Ava Williams ('87) was kind enough to once again grant us access through her property at Puako to conduct our yearly capture, tagging and health assessment. Along with three HPA Staff, 10 HPA students joined the team for the day long activity. We arrived at the location at 0830 and set up our work site. The tide of quite high so, once we went over protocol and safety instructions, we sent out an in-water capture team. Within a few minutes, there were able to capture two honu and bring them safely in to the work area. We worked them up (measuring, weighing, tagging and conducting a health assessment) and then carefully released them back into the ocean. We repeated this procedure 5 more times before lunch. After lunch, the team was able to capture 5 more honu for a total of 12. All 12 of the honu were in good shape and appeared healthy. Eight of the 12 turtles were recaptures and 4 of them were new captures. Below is a table of the growth rates of the 8 recaptured turtles.
It was a very successful day and we extend our appreciation to Ava for allowing us access and for the hard working HPA student volunteers.
Ms. Jim give instructions to the team before beginning work
Sammy carefull etches a "honu count" number in the scale of a honu.
Laura Jim (HPA Marine Studies Leader) and three HPA volunteer students conducted a "Get to Know Sea Turtles" workshop as part of the Big Island Girl Scout STEM ED FAIR. There were six different activities including including sea turtles and each group of Girl Scouts visited sea turtle table. during the 20 minute activity period the scouts learned about tagging and measuring, turtle anatomy and facial recognition of sea turtles. Below are some photos of the HPA students working with the Girl Scouts.
Charlotte and Adele conducted the workshop on facial recorgnition and the 7 different species of sea turtles and Madison and Ms. Jim taught about tagging, anatomy and measuring.
The scouts were asked to match facial scale patterns of different turtles to show that you can indeed identify a given turtle by its facial scale pattern. They were also asked to identify the 7 different species of sea turtles by matching a picture of a sea turtle with sea turtle models.
Madison and Ms. Jim taught the scouts about various tagging methods, sea turtle anatomy, how to measure turtles and record data.
Matching turtles based on facial scales.
Charlotte and Adele listen to a question from a scout about facial scale patterns.
The HPA STRP traveled to Nagoya, Japan from June 14 to June 22 to attach satellite tags to the second cohort of juvenile loggerhead turtles as part of the STRETCH Project. Three students joined Laura Jim an Marc Rice to assist in the attachment of the 28 satellite tags.
Below are various posts about our activities during that trip.
Fermament Ace has left Yokohama, Japan is on its way to Balboa, Panama. Noah and Catherine are accompanying and caring for the 28 juvenile loggerhead turtles that were loaded on-board the Firmament Ace in Nagoya on June 26, 2024. The ship left Yokohama, Japan on 6/29 and, if you wish to follow its progress towards Balboa, please check in with VesselFinder.
Noah and Catherine in their STRETCH T shirts during "loading day" when they loaded the 28 satellite tagged juvenile loggerhead turtles on-board the Firmament Ace at the Port of Nagoya.
6/24/2024
STRETCH team members are now home after a productive week in Nagoya, Japan attaching satellite tags to 28 juvenile loggerhead turtles at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. We attached 7 tags/day for 4 days and now all 28 turtles are resting in their baskets at the aquarium. The turtles will be loaded on the MOL ship Firmament Ace on June 26th and will be accompanied on their voyage by Catherine and Noah (Noah accompanied and released Cohort 1 on July 11, 2023). The ship will, if all goes well, be at the suggested release point by July 9, 2024. If interested in seeing the release technique, Please watch the 2023 release video.
Above is a summary video of the process of attaching the satellite tags to the carapace of the juvenile loggerhead turtles.
Below are the numbers and names given to the 28 turtles
of the Cohort II
6/21/2024
Our trip to Koyo High School was very pleasant. Larry Crowder (STRETCH Co-PI) talked to about 40 students about his career path and experiences and then reviewed the STRETCH project results for Cohort I and talked about our plans for Cohort II. Below is a groups shot of the class and the STRETCH team.
The Koyo High School class, their teachers and the STRETCH team (Larry, Laura and Marc) after the STRETCH presentation.
We have completed the attachment of the tags and we will check on the turtles at the aquarium to make sure everything is fine with them. At 1355 h we will venture to Nagoya Koyo high school and Larry Crowder will give a presentation about the STRETCH project to a group of Japanese students.
Below is a little description about the Koyo High School:
Thank you for visiting the Koyo High School website.
