Hurricane Iniki Damage
The eye of Hurricane Iniki took the worst possible track, causing extensive damage throughout Kauai. According to Red Cross figures, Iniki left behind 14,350 damaged or destroyed homes on Kauai, with property damage totaling more than three billion dollars. In 1992 when the hurricane hit, there were 8,200 hotel, condo, and bed and breakfast rooms on Kaua‘i, and Iniki shut down 90% of them.
Damage from the ocean was heaviest along the south shore of Kauai where it first hit landfall, and affected shoreline hotels and condominiums. Wind damage was extremely heavy throughout the island as many homes and buildings were flattened or lost their roofs. Electric power and telephone service were lost throughout the island and only 20 percent of power had been restored four weeks after the storm. Crop damage was also extensive as sugar cane was stripped, and tropical plants, such as banana and papaya, were destroyed and fruit and nut trees were broken or uprooted.
Gusts within the hurricane were clocked at 227 miles per hour by the Navy’s Mākaha Ridge radar station, until the wind gauging equipment was blown off the mountain. The natural landscape of Kaua‘i was also affected, causing long-term effects on the island’s native flora and fauna. Much of the native forest canopy was stripped of its leaves as well as the fruit and flowers that forest birds depend on for food.
Ridges where wind gusts hit were stripped to bare rock, and in upland valleys trees were snapped and shrubs were stripped of leaves. The hurricane didn’t leave a lot of food for different species of Hawaiian honeycreeper that depend on fruit or flower nectar. Five extremely endangered forest birds, the Kaua‘i ‘akialoa (Hemignathus procerus), Kaua‘i nuku pu‘u (Hemignathus lucidus hanapepe), kāma‘o (Myadestes myadestinus), ‘ō‘ō ‘ā‘ā (Moho braccatus), and ‘ō‘ū (Psittirostra psittacea) were already on the verge of extinction when the hurricane hit Kaua‘i. None of them have been seen since.
Green Sea Turtle
Green Sea Turtles (honu) are so ancient they watched the dinosaurs evolve and become extinct. These fascinating creatures have played an important role in the culture of the Hawaiian people. Ninety percent of honu mate and lay eggs on French Frigate Shoals, and travel hundreds of miles to the main islands in search of food and adventure, and then return to their natal beach to breed. It is between these long journeys that we have the good fortune of enjoying their visits along the coasts of the main Hawaiian Islands. This is where they spend most of the 80 or more years of their life feeding on algae and sea grasses.
Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) primarily occupy three types of habitat: ocean beaches for basking and nesting, convergence zones in the open ocean, and benthic feeding grounds in coastal areas. Honu get their name from the color of their body fat, which is green from the algae (limu) they eat. Adult Green Sea Turtles are herbivores feeding on various species of algae, sea grass, and seaweed. They spend most of their time in coastal waters and lagoons with lush seagrass beds. Juveniles, on the other hand, are carnivorous and feed on jellyfish, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. After emerging from the nest, hatchlings swim to offshore areas, where they are believed to live for several years, feeding close to the surface on a variety of pelagic plants and animals. Once the juveniles reach a certain age, they travel to nearshore coral reefs where limu is plentiful and become almost exclusively herbivores.
Because of their size and mobility in the water they have only two predators – sharks and humans. Near their nesting grounds in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where tiger sharks are more plentiful, adult male and female turtles can often be seen crawling up on the beaches and laying motionless in the sun for hours. This phenomenon known as basking is believed to help the turtles avoid predation by tiger sharks and also serves to increase their body temperature and speed up their metabolism. Hawaii’s population of green sea turtles is listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Hawaiian Monk Seal Support
The Hawaiian Monk Seal has been in existence for more than 13 million years, but in 1976 it was listed as an endangered species. Currently, a newborn monk seal has only a twenty percent chance of surviving to adulthood. With the Hawaiian Monk Seal population dwindling from sickness, injury, entanglement in ocean trash, or premature weaning by their mothers, they could benefit from medical facilities. Each and every monk seal counts and a hospital for monk seals would allow Hawaii to return some of these sick animals back to the ocean.
The Marine Mammal Center and the Hawaii Wildlife Fund have joined forces to raise $2 million to build a Hawaiian Monk Seal healthcare facility in Kona, on the Big Island. For the last decade, The Marine Mammal Center has worked closely with government agencies and other nonprofits to provide medical assistance to monk seals, often flying out teams of its veterinarians, veterinary technicians and trained volunteers to provide hands-on medical care in temporary and make-shift facilities in Hawaii.
On Saturday, September 4, 2010, Team Hawaiian Monk Seal from The Marine Mammal Center will compete in the Maui Channel Swim to support the Center’s efforts to raise funds to build a hospital for monk seals. The swimmers will join 52 teams and 20 solo swimmers from around the world in a daring crossing of the Au Au channel (from the beach at Lanai to Black Rock on the shores of Kaanapali). Support the team as they race 10 miles to protect this fragile species.
