Today I’m delighted to report the good news of the successful completion of a joint marine discovery expedition to the UK Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha, in partnership with National Geographic Pristine Seas and the Tristan da Cunha Government. Jonathan Hall, Head of our UK Overseas Territories team, tells the story below...
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After a 3,000 mile round-trip in an ex-Japanese naval training vessel, over 100 dive surveys, 23 deep underwater camera drops, 30 offshore floating camera deployments, shark and seal satellite-tagging, seabird counting, camera-drone flying and some wonderful hosting by the Tristan da Cunha community, our 5-week partnership expedition to the world’s most remote inhabited island, lead by the National Geographic Pristine Seas programme, has been successfully completed.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Hall.
Seven days sail due west of Cape Town in the middle of the South Atlantic, this expedition was launched in order to support the 270-person Tristanian community in their visionary commitment to create a Tristan-lead and science-based marine protection regime to cover their entire 750,000km² maritime zone by 2020. An archipelago of volcanoes looming straight out of the South Atlantic, their enormously rich waters are home to a staggering array of species. Mountainsides we were fortunate enough to climb resounded to the beak-snaps of big fluffy albatross chicks and, on the warm days, an incredible musty aroma rising from the thousands of seabird burrows which honeycomb the slopes. The shoreline meanwhile was awash with moulting northern rockhopper penguins, whooping subantarctic fur seal adults, and, on some beaches, their thousands of seal pups, baa-ing like lambs and play-fighting in the surf. Underwater, giant kelp in beautiful golden forests ringed the islands, before the seafloor dropped away into deep and unknown depths.
In these rich cold waters, the dive teams recorded and filmed oodles of the famous lobsters on which Tristan’s certified sustainable fishery is based, scattered almost brazenly throughout the brightly-coloured boulder fields from which the giant kelp grows. One of their most exciting discoveries however was the presence of lots of large female blue sharks and weeks-old pups, suggesting that the Tristan group is likely to be a previously unknown pupping area for this species which is heavily-fished around the world. The team were able to deploy some satellite tags on the large females, so we will hopefully learn more about whether sharks are semi-resident or have travelled from afar to pup here. Three new fish species were also recorded for the first time in Tristan’s waters, while some intriguingly unidentifiable whales did a brief but tantalising swim-by on one camera. So although we recorded a huge amount of valuable data, we left with the overwhelming impression that, after three weeks in the archipelago, we had only been able to scratch the surface of the secrets of this remote wildlife hotspot.
Image courtesy of Andy Schofield
My outstanding natural highlight was a visit to the upland valley on Gough Island World Heritage Site where the Critically Endangered Tristan albatross breed, but the overwhelming memory is of the people. Not only was it a privilege to work with the hugely professional National Geographic Pristine Seas team, but the incredibly warm welcome and assistance we received from the Tristan da Cunha Government and community was unforgettable. We were extremely fortunate to have the Heads of both the Tristan Government Fisheries & Conservation Departments join us on board the expedition boat with some of their key staff for the entire duration of the voyage. Their insights and advice on reading the roaring forties weather and finding the anchorages where we could always get to work was invaluable.
Image courtesy of Andy Schofield.
As way of a thank you, we were therefore delighted to jointly host a free event on the last night of the expedition in the hall of the Tristan settlement (named ‘Edinburgh of the Seven Seas’), to which about 85% of the island’s population came. The team pulled out all the stops so we were able to immediately report back on the headlines of the scientific findings, and also showcase a short highlights reel containing some of the best shots from the expedition. This was extremely well-received by the community, many of whom have never seen much of their remarkable underwater environment before so were thrilled to see some of their marine treasures for the first time. The community have a strong desire to have a Tristan-lead process to safeguard their waters for their children and grandchildren, and we’ll now be focusing on bringing all the information together to help them designate their new marine protection regime by 2020. In the meantime, here's a small flavour of this remarkable UK Overseas Territory, thanks to our friends at Pristine Seas.
Once again, great stuff from the RSPB. One can see from your blog Martin what terrific gains one can achieve with relatively little cost, by defending and helping nature in the Oversea Teriritories. This applies in both the on shore and in the marine environments. It is also so pleasing to hear that there are lots of blue sharks present. These poor fish are so heavily persecuted and so cruelly killed.
I do hope that before too long the project for Gough Island to eliminate "monster mice" that eat chicks alive in their nests, will be able to proceed. I have sent a small donation to help the project forward.