Prince Albert has helped to release seven adolescent seahorses into the wild as part of a project to repopulate the quickly dwindling species.
It comes as the first conclusions of a new study about the seahorse population in Monegasque waters carried out by the Prince Albert II Foundation, the Oceanographic Museum and its Monegasque Centre for the Care of Marine Species (CMSEM), the BIOTOPE design office, along with expert in European seahorses Patrick Louisy have been released.
Seahorses are considered to be “near-threatened” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. This status means the natural populations are in decline and could become extinct altogether if nothing is done to rectify the situation.
The study’s aim was to gain information about Monaco’s seahorses and their habitats, to determine the best course of action to protect them and to engage in relevant conservation activities.
Volunteer divers from the Monaco Underwater Exploration Centre spent 160 hours underwater between June and September 2020 in order to acquire as much data as possible. The divers confirmed the presence of seahorses, specifically the Hippocampus guttulatus commonly known as the speckled seahorse, but were able to observe only three of the species in the wild.
The speckled seahorse, which is named for the white dots that cover their bodies, live in seagrass beds or coralligenous, of which there are many ideal spots for breeding in the waters off the Principality.
A pregnant male was captured, and the resulting babies were temporarily reared in captivity to ensure their viability. Prior to their sea release, seven of the juvenile seahorses were tested for genetic diversity. This was to ensure they wouldn’t disrupt an already fragile recipient population. The findings were interesting in that the Monegasque variety had different genetic characteristics than other seahorses in the Mediterranean.
The young speckled seahorses, which will reach 12cm to 16cm when fully grown, were released on 16th June in the late morning at Saint Nicolas rocks and the Fontvieille dike in roughly 20 metres of water with the help of Prince Albert.
These juveniles and the existing population will now be monitored for five years via a photo-identification protocol, allowing animals to be identified from their individual natural markings. The photos will serve as a visual, with complementary observations such as passive acoustics and environmental DNA being used.
Passive acoustics is a sound process that makes it possible to monitor the attendance of a site by a given species. Environmental DNA makes it possible to study the presence of a species thanks to the DNA it leaves in its environment. These tools will make it possible to track their seasonal movements and better understand their habitats.
Photos by E. Mathon – Palais Princier, P. Fitte – Musée Océanographique, and M. Dagnino – Musée Océanographique
Monaco Poste has released a quartet of new stamps to celebrate the 10th wedding anniversary of Prince Albert II to Princess Charlene, including an adorable one featuring the twins.
Four new stamps are now in circulation in the Principality marking a decade of marriage for the Prince and Princess.
The first stamp features the couple on their wedding day with a beaming Prince Albert next to his stunning bride. Another is a photo of the Prince and Princess waving from a balcony of the Palace. The third is a graphic stamp that features the first initials of the couple nestled next to each other with 2011-2021 across the bottom.
In the final one, six-year-old twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, try their best to sit still as their bemused parents smile for the camera. The effect is both intimate and charming, showing a casual warmth between the members of the family.
The complete set of the commemorative stamps cost 6.00€.
Office des Timbres – Principauté de Monaco
The stamps are a wonderful complement to the one that came out in April featuring the entire Princely family in an official photo. This more formal shot of the family shows the Prince and his son in matching blue suits and ties, with Gabriella in a sweet pink frock with a gingham check overcoat. The Princess is a showstopper, wearing a long white Grecian gown with a beautiful and unique collar around her neck.
Both sets of stamps can be purchased from the Monaco Office des Timbres.
Office des Timbres – Principauté de Monaco
Prince Albert II wed Charlene (née Wittstock) in a civil ceremony in the Throne Room of the Princely Palace on 1st July 2011. This was followed up the next day with a religious ceremony that took place in the Palace courtyard and was presided over by then Archbishop Bernard Barsi.
The couple welcomed their children into the world on 10th December 2014, where upon Hereditary Prince Jacques became the next heir to the throne.
After a year in which Monaco was largely denied its rich cultural events due to Covid, a full calendar has been announced for the 2021 Department of Cultural Affairs summer programme.
On Wednesday at the Princess Grace Theatre, Director of Cultural Affairs Françoise Gamerdinger presented the Department of Cultural Affairs summer programme to the press.
On the roster are the 51st edition of the Théâtre du Fort Antoine, which will run from 29th June to 6th August, as well as the 15th edition of the Monaco International Organ Festival, which goes from 27th to 15th August. In total, there will be 14 evenings and seven events at the Catherdral, including a cine-concert.
