As has been the topic for many of my FiNS blogs I am studying the ecology of pygmy seahorses for my doctoral thesis. Raja Ampat, along with Wakatobi, has some of the highest densities and diversity of these tiny fish that I have seen. During our expedition through the four kings (the translation of Raja Ampat) I saw four species including Satomi’s pygmy seahorse which had until now eluded me! I was also ecstatic to see the red and white colour form of Denise’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise) that is restricted to this area. Satomi’s pygmy appears to be nocturnal and is highly active in the early evening after the sun has set. As a result great care should be taken when photographing them. Bright lights stress them considerably so lights should be mostly covered whilst viewing the animal. We used a red filter to reduce the intensity of the light, with good results.

All in all there is something for everyone in Raja Ampat. I have been back to reality for a couple of weeks now and I am still dreaming of the stunning dives and creatures we saw. I have posted more images on my website.

November 23rd 2009 was a very special day in the history of Walindi Plantation Resort. “The World” came to visit as part of her 2009 PNG Expedition Voyage. The 644ft, 40,0000+ tonne vessel is unique in that she is the world’s first residential ship.

The vessel has a number of apartments on board which are owned by individual residents, meaning that the ship is in effect owned by the tenants in much the same way as an apartment building is. In addition to the accommodations on board the ship, there are a number of restaurants and bars, a grocery store and a number of the facilities you would expect to find on a 6-star cruise vessel. Essentially a large private super yacht, the ship, with her crew of approximately 250, sails constantly around the world, offering residents a never-ending change of scenery.

Every so often The World goes into expedition mode, when the voyage plan (designed primarily by The World’s residents) takes her to remote areas. PNG was the destination for this year’s expedition, and Walindi was delighted to host her and her roughly 100 expedition residents and guests for an action-packed day.

At 8.30am the vessel dropped anchor just off the resort, and the acitivities began. In addition to a group of divers who said that their day’s diving was among the best they’d ever done (we picked Inglis Shoal and Susan’s Reef for them…what do you expect!?), we ran morning and afternoon departures to Garu Hot River and the WWII plane wrecks at Talasea, as well as a very popular sunset birding trip to Nick’s Place behind the resort.

We also had residents and guests join us for both lunch and dinner, as well as just to come ashore and relax at the Planter’s Bar and on the resort’s deck. The help we received from their onboard tour organisers was invaluable, and by the time departure was imminent we’d all made some great new friends and had a wonderful, if slightly busy, day.

While I was there with fellow photographers Eric Cheng and Douglas Seifert, and videographer Julia Sumerling, we witnessed a sperm whale eating giant squid.

I posted some photos and a brief video explanation about the sperm whales on my blog.

On a separate day, I retrieved a 351cm segment of a giant squid feeding arm…essentially leftovers from a sperm whale’s meal…in the water. Obviously, this isn’t something that happens every day, so we took lots of photos and donated the segment to local researchers.

But, of course, we had some fun too. Here’s a video of Douglas performing the official measurement of the arm segment:

And this a general trip video I put together about Ogasawara (since I assume most people have no idea where it is). Be sure to play the video all the way to the end, so you can listen to the type of stuff I had to endure:

Note: All photos taken under permit.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated our dive log, which doesn’t mean that there has been nothing to report, only that we’ve been too busy to sit down and write about it.

We have done three more New Hanover trips in September, all with sucess, although one of them was a little unconventional due to our big dive boat Andioamo breaking down. One of the engines died one day, so we had to use the smaller dive boat Raven plus our banana boat to ferry tanks back and forth. It was rather cosy on the boat!

In the last few weeks, the weather has been fantastic, with no rain, just a little breeze and calm seas. However, the change of wind direction brought some dirty water with it, so wide-angle shots didn’t turn out so well.

There was still plenty of fish life, just a shame that there was so much stuff floating in the water with the fish. Dietmar and I ended up doing a couple of dives on our house reef, mainly trying to take pictures of our new resident turtles. Every morning and every afternoon they come into the shallows to munch away on the seagrass. Chivas, our dog, always manages to spot them, swimming out and then circling them for up to an hour. He tries to get a good look at them, sometimes he even sticks his head underwater. We might have to design a small diving helmet for him.

