The Bailey Field Station gives our research a home.
Tetiaroa Society's first field station: LEED Platinum, beds for eighteen, wet and dry labs, and a whole atoll for a study site.
Still on the drawing board.
Why stations matter
Ground-nesting seabirds are the honest scorecard, and the numbers on the treated motus are climbing. You only know that because someone walks those beaches season after season, counting the same nests in the same places. That kind of record is a habit, and the station is what makes the habit possible.
The Tetiaroa Atoll Restoration Project has cleared rats from most of the atoll. Tiaraunu, Tauvini and Ahuroa still show signs, and another baiting round is coming. Eradication is won in the follow-up: the checking, the re-baiting, the unglamorous Tuesday in February. With beds and boats on site, we can keep showing up until the last motu is clean.
Yellow crazy ants make the IUCN's hundred worst invasive species list. They spray formic acid that blinds seabird chicks in the nest. We treated the last known infestations through to May 2025 and we're monitoring now to confirm they're gone. Catching an outbreak that early takes eyes on the ground every month.
The outdoor wet lab runs on three water lines — fresh, surface seawater and deep ocean — feeding tanks and seawater tables a short walk from the lagoon. Green turtle monitoring happens alongside Te Mana o te Moana, and it happens here on the atoll. An animal can be cared for and released into the same water it came from.
Institut Louis Malardé leads AeLIMIN+ for The Brando, releasing sterile male mosquitoes to suppress the Aedes species behind dengue and filariasis, mainly on Onetahi. We're a partner in that work. Programmes like it need people who live here, know the ground, and can turn up for release after release. That's the role a station plays.
The dry lab doubles as a classroom, and university field courses and school groups fill it. Students meet Polynesian teachers, handle real specimens, and stand on the reef they've been reading about. Tetiaroa's marae are protected under French Polynesian law and treated with the respect they're owed. Science and culture get taught here as one subject, because on this atoll they are.
Get involved
The station runs on people, and people need funding, fuel and food. Whether you give, follow along, or come and work here yourself, you're helping to protect vulnerable species.
Your gift pays for the things that make a permanent presence possible: boat fuel, lab supplies, and salaries for the people who show up all year.
We publish what's actually happening on the atoll: eradication updates, seabird counts, what the students found, what surprised us.
The station is open to visiting researchers. There's a full guide to facilities, equipment, and how to apply.