Fort Antoine will host its much-loved theatre programme that will see performances, events and talks by the Printemps des Arts, the NMNM, the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation, the Audio-visual Institute of Monaco, the Philosophical Meetings of Monaco, the Princess Grace Theatre and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra.
These diverse performers will offer a variety of entertainment options including screenings, concerts, conferences and a special evening tribute to Jean-René Palacio, who recently passed away but helped create this programme along with the Société des Bains de Mer de Monaco (SBM).
Monaco International Organ Festival Artistic DirectorOlivier Vernet revealed the theme of this year’s event to be ‘Organ sharing’ and will present the latest recordings made on the Monaco Cathedral’s organ, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. A special concert will be held to mark this event.
In honour of the anniversary and in collaboration with the Médiathèque de Monaco, a book signing with Claude Passet and Silvano Rodi, authors of the Grand Livre de Organ à Monaco, will be organised at the Louis Notari Library.
Masks are no longer mandatory outdoors in France from Thursday, while the curfew will be dropped completely come this Sunday.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex made the announcement on Wednesday as the country now registers about 3,900 new daily virus cases on average, down from the 35,000 peak in March-April.
He also said the curfew will be lifted on Sunday, 10 days earlier than expected.
Meanwhile, late Wednesday evening, it was announced that students no longer needed to wear masks outdoors in school.
Over 58% of France’s adult population has received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose. On Tuesday, the country opened its vaccination programs to 12 to 18-year-olds as part of a push to protect the population as restrictions are gradually being lifted.
The Monaco Government is due to make its next announcement about restrictions at the end of June. In its two-weekly assessment on 10th June, the government stopped short of dropping mandatory masks outdoors in the Principality as Covid circulation figures increase slightly.
In light of France’s decision, the National Council has renewed its call for the Monaco government to drop its mandatory mask rule for outdoors.
Monaco will not be welcoming cruise ships to its shores again this year because of Covid, a move that will strike a severe blow to local souvenir shops and museums who count heavily on trade from this source to keep operations afloat.
Finance Minister Jean Castellini told L’Observateur de Monaco the bad news, stating that the ban on cruise ships will last beyond the summer to include all of 2021. The reasoning behind the decision is all-too-clear. Simply put, it’s dangerous.
If a health situation arises on one of these floating cities, it is extremely difficult to manage, and even harder to isolate, as the nature of the cruise is to take passengers from port to port, exposing them and the inhabitants of the host cities to possible Covid infections. The risk of spreading the virus is therefore intensified, potentially triggering another crisis.
“These cruise ships have known strong contaminations, numerous cases on board, and we cannot envisage in the near future, nor even by fixing any date today, to accept again the activity of cruise in Principality,” Jean Castellini said back in April 2020,
An example of just such a situation occurred back in 2020, where more than 3,700 passengers and crew were stuck onboard in the Port of Yokohama, Japan for several weeks in confinement. The ship saw 700 cases, including 13 deaths. The handling of the situation was criticised by many as the cruise ships are not like airplanes which use HEPA filters to clean the air, nor were consistent and efficient “borders” put up to keep those infected from those virus-free. This left the gate open to infect people who otherwise would have come out unscathed.
Photo by Matt Roskovec on Unsplash
"The thrills, spills, hits and speed will make Monaco a huge success"
As a former rugby sevens player for Wales, Mark Thomas gives his take on this weekend’s World Rugby Sevens Repechage and revisits Monaco’s love affair with the sport.
Monaco, for most sports fans, is associated with Formula 1 and the Rolex Tennis Masters. But many do not know that Monaco has a long-standing love affair with rugby that dates back many decades.
This weekend from 18th to 20th June, the Monaco Rugby Federation and World Rugby, in partnership with the Government, are organising the World Rugby Sevens Repechage tournament at the Louis II Stadium.
Monaco will be hosting the international men’s and women’s sevens teams competing for the final Tokyo Olympic Games qualification places. For the women, the two best teams will secure a spot in Tokyo, but only one of the men’s teams will be lucky enough to head to Japan.