Here are some snap shots from last week. The orangutan crab comes from Kavin II, the cockatoo wasp fish and the porcelain crab from our house reef. Take a close look at the porcelain crab, and you can see not only the victory stance with one fist punched in the air, but also her belly full of little red eggs. No photo of the turtles, as the only ones I managed to get were on snorkel and they didn’t turn out very well.

On 26 September, The Reef Dive Resort in Mataking Island created its second artificial reef by sinking a 42ft fishing vessel: The Sipadan Mermaid.

Originally used for fishing activities based out of Norway, the boat was purchased by the resort as a liveaboard for the Sabah area. As the vessel aged, however, it became less cost-effective to keep it operational.

In the months leading up to the event, a great deal of work was put into preparing the ship, as it needed to be stripped of all hazardous materials and liquids which could affect the marine ecosystem.

Being steel-hulled, the boat wasn’t drilled, but pumped full of water until it sank. Pumping the boat full of water required the best part of an hour, but it only took a few seconds for the vessel to sink from surface to the sea bed 27 metres below.

The new wreck is situated only three metres away from the existing wreck – Shipwreck Pos (which is home to the only underwater post box in Malaysia), making it possible for visitors to explore two wrecks in a single dive.

Supporters of this project include Project Aware, WWF Malaysia and Treasure Images Productions.

This week has been a brilliant finale. My new group of six pygmies on the House Reef, which I have studied for just under three weeks, have yielded some interesting finds. The three males all gave birth at some point over the past week. Since I have been observing them for such a short time I was unable to know exactly the stage of the male’s pregnancy and therefore was uncertain when they would give birth. Luckily, now I have become something of a pygmy seahorse whisperer and was able to make an educated guess as to the day the males would give birth.

One evening the behaviour between one of the males and his mate was slightly different to usual. Ordinarily, only the male gets really into the pair’s courtship ritual but I noticed the female too was pretty excitable. This indicated to me the female had prepared some eggs, which she must begin to do several days before transferring them to the male. The purpose of the courtship ritual is to synchronise the pair’s reproductive systems. It is much better if they know the state of their partner’s cycle as this reduces the time wasted between broods. So, the female’s excitement indicated she was ready mate. From experience I knew when this was likely to be so got up bright and early the next day to try and witness the event.

We set off with time to spare but had a current against us to reach the gorgonian seafan where the group lived. Unfortunately this put us behind schedule and we missed the birth! Just as we arrived the male released the last of his brood and was flushing out his brood pouch with seawater. The male then swam about for the next twenty minutes, seemingly searching for his mate. They sleep together every night in the same protected area of the gorgonian and this is where the majority of social and reproductive behaviours are carried out. The female had left this area but after twenty minutes or so returned and the pair began courting.

The male was still visibly wrinkled with stretch marks but began courting his mate with fervour. Several times he inflated his brood pouch with seawater and flushed it out again. After quarter of an hour of these behaviours the pair rose up together from the gorgonian and intertwined their tails. They floated free from the gorgonian and held together their urino-genital openings (the technical term for the private bits of pygmies). This union lasted thirty seconds, during which time the belly of the female went from enlarged to wrinkled. The male conversely took on the eggs and swelled as they filled his brood pouch. I had witnessed pygmies mating once before but they kept the act to the seclusion of their protected sleeping area. The pair this week were real exhibitionists and put on an x-rated show for us! An amazing end to an eventful eight weeks of pygmy seahorse research!

Finally, but most importantly, as I wrap up my last blog I would like to thank Wakatobi Dive Resort for their invaluable support and enthusiasm in my project. Without their involvement this study could never have got off the ground. I have made many friends over the six months I’ve spent at the resort over the past two years but I look forward to visiting them and diving the amazing reefs again one day. Thanks also to everyone who has read and commented on my blog over the last eight weeks. Keep checking back I’ll be writing more blogs in the future! Now I will be working on writing up my studies. So hitting the books, but maybe fitting in a few dives too!

For more information or pictures please join my Facebook group ‘Pygmy Seahorse Fans’ , follow me on Twitter or check out my website for images.

With only two weeks remaining, I began a new chapter of work by starting to observe a group of six Denise’s pygmy seahorses on the House Reef. As I wrote my last blog I had just begun this task and now, a week later, am getting to know the group pretty well.

