwater grandmothers reveal big population of lethal sea snakes

A novel citizen science project in New Caledonia finds an ‘astonishing’ number of venomous reptiles in a popular swimming spot.

October 23, 2019

A group of snorkelling grandmothers is helping scientists better understand marine ecology by photographing venomous sea snakes in waters off the city of Noumea, New Caledonia.

Two years ago the seven women, all in their 60s and 70s, who call themselves “the fantastic grandmothers”, offered to help scientists Dr Claire Goiran from the University of New Caledonia and Professor Rick Shine from Australia’s Macquarie University in their quest to document the sea snake population in a popular swimming spot known as Baie des citrons.

For 15 years Dr Goiran and Professor Shine had been documenting the presence of a small harmless species, known as the turtle-headed sea snake (Emydocephalus annulatus). In the first eight years of the project, they also glimpsed — just six times — another species, the 1.5 metre-long, venomous greater sea snake (Hydrophis major).

From 2013 the pair decided to look more closely for this much larger and much more robust snake, but over the ensuing 36 months saw just 10 every year.

Enter the Fantastic Grandmothers, who were fond of snorkelling recreationally in the Baie des citrons and proposed a citizen science project. Armed with cameras, for the past couple of years the women have been venturing underwater and getting up close and personal with the potentially lethal reptiles.

“The results have been astonishing,” says Dr Goiran.

“As soon as the grandmothers set to work, we realised that we had massively underestimated the abundance of greater sea snakes in the bay.”

Greater sea snakes have distinctive markings, allowing individuals to be easily identified from photographs. In a paper just published in the journal Ecosphere the scientists reveal that thanks to the diving grannies they now know that there are more than 249 of the snakes in the single bay.

The photography project has also revealed crucial new information about the snakes’ breeding patterns, and numbers of young — more information, says Dr Goiran, than for any other related species, worldwide.

“Remarkably,” says Professor Shine, “they found a large number of lethally toxic sea snakes in a small bay that is occupied every day by hordes of local residents and cruise-ship passengers — yet no bites by the species have ever been recorded at Baie des citrons, testifying to their benevolent disposition.”

Dr Goiran is full of praise for the elderly women who happily volunteered to take part in what became a very notable citizen science project.

“I have been studying sea snakes in the Baie des Citrons for 20 years, and thought I understood them very well — but the Fantastic Grandmothers have shown me just how wrong I was,” she says.

“The incredible energy of the Grandmothers, and their intimate familiarity with ‘my’ study area, have transformed our understanding of the abundance and ecology of marine snakes in this system. It’s a great pleasure and privilege to work with them.”

New Caledonian crows, tool makers

This 24 January 2018 video says about itself:

Tool-Making Crows Are Even Smarter Than We Thought | Nat Geo Wild

These [New Caledonian] crows have developed a habit of carving a hook at the end of a twig to better reach their prey.

From the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Germany:

New Caledonian crows can create compound tools

The birds are able to combine individual parts to form a long-distance reaching aid

October 24, 2018

An international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, and the University of Oxford have revealed that New Caledonian crows are able to create tools by combining two or more otherwise non-functional elements, an ability so far observed only in humans and great apes.

The new study shows that these birds can create long-reaching tools out of short combinable parts — an astonishing mental feat. Assemblage of different components into novel functional and manoeuvrable tools has, until now, only been observed in apes, and anthropologists regard early human compound tool manufacture as a significant step in brain evolution. Children take several years before creating novel tools, probably because it requires anticipating properties of yet unseen objects. Such anticipation, or planning, is usually interpreted as involving creative mental modelling and executive functions.

The study demonstrates that this species of crow possess highly flexible abilities that allow them to solve complex problems involving anticipation of the properties of objects they have never seen. ‘The finding is remarkable because the crows received no assistance or training in making these combinations, they figured it out by themselves’, says Auguste von Bayern, first author of the study from the Max-Planck-Institute for Ornithology and University of Oxford.

Famous for the use of tools

The New Caledonia crows (Corvus moneduloides) from the South Pacific are of the same species as Betty, who became famous in 2002 as the first animal shown to be able to create a hooked tool by bending a pliable material. Researchers had already been able to show how this remarkable species were able to use and make tools in the wild and in captivity, but they had never previously been seen to combine more than one piece to make a tool.

Alex Kacelnik from the University of Oxford says: ‘The results corroborate that these crows possess highly flexible abilities that allow them to solve novel problems rapidly, but do not show how they do it. It is possible that they use some form of virtual simulation of the problem, as if different potential actions were played in their brains until they figure out a viable solution, and then do it. Similar processes are being modelled on artificial intelligences and implemented in physical robots, as a way to better understand the animals and to discover ways to build machines able to reach autonomous creative solutions to novel problems.’

