Raroia impressed us with its wildlife–it’s among our top 5 atolls between French Polynesia and Tonga. We observed birds around the atoll, tried to estimate numbers and sent those to the ornithologist society SOP Manu in Tahiti. We also got in touch with the school principal and people from the mayor’s office and presented our pictures and findings. The general reaction was surprise and delight–locals don’t travel much and don’t know that it’s really special to still have motus with forest and bird colonies.
They promised to inform the population, make them aware of the treasure they have here and suggest how to help protecting it.
We hope those efforts will help the many sandpipers (endemic and endangered), masked/brown/redfooted boobies, sooty terns, crested terns, noddies (we even saw rare blue noddies), etc.
My mom still got the good news and was glad about it…
Now we’re on the way southeast towards the Gambier (maybe with a stop-over depending on the wind).