Luckily for me this sextet are on an exposed mini wall of the House Reef and a good ten-minute swim from the jetty. The currents on the House Reef do range between nonexistent (very rarely in my experience) and wild. This past week I have been subjected to a broad array of conditions but they have been just about manageable and the site is only 11 metres, so not too deep. Every evening this week I have been spending an hour with the group and observing their interactions.

The group consists of three males and three females, which are unusual in that each one is a completely different colour, like a collection of Jelly Belly beans. Usually I must spend a few days with a group before I can easily tell individuals apart by their subtle colour, size and sex differences but this group were easy straight off. The three males are smooth and red, smooth and yellow, and bumpy and red; the three females are smooth and red, bumpy and pink, and lastly smooth and yellow.

When I start studying a new group of pygmies I must measure them, sex them and as I mentioned, distinguish between individuals. I enlisted the help of dive centre manager Ben to help with the measuring since he has a steady hand to hold the ruler next to the animal whilst I take a picture. This is the least invasive method of measuring them, the alternative would be to take them off their gorgonian host but I don’t think pygmies would have the constitution to survive this! Unfortunately, the afternoon we went only one of the females was in an open part of the gorgonian coral, so we will be trying again another day before I leave.

Sexing a pygmy simply requires an extremely close-up image to be taken from underneath the abdomen of the animal. It would be easy of course if the animal didn’t measure less than 2 cm from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tail! After I finally get this image the sexes can be distinguished by the presence of a slit in males and a raised circular pore in females. I do feel a little like a peeping tom when I take these pictures it must be said!

So, my final week has just begun and I will be collecting as much data as possible on this group, conditions permitting. I am expecting some births and will be intrigued to find out which males and females are mating. The pair bonds don’t seem too strong at the moment so the pygmy soap opera will continue! Check my website, where I have been uploading new images and my blog where I also post updates.

We have had some unusually strong currents on the House Reef, which I actually witnessed in action on a couple of occasions. Even after four months every day watching the behaviour of pygmies on the same gorgonian sea fan, I’ve never seen currents like this. The gorgonian looked as if it would break at any moment and was bent from a vertical to almost horizontal position. The poor pygmies were clinging on for dear life (as was I) and I was not entirely shocked that after several days of these conditions only one pygmy remained.

One pygmy seahorse is obviously not excellent for observing social interactions, so I began the search for a new group. I have certain criteria that must be met in a potential group. They must be easily accessible, not too deep, and at this point in my study, I am searching for different group sizes to see how behaviours change according to the number of individuals and pair bondings. Luckily Wakatobi’s House Reef has abundant pygmies and I found two suitable groups.

Just along from the jetty bar I found a pair of Denise’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus denise), and some way along the reef in the other direction a group of six Denise’s pygmies. I’ve already spent time observing a pair, so I have decided as of today to start with the sextet.

They are quite far along the reef, but I can’t pass up this opportunity to study such a large group. The currents have already died down a lot, so I hope to be able to get there without too much stress. I have only two weeks remaining here, so I will really have my work cut out for me gathering enough information in that time!

In other news, I made the shocking decision to put my wide-angle lens on for a dive. The reefs are so colourful and vibrant here it is sometimes quite frustrating that my macro lens stays firmly on my camera in case something important happens pygmy-wise.

I went for the morning to a site called Blade where I conducted some observations, then we stopped off at Magnifica for the second dive. I have dived this site often, and I knew the pygmies well enough to know they wouldn’t miss me for one dive!

I was lucky that there was a slight current running that encouraged the soft corals to open their polyps and show off their full splendour. The reefs really are a kaleidoscope of colour here, and Magnifica is one of my favourites.

So, keep your eyes peeled for the week 7 blog, when I hope to have some updates from the new gorgonian. Meanwhile, I have new images on my website and new ones are going up whenever possible.

It was cigars all around early in the week when I was lucky enough to be present at the birth of a new generation of Denise’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus denise). I had predicted the time and date of the birth based on the expected gestation period of the species (which I figured out a couple of years ago) and the timing of social activities in seahorses.

I entered the water at first light to catch the birth and was quickly rewarded in seeing the heavily pregnant male moving from the area where he and his mate sleep to a current-prone part of the gorgonian coral. He soon settled and began popping out babies, which are only a few millimetres in length but fully formed in every way.