The researchers presented eight New Caledonian crows with a puzzle box they had never encountered before, containing a small food container behind a door that left a narrow gap along the bottom. Initially, the scientists left some sufficiently long sticks scattered around, and all the birds rapidly picked one of them, inserted it through the front gap, and pushed the food to an opening on the side of the box. All eight birds did this without any difficulty. In the next steps, the scientists left the food deep inside the box but provided only short pieces, too short to reach the food. These short pieces could potentially be combined with each other, as some were hollow and others could fit inside them.

Without any help or demonstration, four of the crows partially inserted one piece into another and used the resulting longer compound pole to reach and extract the food. At the end of the five-step investigation, the scientists made the task more difficult by supplying even shorter combinable parts, and found that one particular bird, ‘Mango’, was able to make compound tools out of three and even four parts.

Although the authors explain that the mental processes by which the birds achieve their goals have not yet been fully established, the ability to invent a tool is interesting in itself. Few animals are capable of making and using tools, and also in human development the capacity only emerges late. While children start using tools reliably when they are about 18 months old, they only invent novel tools suited to solve a given problem reliably when they are at least five years old. Archaeological findings indicate that such compound tools arose only late in human cultural evolution (probably around 300,000 years ago in the Middle Palaeolithic) and might have coevolved with planning abilities, complex cognition and language. The crows’ ability to construct novel compound tools does not imply that their cognitive mechanisms equal those of humans or apes, but helps to understand the cognitive processes that are necessary for physical problem solving.

New Caledonia’s coral reefs

This video says about itself:

New Caledonia: The Coral Garden | National Geographic

16 August 2018

In the summer of 2013, National Geographic‘s Pristine Seas team embarked on an expedition to New Caledonia. Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala led a team of scientists and filmmakers to explore the remote reefs and marine ecosystems. They discovered an abundance of underwater life. The team’s expedition and resulting scientific publications contributed to New Caledonia‘s 2018 decision to protect 28,000 km of pristine reefs.

Crows making tools, video

This video says about itself:

28 June 2018

New Caledonian crows can remember what a tool looks like and then make a new one just from memory. Read more here.

Crows’ intelligence, new research

This video says about itself:

Sequential tool use by crow

6 Augustus 2009

New experiments by Oxford University scientists reveal that New Caledonian crows can spontaneously use up to three tools in the correct sequence to achieve a goal, something never before observed in non-human animals without explicit training.

Betty does not attempt to probe for food, but immediately uses the tabletop tool to retrieve a medium-length tool. She then appears to look into the food-tube, without probing, before using the tool to extract the longest tool. Finally, she uses this tool to retrieve the reward from the food-tube. It is noteworthy that she seems to actively dispose of each tool as its role in the sequence is completed, and she also turns the tools around in order to place the cross-piece distal, where it is most effective as a hook-like instrument.

From Current Biology:

Crows Spontaneously Exhibit Analogical Reasoning

Highlights

•Analogical reasoning is vital to advanced cognition and behavioral adaptation
•Some believe that analogical thinking is limited to humans or nonhuman primates
•However, crows too spontaneously solve higher-order relational matching tasks
•This is the strongest evidence yet of analogical reasoning in a nonprimate species

Summary

Analogical reasoning is vital to advanced cognition and behavioral adaptation. Many theorists deem analogical thinking to be uniquely human and to be foundational to categorization, creative problem solving, and scientific discovery [ 1 ]. Comparative psychologists have long been interested in the species generality of analogical reasoning, but they initially found it difficult to obtain empirical support for such thinking in nonhuman animals (for pioneering efforts, see [ 2, 3 ]). Researchers have since mustered considerable evidence and argument that relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) effectively captures the essence of analogy, in which the relevant logical arguments are presented visually [ 4 ].

In RMTS, choice of test pair BB would be correct if the sample pair were AA, whereas choice of test pair EF would be correct if the sample pair were CD. Critically, no items in the correct test pair physically match items in the sample pair, thus demanding that only relational sameness or differentness is available to support accurate choice responding. Initial evidence suggested that only humans and apes can successfully learn RMTS with pairs of sample and test items [ 4–7 ]; however, monkeys have subsequently done so [ 8–12 ].

Here, we report that crows too exhibit relational matching behavior. Even more importantly, crows spontaneously display relational responding without ever having been trained on RMTS; they had only been trained on identity matching-to-sample (IMTS). Such robust and uninstructed relational matching behavior represents the most convincing evidence yet of analogical reasoning in a nonprimate species, as apes alone [ 7 ] have spontaneously exhibited RMTS behavior after only IMTS training.

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New Caledonia creates large protected marine area

This video says about itself:

National Geographic Pristine Seas Expeditions | New Caledonia

26 February 2014

Last year the governments of New Caledonia and Australia announced their commitment to create a large marine park in the Coral Sea extending across the maritime boundary between these two countries.

