ManuLast news

Red List 2017 Bird update

The latest Red List update has been published! To know more about the new List, download BirdLife’s Bird Red List Roundup infographic. To read more : https://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news/red-list-2017-seabirds-starving-songbirds-trapped-hope-pelican-and-kiwis Worlwide Of the total of 11,122 bird species

25Mar

2018 Ordinary General Meeting of the SOP

The Ordinary General Meeting of MANU held on Saturday, March 17, 2018 at Samuel Raapoto High School (thank you for the welcome!). With a quorum reached at first blow – thanks to the members who came and to those who took the time to send their powers. It was studious but in the same time […]

26Jan

The Origin of Flight – What Use is Half a Wing?

“What use is half a wing?” As a rebuttal to Darwin’s (1859) explanation of the origin and diversification of life, St. George Jackson Mivart (1871) posed a challenge: With this simple question, Mivart challenged Darwin to explain the adaptive role of intermediate forms within an evolutionary continuum,

24Jan

Seabird rescuing network in French Polynesia – Award 2017

The Seabird rescuing network of French Polynesia is a group of volunteers who care for and release grounded and injured seabirds, mostly petrels. Most of the ‘sauveteurs’ are members of the BirdLife Partner SOP Manu, which coordinates their work, and which has nominated the group as Nature’s

07Aug

Colors of birds feathers

Colors of birds feathers and climate: is there a connection? Gloger’s rule states that birds living in humid climates tend to have darker pigmentation. Darker feathers are believed to be useful for defense against parasites, temperature regulation, and camouflage. However, researchers are uncertain about the

04Aug

Ifloveconservation Helps Saving Polynesian Birds

Saving French Polynesian Birds – Interview with Thomas Ghestemme from SOP Manu. Written by Marta Noblejas – 2nd August 2017 http://www.ifloveconservation.com/saving-french-polynesian-birds.html Stretching over a large expanse of the South Pacific Ocean, French Polynesia consists of a group of 118

25Jul

The call of the seabird

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz are developing new acoustic monitoring techniques that could aid seabird conservation. Abe Borker, a Seabird Biologist, is trying to make population studies of seabirds more cost-effective and efficient. Borker explains that based on the call of some species

04Jul

Birds of Eastern Polynesia. A biogeographic Atlas

Birds of Eastern Polynesia, by Jean-Claude Thibault & Alice Cibois, is the first biogeographic Atlas of the birds of one of the largest areas of Oceania. We are pleased to send you a pre-publication announcement for our forthcoming book on birds of Eastern Polynesia The book treats all of the 241 species,

30Jun

Five remote Pacific islands are paradise again!

Five remote Pacific islands are once again safe heavens for four of our world’s rarest bird species following the success of one of the most ambitious island restoration projects ever implemented. Just two years after ambitious efforts by a team of international conservation organisations to rid French Polynesia’s

19May

The unique birds of Rapa – French Polynesia

Can we save the unique birds of Rapa ? Rapa and its surrounding islets is a very remote place. It is far, very far from Tahiti, the main island in French Polynesia. This isolation has resulted in the evolution of a highly unique flora and fauna with an extraordinarily high endemism. Read the full article […]