The first “contraction” resulted in half a dozen babies being shot out from the brood pouch within his body cavity. During gestation, they are curled-up to allow many young to fit in the tiny brood pouch. Moments after birth, they unfurl and begin to swim.

The young are dark in colour to help camouflage them as they float off in the water column to a new gorgonian coral. After the arduous event the wrinkled and probably exhausted father returned to his mate and the pair conducted ten minutes of courtship dances to reaffirm their bond.

After all this excitement early in the week, I was devastated on returning to the gorgonian a couple of days later to find the coral significantly disfigured due to unusually strong currents. Worse, the female of the pair was missing!

I had returned to observe the pair’s daily courtship rituals, which occur at the same time every day, but the male was clearly missing his mate. He waited some time in the area of the gorgonian coral where they engaged in their courtship ritual each day, but soon seemed to realise his mate wasn’t coming.

He then set out in search of her, swimming all around the gorgonian, stopping to look on the other side of the coral. Eventually he returned to the same spot where the couple slept each night, but alas, the female was not there. Without the protection of a gorgonian coral, a bright pink pygmy seahorse would be easy prey, and unfortunately, there are no other potential hosts within tens of metres of this group.

So I’m sad that this week’s update reads a little like a Greek tragedy, but at least a new generation of pygmies is now out populating new corals. Aside from pygmies, I found a couple of stunning nudibranchs that I’ve never seen before (that doesn’t actually happen very often), a group of eight eagle rays passed very close to me (but of course no pictures since my wide-angle lens rarely gets a workout when I’m doing pygmy work!) and I’m green with envy that the guests of the resort’s liveaboard, the Pelagian, had a close encounter with a tiger shark!

If you would like to follow more up to the moment snapshots of my daily activities, I am on Twitter with the user name Rich_Underwater and I have created a FaceBook group dedicated to my little friends called ‘Pygmy Seahorse Fans’.

The large welcome committee included grateful members of the Palauan community who greeted President Toribiong with flower leis and loud applause upon his arrival. Palauans are understandably proud of their President who declared Palau as a Shark Sanctuary during his recent address to the United Nations, General Assembly, on Friday, September 25, 2009.

Despite his long journey from Washington D.C. to Palau, the President was clearly moved by the warm reception and graciously thanked everyone for showing up to welcome him. Palau Shark Sanctuary once again thanks and admires President Toribiong for his landmark declaration of Palau as a Shark Sanctuary.

Palau Shark Sanctuary was founded in 2001 with a goal of securing a declaration by Palau that the waters of their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are a Shark Sanctuary.

For more information see: www.sharksanctuary.com or www.sharksanctuary.blogspot.com

Full text of President Toribiong’s address to the United Nations General Assembly:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am speaking here for the first time as a Head of State. However, in 1977, I appeared with my country’s delegation before the Trusteeship Council seeking independence. In 1994, the Trusteeship ended and we took our place as a member of the United Nations. Our independence is testament to the success of the International Trusteeship System, for which we are grateful. The legacy of our experience is a Constitution which incorporates the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — freedom, democracy, equal protection, rule of law.

We thank the Permanent Members of the Security Council who recognized our sovereignty: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America — which was our administering authority and to which we express our deep appreciation for having become our close partner under the Compact of Free Association, a relationship which we hope will endure.

As a new and young member, Palau has shouldered its responsibilities to the community of nations – including deploying Peacekeepers to Darfur, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands. As we sign international conventions and meet our counter terrorism obligations – as set forth by the Security Council – we remember and honor the legacy of the United Nations.

While our political progress has been satisfying since independence, I must report to you that we are now confronted with several looming threats to our continued peaceful way of life, and indeed to our very existence. Climate change, environmental degradation and the world financial crisis are challenges we will need to work with the international community to overcome.

Mr. President,

We associate ourselves with the statements of concern we heard in this room earlier this week on climate change. We applaud the commitments made and note that we must use our best efforts to stop this slow moving tsunami which threatens to engulf us. To this end, Palau, and our neighbors in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, have adopted a joint policy, known as Green Energy Micronesia (GEM) to move to renewable energy as a pillar of our collective energy security. Furthermore, Palau has signed the statute of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and we look forward to the exciting work which will emanate from the United Arab Emirates. We are hopeful that the combined efforts of all our nations will lead to a fruitful outcome in Copenhagen.