However, a large portion of the Coral Sea in New Caledonia (in particular the remote Chesterfield Banks on the western region) has barely been explored.

In November 2013, National Geographic partnered with Blancpain, the Waitt Institute and the Institute de Recherche pour le Developement (IRD) of New Caledonia to explore, survey, and film these remote reefs through a Pristine Seas expedition.

The team traveled to the Chesterfield and the Entrecasteaux Reefs on the north, as well as to Petri and Astrolabe in the east. The main objectives of this Pristine Seas expedition were to fill gaps in scientific data on this area and to produce a documentary film.

Relive the expedition in the National Geographic Explorers Journal blog.

From Mongabay.com:

New Caledonia officially creates world’s largest protected area (photos)

May 02, 2014

The government of New Caledonia last week officially created the world’s largest protected area, establishing a multi-use zone that at 1.3 million square kilometers is three times the size of Germany, reports Conservation International (CI).

The Natural Park of the Coral Sea (Le Parc Naturel de la Mer de Corail) covers all of New Caledonia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is home to 4,500 square kilometers of coral reefs, 25 species of marine mammals, 48 shark species, 19 species of nesting birds and five species of marine turtles, according to CI. And because New Caledonia is governed by France, the commitment boosts the proportion of France’s national jurisdiction marine waters under protection from four percent to 16 percent.

The protected area is zoned for multiple types of use, including fishing under a management plan that aims for sustainability.

CI says the protected area will be integrated into the Pacific Oceanscape, an initiative by 16 Pacific Island nations and six territories to collaboratively manage nearly 40 million square kilometers, and the Big Ocean Network“This is a monumental decision for New Caledonia and the entire Pacific,” said David Emmett, Senior Vice-President for Conservation International’s program in the Asia-Pacific, in a statement. “Such a measure exemplifies what other countries in the Pacific can do to fully invest in the long term health and productivity of their ocean resources.”

Expansion of marine protected areas is needed to protect fish species that perform vital ecological functions, says a new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society: here.

OBAMA DESIGNATES WORLD’S LARGEST PROTECTED MARINE AREA IN HAWAII “At 582,578 square miles, Papahānaumokuākea will be nearly four times the size of California.” [Chris D’Angelo, HuffPost]

Related articles

• New nature preserve will be the largest on Earth
• New nature preserve will be the largest on Earth
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• Historic Moment in Marine Conservation: New Caledonia Creates World’s Largest Protected Area
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Shark sanctuary around New Caledonia

This video is called Jonathan Bird’s Blue World: Great White Sharks.

From Wildlife Extra:

New Caledonia creates a huge shark sanctuary

Pew Trust congratulates New Caledonia for creating a shark sanctuary

April 2013. New Caledonia has created a vast 1,245,000 square kilometres (480,000 square miles) shark sanctuary giving comprehensive and permanent shark protection in an area roughly the size of South Africa. The ocean around New Caledonia is still considered healthy and intact, and home to spectacular marine life, including approximately 50 species of sharks.

Several shark sanctuaries have been launched recently

Josh Reichert, executive vice president of The Pew Charitable Trusts said “We applaud New Caledonia’s decision to create a shark sanctuary by banning fishing for all shark species in the country’s entire exclusive economic zone. In the past few months alone, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, American Samoa, and the Micronesian state of Kosrae have ended shark fishing in their waters.

CITES

“In March 2013, 177 countries voted to protect oceanic white tip sharks, porbeagle sharks and three types of hammerhead sharks at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Though great progress is being made, sharks are still threatened throughout much of the world’s oceans. The finding of a recent scientific study that approximately 100 million sharks are killed each year in commercial fisheries represents an urgent call to governments around the world to take action before it’s too late. Scientists warn that the rate of fishing for sharks, many of which grow slowly and reproduce late in life, is unsustainable and could lead to the extinction of many species.

“The role of sharks is critical to the health of marine systems. One third of shark species are currently threatened or near threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There is an immediate need to protect them before they slip below levels from which they may never recover. It’s now up to countries to build on this recent success and ensure a promising future for sharks.”

Today we dove at Astrolabe Reef, a remote coral atoll northeast of New Caledonia. So far it’s the best place we have explored: here.

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New Caledonian birds recovery

This video from New Zealand says about itself:

With only around 40 left, the New Zealand fairy tern is one of NZ’s most endangered birds. Find out how DOC and local schoolchildren are trying to protect them.

From BirdLife:

Rat eradication success in New Caledonia

Sun, Sep 25, 2011

As part of a David and Lucile Packard Foundation project Société Calédonienne d’Ornithologie (SCO) the BirdLife Partner in New Caledonia, undertook operations in 2008 to eradicate invasive Black Rats Rattus rattus and Pacific Rat Rattus exulans from three important seabird islands in New Caledonia. The latest follow up surveys has confirmed that Table, Double and Tiam’bouène islands are all officially rat-free, and the bird populations are already showing signs of recovery.

