Collected sea cucumbers were filled in 4 big buckets.
Sea cucumbers released.
Waiting the darkness on the boat.
Sea cucumber farm.
On January 24, Ken, Janice of TRCT, David of Meerur village, Elijan and Salven of College of Micronesia, COM, conducted sea cucumber collection work in night time at the sea cucumber farm just out of the beach of the village. Jun and myself of ECOPLUS joined the operation.
It was very clear evening. We waited until it was getting dark on the boat, since sea cucumbers would come out from the sand in the darkness. The depth of the water was about chest level. the farm area was like 100 meters square, and was separated by net from outside.
Inside of the net, we put our head into the water. Janice and I made a pair, and I helped her carrying a flash light. With flashlight we tried to find sea cucumbers. It was difficult to identify sea cucumbers inside of dense long sea weed leaves. We also needed to walk and dive gently not to disturb water and sands to keep the visibility.
I surprised how fast Janice was to find and catch sea cucumbers. However, later, she said that she could not touch a sea cucumber when the project started three years ago.
Through out four hours in the ocean, we collected 686 sea cucumbers. After counting numbers, we released those into open water area.
This was the final work of the sea cucumber farming project. After releasing all grown sea cucumbers from the farm, the net wall will be reported and another farming project will be started.
It was really tough work. But we observed see so many stars over the ocean.
Reported by GOTO Haruka, a volunteer staff of ECOPLUS/TRCT, a student of WASEDA University, Tokyo