More monk seals are dying each year than are being born… every seal matters.
Hawaiian Honeycreeper Conservation 1
The evolution of Hawaiian honeycreepers is an outstanding example of how the Hawaiian islands became home to many species of unique life. About three million years ago, it is suspected a storm from North America led a small flock of finches to Hawaii. These new colonists touched down in a land with many different environments, many different types of food, and few competitors. They spread out over the islands and began evolving in different ways. Some developed long, curved bills to extract nectar from flowers, and others evolved short, stout bills for crushing hard seeds.
When Polynesians voyagers arrived millions of years later they found over fifty unique species and subspecies of honeycreepers – all descended from that one original group. Then in 1826, the first mosquitoes arrived in Hawaii aboard a whaling ship beginning the spread of avian malaria to native birds…
In these two videos you will follow scientists as they learn how the endemic ‘Amakihi is bucking the extinction trend through evolution.
Part Two – Hawaiian Honeycreeper Conservation 2
Kauai Monk Seal Watch Program
Hawaiian monk seals are among the most ancient species of pinnipeds in the world, and they have lived only in the waters surrounding the Hawaiian islands for millions of years. They predominately live and breed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, with the largest population around the French Frigate Shoals, hundreds of miles from civilization. These remote islands and atolls, mostly uninhabited by humans, provide the privacy the monk seals need to survive. However, their numbers are dwindling.
The entire population of Hawaiian monk seals is currently 1,100 seals, with the number declining by four percent every year. The good news is that a smaller population of seals on the main Hawaiian islands is growing and thriving. Over the past few years, there have been twenty or more seals born in the main Hawaiian islands every year. Even though the main Hawaiian islands have a much larger human population, the seals are doing better there because it seems they don’t have as much competition for food, or as many predators.
The Kaua‘i Monk Seal Watch Program is a nonprofit organization whose funding is entirely used to heighten monk seal awareness. They educate visitors in resorts, as well as more than 10,000 students on Kaua‘i and Moloka‘i. The presentations are approximately 50 minutes long and illustrate the important role the marine mammals play in Hawai‘i’s natural ecosystem, with a particular emphasis on marine debris issues. Their bottom line is that education instills knowledge, and knowledge is the key to preserving Hawaiian monk seals.
- Stay well behind barricades or signs placed around a basking seal, and at least 150 feet from seals in unmarked areas.
- Maintain a much greater distance from a mother and pup, or any seal that appears disturbed or agitated.
- Pass outside barricades, or above an unbarricaded seal, not between the seal and the shoreline.
- Never approach or attempt to feed a seal – on the beach, while swimming, or from a boat.
- View quietly. Do not throw sand, stones, objects, or make noise to induce movement and create photo ops.
- All marine wildlife. Seals, sea turtles, dolphins, and humpback whales require distance, quiet, and respect for proper viewing.
- Photograph seals from the proper distance and never use flash photography in their presence.
- Advise children of proper behavior. An agitated 400 to 600 pound animal could bite or cause other serious injury.
- Report any seal harassment at the beach, in the water, or from a boat operator to the Kaua`i Marine Conservation Coordinator at 651-7668.
- State and federal laws for harassment or disturbance of a Hawaiian Monk Seal can incur fines exceeding $25,000 and up to 5 years imprisonment.
Papahanaumokuakea World Heritage Site
The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument has been named a U.N. World Heritage site. Papahanaumokuakea consists of remote, mostly uninhabited atolls and the waters surrounding them. This northwest end of the Hawaiian archipelago is a pristine haven for coral and other marine life, and also a treasured site of ancient Hawaiian shrines. It is home to 69 percent of the coral reefs in U.S. territory, and hosts 7,000 marine species, a quarter of which are found only in Hawaii.
The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aims to identify sites “considered to be of outstanding value to humanity” and encourages their protection and preservation. There are currently about 890 sites around the world on the list, and twenty in the US. Papahānaumokuākea joins an exclusive list like East Africa’s Serengeti, the Egyptian Pyramids, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, and the Galapagos Islands.
It is the single largest conservation area in the US, and its inclusion in the World Heritage List will make it the second largest World Heritage Site in the world. In Native Hawaiian cosmology and tradition, its 139,797 square miles is believed to lie within the place where life originates and to which it returns. At Mokumanamana, a rocky outcrop in the monument, ancient heiau line the top of a ridge running along the spine of the island – at least 34 on just 46 acres.
The small islands, reefs, and shoals of Papahānaumokuākea represent the longest, clearest, and oldest example of island formation and atoll evolution in the world – spanning 28 million years. The near pristine remote reefs, islands, and waters provide refuge and habitat for a wide array of threatened and endangered species and critical nesting and foraging grounds for 14 million seabirds making it the largest tropical seabird rookery in the world. This World Heritage status is a major milestone in the continuing effort to protect and preserve one of the most historically and culturally significant resources of Hawai‘i.
