French Polynesia, January 2021

A first expedition took place in January 2021 in the Tuamotu, French Polynesia. It benefited from the logistical support of the French Navy, since the scientific team embarked on the Bougainville, a support and assistance vessel overseas, allowing the scientists to intervene on 5 uninhabited atolls: Tahanea, Haraiki, Reitoru, Tekokota and Tikei. Birds have also been tagged on Fakarava, Rangiroa and Tahiti. This three-week mission allowed to equip 56 birds with GPS beacons, including 13 curlews, 13 sooty terns, 8 plovers and 22 tattlers. The counts carried out during this mission revealed a vertiginous drop in the numbers of shorebirds on the atolls: a decline of more than 50% compared to counts carried out on the same islands in 2003. On the other hand, the mission made it possible to re-evaluate the size of the sooty tern colony on Tekokota, which in January 2021 numbered nearly 7,250 pairs! A count made possible thanks to aerial images acquired by drone.