The pressure will be huge. Win in Monaco and you become an Olympian, the Holy Grail for many athletes. Additionally, organisers have confirmed that 5,000 fans will be able to watch the Olympic Games Sevens on the two main days of competition at the stadium so there should be a great atmosphere and the forecast is for fine weather. Louis II Stadium in Monaco Where it all began
Back in 1987 and 1988, Monaco hosted their first international rugby sevens event, the Glenlivet Invitational Sevens, where superstars like Serge Blanco and Denis Charvet won with France in 1987 and then Nick Farr Jones, Murray Mexted and Will Carling won the trophy with the Bahrain Warblers in 1988.
I was fortunate to play for the Welsh team during those years and while we lost to the French in the final, I have very fond memories of the event. It is what motivated me to come to France to play rugby, and eventually to end up living in Monaco. They say sport changes the world. It certainly changed mine, and for that I shall ever be grateful to sevens rugby, which allowed me to travel as a young man and play all over the world in tournaments in 24 countries.
Rugby sevens originated in Melrose, Scotland as far back as the 1880s, and the Melrose Sevens tournament is still played annually today. The popularity of rugby sevens increased further with the development of the Hong Kong Sevens in the 1970s and was later followed by the inclusion of the sport into the Commonwealth Games for the first time in 1998 and the establishment of the annual World Rugby Sevens Series in 1999 and the World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series in 2012. In 2016, rugby sevens was contested in the Summer Olympics for the first time. The teams hoping to make it to Tokyo
Rugby sevens is expected to be one of the most highly anticipated events of the Tokyo Games following the outstanding success of the Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan, which captured the nation’s imagination with record-breaking broadcast audiences and huge numbers of new rugby fans across Japan and Asia. The inclusion of rugby sevens for the first time in the Olympic Games at Rio 2016 had a profound effect on the sport, attracting an estimated 30 million new fans globally.
The women’s competition will feature Argentina, Colombia, France, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Samoa and Tunisia. The men’s tournament will involve Chile, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, Samoa, Tonga, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The women’s final is expected to be a close affair, and the favourites – France v Samoa – should be a nail biter, but the Argentinians may have something to say about that.
The men’s draw saw the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series core teams, Samoa and Ireland, paired in Pool A together with Tonga, Zimbabwe and Mexico. France were the top seeded team based on their performances in 2020 at the World Rugby Sevens Series where they finished sixth. They are drawn in Pool B along with Hong Kong, Chile, Uganda and Jamaica. France being favoured to win, they will have to overcome the speedy Samoans, the tough Tongans and the wiry Irish. Prince Albert completed the draw for the World Rugby Sevens Repechage tournament in Monaco, photo by Monaco Rugby Sevens
As World Rugby Chief Executive Alan Gilpin said: “With Tokyo less than three months away, the rugby family is looking forward to what promises to be a special sevens tournament that personifies the togetherness, camaraderie and optimism that characterises these remarkable Olympic Games. The Monaco repechage is also symbolic in its own way – a reflection and celebration of sevens international re-emergence from the unprecedented challenges that society and sports people have faced.”
Given the Covid chaos globally, it has been extremely difficult to organise, but the drive to be in the Olympics has not deterred these teams from doing whatever it takes to get to Monaco to try to qualify. One of the potential qualifiers is Tonga. At the end of April, the Tonga Rugby Union announced that, due to quarantine rules in New Zealand, it would select a squad of European-based players to compete for the final men’s sevens spot at Tokyo. Viliami Vaki, the Tongan captain, said: “We have a playing group that are busting at the chops to get together, there’s nothing greater than playing for your country. That’s exciting because they are a level of player that have experienced different World Cups and professional competitions around the world.” Tonga could well be the dark horse in the men’s competition.
Hopeful Hong Kong Rugby coaches Paul John (winner of the RWC 7s with Wales in 2009) and Iain Monaghan, the two Celts charged with getting their respective teams to Tokyo, have been thinking outside of the box in a bid to keep things interesting. Monaghan revealed that he actually sent his players on a metaphorical journey around the world. “We shaped training around going up the seven summits of the world – Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Mount Vinson and the Carstensz Pyramid. Needless to say, I wasn’t the most liked coach at that time because they were worked, physically,” he said. “But with that it allowed us to learn about the different cultures of the teams we will play and where they come from, and the history of their sport.
“We set out tasks like passing the ball every day the equivalent distance it would take to climb one of the mountains, we camped out and learnt how to cook different national dishes, and learnt about tribes and their values and what makes them survive so long, and how we could maybe bring that into our high-performance environment… things that gave a different slant to training.”
