Post #3

The coral my daughter Emily works on is found in shallow water.  It can easily be collected by snorkeling, or in many locations by wading out from shore.  Below are Emily and Chelsea, an undergraduate research student from the University of Hawaii, wading out from a beach along the northwest side of Moorea late in the afternoon several days ago.  This was the second trip to this spot within the past week.

Just to the right of this picture is a rock about 20 meters off shore that just barely sticks up out of the water.  On both days there was a group of about 8 children, perhaps 3-10 years old,  frolicking on and around the rock.  This was clearly their playground, their sandlot, the way they spent their afternoons.  Imagine being a child and being able to play for hours on end in the ocean, day after day, jumping, swimming, splashing, exploring.  Lucky them!

This is some of what their playground offered:

Sea cucumbers with their frilly oral arms sweeping up food-rich sand to process, and

forests of stag horn coral filled with territorial damselfish, crabs, snails and other critters.

Well, of course the children were curious about what Emily and Chelsea were doing, so....

pretty soon the entire group worked their way over to investigate.

Interestingly, several said they had been told not to collect coral, which is encouraging.  We tried, with our limited command of French, to explain that we were conducting research on coral that would hopefully help save them.  They very quickly learned which species we were interested in, and eagerly wanted to help...

though we couldn't seem to explain that corals removed from the water were of no use to us.

What delightful children, friendly, fun to have around....