A social group of snorkelling grandmothers has discovered a large population of venomous sea snakes in New Caledonia and are now helping scientists understand the local ecosystem.

The project started in 2013 when Dr Claire Goiran from the University of New Caledonia and Professor Rick Shine from Macquarie University began to study the venomous greater sea snake, also known as the olive-headed sea snake, on the reefs of Noumea. Dr Goiran began enlisting friends of hers to help with the project and before long the project was receiving regular contributions from six local grandmothers. 

The group calls themselves “the fantastic grandmothers” and they swim up to 3km five days a week in an effort to document the local sea snake population. Pretty soon it became clear that the species, initially thought of as rare in the area, actually has a much larger population than expected.

“Even when I am stuck at university with teaching, I know what is going on in the study zone because the grandmas survey the zone for me and send me the photos,” Dr Goiran told The Guardian.

Goiran and Shine have now published a paper in the journal Ecosphere revealing there are more than 250 greater sea snakes in the bay. The findings suggest the snakes play a much more significant role in the healthy functioning of the local ecosystem than previously thought, though there is more work to be done to work out what that role is exactly.

 

Positive Action

• Would you like to get involved in citizen science? Check out some of the projects looking for contributions through the Australian Citizen Science Association.
• Help out our native friends by planting a native tree as part of National Tree Day.

 

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Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.