Humpback Whale Count January 2012
Volunteers collected data from 61 sites on the shores of O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, and Hawai‘i Island for the January Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Count. Over Read more
Aloha Shirt Postage Stamps
Postage stamps picturing colorful Aloha shirts will go on sale at U.S. Postal Service offices around the country. The stamps also will be available online at www.usps.com. The aloha shirt stamps will be 29 cent postcard stamps.
Nothing says “Hawai‘i” or conjures casual good times like the colorful Aloha shirt, which takes its name from the Hawaiian word often used as a blessing or greeting. The U.S. Postal Service celebrates the spirit of “Aloha” with five stamps, each depicting a different shirt. Aloha shirts are made from boldly patterned fabric showing decorative images of Hawaiian life. Two of the five classic shirts depicted in the stamp art showcase surfers and their boards; one shows fossil fish, shells, and sea stars; another shows a tropical flower known as the bird of paradise; and one shows Kilauea, a volcano on the Big Island of Hawai‘i.
Kauai Rainbows
One of nature’s masterpieces is the rainbow, and the tropical climate and misty rain showers on Kauai provide many opportunities to see a rainbow painting the sky with colors. A rainbow is a dispersion of visible light which is composed of a spectrum of wavelengths, each associated with a distinct color. To see a rainbow, you have to have your back to the sun, which also has to be less than 42 degrees above the horizon with suspended droplets of water or a light mist. This only occurs in the morning and evening (the most common times to see rainbows). Each individual droplet of water acts as a tiny prism that both disperses the light and reflects it back to your eye. As you look into the sky, wavelengths of light associated with a specific color arrive at your eye from the collection of droplets. The net effect of the vast array of droplets is that a circular arc of ROYGBIV is seen across the sky.
Each water droplet in a rainbow disperses a full spectrum of colors, but from where you’re standing you will see only one of the colors from any particular drop. You will see the color that refracts at just the right angle to reach the place where you are standing. For example, you’ll see red when the angle between a beam of sunlight and the dispersed light (at the water droplet) is 42 degrees, and violet when the angle is 40 degrees.
The top of a rainbow is red and the innermost arc is violet – this is because a water droplet bends violet the most and red the least. If violet light from a single water droplet enters your eye, the red light from the same droplet will fall below your eye, and so you will not see it. To see red light you have to look at a raindrop higher in the rainbow.
A double rainbow is actually two completely different rainbows, one directly over the other, and are caused by a double reflection within the raindrops. The secondary rainbow is larger than the primary rainbow, and has its colors reversed, with violet on the top, and red on the bottom. In ancient Hawai‘i a rainbow (anuenue) symbolized the presence of a god or a chief.
Hawaiian Monk Seal Ho‘ailona Returns
Hawaiian Monk Seal Ho‘ailona moved into his new home at the Waikiki Aquarium, where he will become an ambassador for the critically endangered species. After his mother abandoned him, he was found on a Kauai beach trying to suckle a rock. Known at that time as KP2, humans raised him until he was old enough to be released into the wild, and then set him free on Moloka‘i.
There, the seal gravitated to people and soon became famous for charming and playing with swimmers. But authorities had to take him away when he started holding people underwater. His eyesight was found to be poor, and he spent the past two years at a long-term care facility in California. The seal’s vision is only 20 to 30 percent of normal strength, but his hearing is good, and he uses this and sensors on his whiskers to get around. Veterinarians who examined Ho’ailona in California said the risks of operating on his eyes posed a greater risk than the inconvenience he is experiencing from his condition.
Hawaiian Monk Seals are a critically endangered species, and with only an estimated 1,100 seals left in existence, scientists say it’s everyone’s responsibility to ensure their survival. “I’m hoping that now that he’s back in Hawaii, we’re going to be able to bring the Molokai kids back into the discussions so that they can continue to serve as advocates for this highly endangered species,” said a Molokai resident.
Papahanaumokuakea Shipwrecks and Dunnottar Castle
The three-masted 258-foot British iron hulled ship Dunnottar Castle was built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1874. She was lost at Kure Atoll on July 15th, 1886, while bound for California from Australia with a cargo of coal. A malfunctioning chronometer put the ship off course and onto the reef. When they ran aground, they spent hours tossing coal over side trying to lighten the ship. Though efforts were made to jettison the cargo and repair the damaged hull, the stricken vessel could not be re-floated, and the crew abandoned ship for the nearby deserted island. After abandoning the ship, the chief officer and six seamen took one of the boats and made a 52-day passage to Kauai. While they were gone, the majority of the 28-man crew were rescued from the island.
Discovery of the site came by accident while transiting through the lagoon. The Dunnottar Castle lies adjacent to a shoal area in the vicinity of the atoll reef, accessible only in calm weather. The initial dive revealed the flattened and broken but nearly complete remains of a late 19th-century tall sailing ship, with iron hull and steel yards and masts. Many of the wooden components, loose materials and organic fabrics have been swept away, but the heavier elements remain. Large sections of iron hull plate, iron frames, rigging, masts, auxiliary steam boiler, keelson, anchors, windlasses, winches, capstans, davits, rudder and steering gear, cargo hatches, bow sprit, hawse pipes, chain locker, ballast stone, deadeyes, chains, stringers, bitts, ladders etc. are fixed in place on the sea bottom.
The wreck site today is the home for many species of fish and invertebrates, and like the special natural resources that surround it, the site deserves the protection and preservation provided by the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. Appreciation of this heritage resource, a time capsule from the days of the tall ships, is a part of our larger ocean stewardship.
Orchid Plantanthera
Platanthera holochila is a rare orchid endemic to Hawaii. Known by the common name Hawaii Bog Orchid, it was added to the Endangered Species List in 1996 when there were fewer than 35 individuals remaining. Each year there were fewer plants, until there was just one left in a Kaua‘i bog, 24 on Moloka‘i, and seven on Maui. It hasn’t been seen on Oahu since 1938. Because it is so vanishingly rare, the plant fell under the authority of the state’s Plant Extinction Prevention Program, which gathers all the available information on plants that have dropped to 50 individuals or fewer in number, and tries to identify ways to improve their survival.
The Hawaiian species is closely related to Platanthera orchids from Alaska and the Aleutians, and probably came to Hawaii as a seed stuck to the feet or feathers of migratory birds like the Pacific golden plover, which winter in Hawaii and summer in the Arctic. The National Tropical Botanical Garden has been patiently collecting seeds and sending them off to horticulturists, hoping someone could solve the mystery of how to propagate them.
Researchers placed packets of seeds in the soil around existing plants, and some of them grew, but they still could not get them to grow in the nursery. They later discovered that seeds would only germinate in complete darkness. But germination was only the first challenge. Once sprouted, they did not thrive. Their second discovery was that to grow well they require a symbiotic microscopic native soil fungus. These mycorrhizae derive energy from the orchids, while also providing nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to the plants. Researchers flew to Hawaii with trays of Platanthera holochila seedlings grown from Moloka‘i and Kaua‘i seed in sterile conditions. They were planted in the Alaka‘i Swamp and in the Kamakou Preserve near enough to their parent plants that they were likely to link up with the mycorrhizae they needed. More than 30 years of research has led to a major victory in protecting one of Hawaii’s rarest plants from extinction.
