Julie Hartup was on island last week performing her research as project leader of Yap Manta Project.

Along with her routine data collection, community building and guests relations, she presents her data and involves all of us in her work. These photo were taken the night after the Meet the Managers welcome cocktail toast with Bill, where Julie introduces her work with Yap’s manta data that is intresting by itself.

Yap’s Manta ray poplation is small in terms of population studies in Mozambiq and Maldives – however what is being learned is that studying these smaller populations, the lives of individual manatas can be studied offering new spin of manta.

Here in Yap we have mantas that have been ID’s for the past 30 years and newcomers to the database that are 30 years old. This provides researchers the abaility to look closely to the lives of individual animals from just after the birth into sexual maturity and even reproduction and the start of new manta’s lives.