Green Islands Foundation Shark Education Event

Objective

Increase cultural understanding and awareness of global issues within volunteers, staff and community members.

Summary

The GIF shark education event was carried out to assist in the education of local schoolchildren on two topics which are currently receiving much global attention, i.e. mangrove systems and the conservation of sharks. The mangrove habitat on Curieuse is an important nursery ground for juvenile lemon sharks, and the event was aimed at teaching the children about their basic biology and ecology, and the imortance of protecting this fragile habitat.

Report

Here at the GVI Curieuse Island Conservation Program, we love our sharks! We currently run a research project, funded by the British High Commision, which investigates population size and growth rate of the juvenile sickle-fin lemon sharks found in the Curieuse Marine Park. Unfortunately, this love is not yet shared by everyone in the Seychelles. So, when our friends at the Green Islands Foundation (GIF) wanted to organize a shark education day for local children, we couldn’t wait to give them a hand.

This was one of a number of events organised by GIF over the last year. Funded by the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme and the Environment Trust Fund to educate children and the local community on the ecological importance of our sharky counterparts, it is also part of the IOC-SmartFish project “Shark Fin Soup” awareness campaign.

On the 17th of June we were able to take some time out of our busy schedule of tortoise tickles, mudskips and Coco de Mer-ing to host our GIF guests here on Curieuse Island. 17 children from the Praslin Wildlife Club at Grand Anse Primary School, aged 7-11, jumped on a boat and came with Arjan de Groene and Jennifer Appoo from GIF, for a fun filled day of educational activities, games and seaweed sharks.

GVI staff and volunteers took the children on a tour of the mangroves, introducing them to some of the many important species we find there including, of course, our shark pups! Base Manager Alan Grant stepped up to tell them all about our project, teaching how and why we catch, measure, tag, release and re-catch our sharks. By this point it was of course time for the games – the purpose, educational of course, was to show the children how our tagging and scanning equipment works and enables us to identify our individual “lemons”.

A quick hike back over the hill to the Ranger Station saw us on track for lunch, followed by a host of further games. The children learned about schooling behaviour in fish (predator avoidance), shark anatomy, some specialised adaptations which help them when hunting (such as tooth shape and caudal fin structure), and threats to shark populations, especially the shark fin industry.

Sharks belong in the sea, but there are exceptions so to end the day we all got together to search for the endemic, beach dwelling, Curieuse sea-weed shark. Unfortunately none were to be found - we think they may even be fictional! However, it didn’t take long for our enthusiastic visitors to make their own and they got a photo to remember the day.

The event was an ideal opportunity to contribute to the understanding and awareness of the global issue of shark conservation, by directly engaging with Seychellois schoolchildren. This will sow the seeds of a greater awareness of the populations of sharks living on their doorstep, and hopefully contribute to improved conservation of Seychelles lemon sharks by future generations.

We all had a great day and the kids certainly seemed to also. So, GIF we hope to see you back here soon. As always a big thank you to our principal partner, Seychelles National Parks Authority for organising transport to and from Curieuse and of course for having us on your island!