Outsiders Uganda have been drawn alongside France, Chile, Hong Kong and Jamaica in Pool B of the men’s Olympic Repechage tournament, and have come up against Les Bleus twice at the Emirates Invitational Sevens in Dubai. The Cranes lost both matches against the French, but they have better records against the other teams they will play in Monaco. Uganda will arrive in the Principality on Sunday hoping to take the biggest step yet on the team’s journey under head coach Tolbert Onyango. Onyango is hopeful that his players are able to handle the pressure of playing in the tournament as they attempt to cause a few shocks and book their ticket to Tokyo.
“A knockout tournament normally comes with its own pressures,” said Onyango. “Pressure to perform properly throughout the tournament, so there’s no room for error — you snooze, you lose.”
Irish Rugby Football Union director of Sevens and Women’s rugby Anthony Eddy has selected an experienced group to travel to Monaco, with a dozen of the 14-man squad having featured on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens series previously for Ireland, with the uncapped duo Gavin Mullin and Ulster flyer Aaron Sextoncompleting the panel.
“A number of players have been preparing for this tournament and opportunity for a number of years and they all know exactly what is at stake,” said Anthony Eddy. “I know they will be determined to be at their best and put in a performance over the weekend that they can be proud of. All the teams participating are chasing the same outcome so we must be at our best and we are looking forward to it.”
France expect both their men’s and women’s teams to qualify and “are craving qualification”, according to France Sevens Women’s coach David Courteix. However, as the old wolf of the sevens stage that he is, David Courteix knows only too well the cost of too much confidence. “We will go to Monaco to have a performance and this will allow us, I hope, to qualify for the Games. But everyone will want it too! Nobody thinks that it will be a secured qualification.”
That will mean being very opportunistic and overly optimistic, because if they win this tournament, they will have the green lights to challenge the teams at the Olympics and will arrive in full confidence with a huge craving.
"An absolute classic, finished off by Billy Dardis"@IrishRugby will be hoping for more moments like this at the Olympic Repechage in Monaco next week! pic.twitter.com/HQ2EdqArH2
For the winning teams, it will be even more beneficial since they have played a very high-level competition a month before, they will have had the necessary preparation to be able to be ready in Tokyo. As French men’s coach Jerome Daret put it – as a good connoisseur of sevens and French gastronomy, “We can put all the ingredients in there, but what is important is to make the recipe on the day.”
Samoa have both their women’s Manusina and men’s Manu Samoa teams competing and the two teams came close to qualifying for Rio 2016, as Manu Samoa lost the repechage final to Spain on the last play of the match, while the country’s women were beaten by Kazakhstan in their quarter-final. Brian Lima is manager of the team, a legend of four Rugby World Cups and known as “The Chiroporactor” because he hit you so hard in the tackle you’d have to go see the chiropractor after the game. In one World Cup, he tackled somebody so hard he knocked himself out.
“I want Samoans to come together in Samoa to celebrate if Manusina qualify for the Olympics,” he told World Rugby. “We are confident we have the best team who wants to qualify for the Olympics. Our players have international experience and they’ve played the best sevens teams in the world like Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.”
Their plans for Olympic qualification have been affected by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic like everybody and Samoa’s men were last in action at the HSBC Canada Sevens in March 2020 where they lost their ninth-place semi-final to France — who will arguably be their biggest rivals for qualification in Monaco. “Losing to Spain [in the Rio 2016 repechage final] was really heartbreaking, so that’s what kept most of us in, to just keep the Olympic dream alive to come back and really find any opportunity to be an Olympian.” Careers will be made in Monaco
The spectacular thing about sevens is that anyone can have the “flyer”, the player who has such breath-taking speed no-one can stop them, and the stadium comes alive in anticipation. The entertainment and enjoyment of a sevens event is fantastic. The thrills, the spills, the hits, the speed will delight the crowd and I am sure it will be a huge success like it was four years ago.
This weekend is bound to show us some new rugby stars of the future as the sevens circuit is where many of the greats started their career – rugby legends such us Jonah Lomu, David Campese, Christian Cullen, Lawrence Dallaglio, George North and Cheslin Kobi all started on the sevens circuit. If anybody knows anything about sevens, anything can happen on the day.
As for the final, my pick is France v Samoa. The winner? We will have to wait and see.
Top photo of former Wales rugby player Mark Thomas
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