The islands of Table (14 ha), Double ( 6 ha) and Tiam’bouène (17 ha) form part of the Îlots du Nord-Ouest Important Bird Areas (IBA) complex in Northwest New Caledonia. They are globally important for Wedge-tailed Shearwater Puffinus pacificus, Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii, Fairy Tern Sterna nereis, Dark-brown Honeyeater Lichmera incana and Green-backed White-eye Zosterops xanthochroa which were being predated by introduced rats.

In September 2008 SCO completed operations to remove rats from the three islands, and the most recent follow up survey in mid-July 2011 has formally declared these operations successful following 24 months of rat-free monitoring.

Already bird populations are showing signs of recovery, and [Vulnerable] Fairy Tern nested on the islands for the first time in 2010; Tiam’bouène hosting a colony of 28 active nests. Another very encouraging result is the first ever presence of [Near Threatened] Tahiti Petrel Pseudobulweria rostrata which was found breeding on Table Island in July 2011.

On each island, along with many new bird species being recorded, SCO report that the eco-systems are also showing positive signs of recovery. SCO are grateful for the support received from several individuals and organizations in completing these eradications and in particular thank the Pacific Invasives Initiative, the New Zealand Department of Conservation, and BirdLife International for their assistance.

The removal of rats on these islands is therefore an important starting point for the management of IBA islands Northwest. It is also an important action for the conservation of Fairy Tern in New Caledonia with between 70 and 90 pairs now found in the IBA out of a total of 130 pairs in the country.

Next steps are to continue monitoring the biodiversity recovery of the islands, seek the creation of nature reserves to protect the tern colonies from human disturbance, and to expand rat eradication to additional islands included within the IBAs complex.

The Kagu Rhynochetos jubatus of New Caledonia is an iconic bird that symbolises the challenges faced by many island species in the modern era: here.

A new guidebook has been published by SCO (BirdLife in New Caledonia) which gives a concise description of the breeding, migratory and sea birds found within the Pacific country: here.

After years of planning a rodent eradication operation on Kayangel Atoll, Palau, has just been completed and is already showing early signs of success. “So far, there have been no reports of rats on any of Kayangel’s four islands”, said Anu Gupta – Conservation and Protected Areas Program Director for Palau Conservation Society (PCS / BirdLife Partner): here.

Birds and American mink on the Outer Hebrides: here.

Saving New Caledonia’s kagu birds

This is a kagu video.

From BirdLife:

Putting Kagu on the Map

Fri, Sep 2, 2011

Société Calédonienne d’Ornithologie (SCO – BirdLife in New Caledonia) have received support from the USFWS Wildlife Without Borders – Critically Endangered Species Conservation Fund to help save their national bird from extinction.

Kagus are listed as Endangered by BirdLife International on behalf of the IUCN Red List, and is the only living member of the family Rhynochetidae. Physical features of Kagu that make it distinct from other birds include its dramatic displays with its strikingly banded wings.

As with many bird species endemic to the Pacific, Kagu evolved without mammalian predators and its lifestyle – it is flightless and ground-nesting – makes it highly susceptible to predation, particularly by recently introduced mammals such as dogs, cats and pigs.

SCO have been striving to improve knowledge about the birds of New Caledonia, and is involved in the projects to protect both the birds and the habitats upon which they depend. In 2008, SCO compiled a ten year Kagu Recovery Plan.

This newly funded project deals with a crucial aspect of the Kagu Recovery Plan, namely the documentation of its distribution and density in priority areas. The most robust method for determining this (the first step in aiding their recovery) is to monitor Kagu calls using sound recorders. These are favored because Kagu are found in remote difficult-to-access forested areas, and only call for short periods of the day.

SCO have tested the recording equipment to ensure its efficacy and now urgently need funds to undertake island-wide surveys in areas where Kagu have previously been recorded. SCO will also train local “Kagu Listeners” – members of the local communities – to collect additional data and increase the capacity for on-the-ground conservation of the species.

Funds from the USFWS Critically Endangered Animals Fund amounts to about half of the total project costs, and will be used to implement some of the Kagu Recovery Plan’s most important aspects, through:

Assessment and monitoring of Kagu populations at four Kagu refuges
Raising awareness and enabling local communities to protect Kagus.
Establishing community Kagu monitoring.

This project is a vital part of a wider program of work to save the Kagu (which includes funding from The BBC Wildlife Fund) from extinction by identifying new locations which will become a focus for addition conservation actions, and increasing the capacity of local people to help conserve this charismatic species and national emblem of New Caledonia.

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