Mud, sweat and magic: building Seychelles’ first coral spawning lab

Sandals are not designed to be worn in mud. The clue is kind of in the name. When you do, they sink, stick and squelch as you walk. But the intrepid sandal wearers of this story have more important things on their minds than the feeling of wet dirt between their toes.

Caught in the kind of intense tropical shower that is quite normal in Seychelles in November, they continue to work. Lifting box after box, component after component, out of shed-sized containers and carrying them to their destination, all the time brushing the relentless rainwater from their eyes. Because time is short and Mother Nature, as we know, is unpredictable. 

But let us rewind a few months and several thousand kilometres. When the weather was drier and Dr Jamie Craggs and his team at Coral Spawning International were planning the delivery of this extremely precious cargo from their London HQ to Dr Nirmal Shah and the marine scientists of Nature Seychelles. It was a shipment like no other. Four crates, collectively weighing the equivalent of an SUV, contained a complete and ready-to-operate coral spawning laboratory with systems for broodstock spawning, embryo rearing and settlement. Plus, a four-length V-shaped raceway – basically a long tank that lets water flow continuously from one end to the other, mimicking the conditions of the reef. 

After an uneventful, but lengthy journey across seas and oceans, the lab arrived at Victoria Port, Mahe. Where it was promptly loaded onto another lorry and another boat. Because Seychelles, of course, is made up of over a hundred islands – each connected by a network of boats, ships, ferries, planes and helicopters. Logistics, it seems, is just a normal part of life here. Indeed, every part of life here is connected to the sea. So, if there is a problem with the sea, it’s a problem for everyone. And, right now, “the change in the corals is making fishing very difficult,” according to Marcus Dubel, a Seychellois fisherman. Without it, there are no fish. And, for Marcus, that means no ability to make a living. So, the ‘lab in a box from London’ could genuinely change his life. Of course, he is not the only one.

“We started coral reef restoration around fifteen years ago after we’d finished saving all the birds – we had nothing left to save, so we started saving coral.” Dr Nirmal Shah, CEO of Nature Seychelles laughs, but he’s not kidding. Their work has been spectacularly successful. Indeed, in a world where we hear so much about climate disaster, species extinction and environmental decline, Seychelles is something of a rare success story. But, even here, the increasing frequency of coral bleaching events is deeply worrying for everyone on the islands.. Its existence here Is not only intrinsically connected to almost everyone’s livelihoods, but offers food security and critical coastal defence.

So, bringing the new coral spawning lab to the Assisted Recovery of Corals (ARC) facility at Cousin Island Special Reserve kicks off a new approach to coral restoration, accelerating their efforts in a way that’s never been seen here before. “And it is a time pressure,” says Dr Craggs. “The corals aren’t going to wait for us. So, we have to pull out all stops to get it built. We’ll work all night long if we need to, but we will achieve it.”

Hence the muddy sandals. And why they are transporting, unpacking and installing a full coral spawning and embryo rearing system in a torrential downpour. This is genuinely a race against time. There’s going to be a spawning event at any moment – but no one knows for certain exactly when it will be.

What we do know, however, is that it will be the event which kicks off the team’s observations of Cousin’s coral spawning patterns, so they can begin the process of recreating an array of seasonal, daylight and lunar cues, tricking the coral into believing it is late at night – their natural time to spawn – when it is actually daytime. This process is called phasing and it’s the key to being able to fill that huge raceway with baby corals, which will live just outside the lab at ARC. It’s a new kind of system designed by Jamie and the team at Coral Spawning International which can rear over 8000 corals at a time.

Remarkably, the unpacking and building of all elements of the new lab took just two days and nights in a show of teamwork that is the hallmark of the success of Nature Seychelles. If anyone was exhausted, they didn’t show it. And even if they were, it was nothing that a good hard hit of unexpected excitement couldn’t sort out…

“Spawn! Spawn! Spawn!”

It was barely an hour after sunset when Dr Craggs put his head round the door to make his final lab check-in of the day (“it’s always good to check the tanks”) and discovered that the coral had already started to spawn. Within minutes, everyone was gathered, awestruck, emotional and happy beyond belief to be able to witness this rare gift of nature. Knowing that less than forty-eight hours previously the entire lab had been in crates and they were soaked to the skin.

And now here they are, stood in the darkness, with only the gentle glow of the tank lights showing the thousands upon thousands of gametes rising to the surface, ready to be collected by their own hands. At first glimpse, they are tiny red dots, but the assembled scientists, volunteers and joyful conservationists see so much more – the culmination of work which pushes the boundaries of coral reproductive science. And hope for the future.

Follow the progress of our work with Coral Spawning International and Nature Seychelles here on VIEW.