We note in particular the statement of the new Prime Minister of Japan, H.E. Dr. Yukio Hatoyama. Japan’s vision and commitment to save our planet are inspiring. This is one of the many reasons we support Japan for a permanent seat in the Security Council.

We reiterate that climate change is indeed a crosscutting issue, for which we need to examine all aspects, especially the security impact of climate change. This is why Palau and the Pacific Small Island Developing States initiated resolution 63/281, “Climate Change and its possible Security Implications.” We look forward to the Security Council’s meaningful action on the resolution.

Mr. President,

Palauans have lived throughout history in symbiosis with the sea. We are seeing now though that the sea, which has long been the source of our sustenance, is both rising in rage to destroy us and becoming barren. This fury was caused by the abuses of humankind and we therefore need to take every action necessary to allow the oceans to heal themselves.

In days gone by, the traditional chiefs of Palau would declare a “bul” – a moratorium to protect a resource which had become scarce. This traditional concept, now popularly known as conservation, shows the way for us to move forward. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed. “ This is why the world must declare a bul on destructive fishing practices like deep sea bottom trawling, unsustainable harvesting of shark for their fins and overexploitation of tuna stocks.

Mr. President,

The odious fishing practice of bottom trawling, where a weighted net is dragged along the sea floor crushing nearly everything in its path, is contributing to the rapid loss of a critical ecosystem, our coral reefs. We have outlawed deep sea bottom trawling in Palau, but no matter what we do in our own waters, there must be an international solution.
For several years, we have advocated, along with our Pacific neighbors, a moratorium on this practice. The Sustainable Fisheries resolution adopted by the UN in 2007, urged nations and regional fisheries management organizations to stop trawling in sensitive areas by 2009. We have waited for compliance, which has not come, and now renew our call for a worldwide moratorium on this practice.

Mr. President,

An equally destructive fishing practice is shark-finning. We have banned it in Palau and call upon the world to address this issue in order to save the sharks from extinction.

The strength and beauty of sharks are a natural barometer for the health of our oceans. Therefore, I declare today that Palau will become the world’s first national shark sanctuary, ending all commercial shark fishing in our waters and giving a sanctuary for sharks to live and reproduce unmolested in our 237,000 square miles of ocean.

We call upon all nations to join us.

Mr. President,

It is anomalous that Palau is experiencing economic difficulty while it sits in the middle of the richest waters in the world. We can no longer stand by while foreign vessels illicitly come to our waters to take our greatest resource, our tuna stocks, without regard to their conservation and without regard for adequate compensation to the island states which rely on this resource.
Palau believes that the best model for a regional effort to conserve our tuna resources and maximize the benefits to us is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). I therefore will work for the establishment of OTEC, the Organization of Tuna Exporting Countries, and I now call upon our friends in OPEC to come forward and help us to understand and obtain fair value from our threatened resource and to make tuna fishing sustainable.
Mr. President,

I come now to the economic crisis which my country is facing. As a developing nation, we are grateful for the grants provided by our allies and partners to advance our development. They have been helpful. But, we must acknowledge that outright grants do not always create meaningful employment. Jobs created are illusory and temporary.

Without a strong local economy, our children, our most valuable resource, are leaving our shores for opportunities elsewhere. As they leave it creates a continuing downward cycle which we must stop.

Our allies and partners can help us stop this cycle by promoting the development of private enterprise in our country. We need capital, and entrepreneurial expertise. I implore our allies and partners to consider providing incentives to their nationals to encourage them to come to our islands and launch partnerships with our talented people to create a viable economy. Let us once and for all put aside the fiction that we need handouts. What we need are partners to help advance our economy and put an end to the outmigration of our people.

Mr. President,

We note with satisfaction the decision by the People’s Republic of China to invite Taiwan to attend the World Health Assembly. The health and safety of the world’s people is at the heart of the ideals of the UN. In order to further promote these, we recommend that Taiwan be invited to participate meaningfully in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international organizations.

Mr. President,

We have heard the voices of world leaders from countries small and large, powerful and vulnerable. We have heard the voice of science. Let us heed these voices, fulfill our obligations to our people, and work for a strong economy and a healthy planet.

Thank you.