Our school was established in 1948 when Nagoya Municipal Commercial High School and Nagoya Municipal Second High School were merged to become Nagoya Municipal Koyo High School.
In 2006, the school was designated a "Super Science High School" by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and has since been working on research aimed at improving science and mathematics education. Furthermore, in 2015, the "International Science Department" was established as the first science and mathematics department in Aichi Prefecture, with the goals of "nurturing global human resources who can compete on the world stage" and "advancing to top science and mathematics universities," and the school now plays a leading role in promoting science and mathematics education in the prefecture.
In recent years, the school has also been placing emphasis on inquiry-based learning, and every March students present the results of their research conducted during comprehensive inquiry time to an external audience.
Club activities are also very popular, with many participating in national and prefectural tournaments every year, making this a school that excels in both academics and sports.
Going forward, all of our teaching staff will continue to work together to encourage each and every student to have a warm and compassionate heart, an inquisitive mind that can discern the truth, and to grow up healthy and strong both physically and mentally. We will continue to provide educational activities that are even more satisfying than before, and strive to gain the support of many of you.
We appreciate your continued support.
Naotaka Akita, Principal of Nagoya Municipal Koyo High School
6/20/2024
We made our way to PNPA once again this morning (4th day) to attach 6 more tags. We were able to complete the attachments at 1300 hours for all 28 juvenile loggerheads in Cohort II. At the end of the day today the STRETCH team and all of the wonderful PNPA personnel gathered together to celebrate the end of the attachment process... BUT, this is just the beginning. These 28 juvenile turtles are destined to be released in the North eastern central Pacific ocean sometime around 7/9/2024. After their release, if all goes well, we will start getting location data for all of them and track their movements over the next 10-14 months.. Our hope is for the tags to last over one year!
The STRETCH team with 4 of the last 6 juvenile loggerheads that we completed today.
Juvenile loggerhead turtles that have been recently equipped with wildlife computer satellite tags are fed by aquarium staff. These juveniles are part of the 28 turtles that represent Cohort II of the STRETCH Project.
6/19/2024
Seven more satellite tags were attached to juvenile loggerheads today. We have 6 more to go tomorrow and we will have completed 28 turtles. Twenty five of the turtles are carrying Spot 6 tags which give location only and three of the turtles are carrying Splash10 297 tags which will transmit temperature and diving data which will help us to analyze the behavior of these three turtles that will help to explain/correlate their movement to their diving and feeding behavior.
The final group of 6 turtles will get their tags tomorrow!
6/18/2024
The STRETCH team has been working for the last two days at PNPA attaching satellite tags to 15 juvenile loggerhead turtles that are part of Cohort II. We have 13 more tags to attach and will complete that task over the next two days. Below is a short video of the process of attaching the tags onto the turtles that will be released into the northeast central Pacific ocean sometime around Jule 9, 2024. Please see the Loggerhead STRETCH web site for further information.
6/16/2024
We made it to Kanayama Nagoya at 1400 h and left our bags at the Crown Plaza Hotel before catching the metro to the aquarium to check in on the turtles. Masanori Mori met us and showed us the 28 stretch turtles he has been raising for 2 years. We were also able to see Cohort III turtles that are about 11 months old right now. The turtles all look very good and ready to start their next journey into the Pacific Ocean.
Below are some pictures of the turtles and some of the stretch team members.
Team members Jack, Laura and George join Mori-san in checking out Cohort II STRETCH turtles.
While we were with the turtles they were fed a delicious meal of fish and squid.
Laura Jim poses with some of Cohort III turtles (11 months old)
Head turtle curator, Masanori Mori.
Hungry Cohort III turtle
6/14/2024
We have begun our second trip to Nagoya to attach 25 Spot 6 satellite tags and 3 Splash10 tags to the juvenile loggerhead turtles that were hatched in Koichi, Japan and raised at PNPA. We will be starting the work on Monday, 6/17/24 at the aquarium. We are planning on attching 7 tags per day for 4 days. The turtles will then be kept in individual baskets in sea water to protect the sat tag antennas.
The MOL ship we are using to transport the turtles to the central north east Pacific is named the "Firmament Ace". You can follow the progress of the ship HERE . The ship will arrive in Nagoya Ko on 6/26 and the turtles will be loaded on the ship on 6/27. Subsequently the ship will go to Yokohama to complete cargo loading and then will depart for Panama. It is estimated that the ship will reach the release area on July 9th.
Because the turtles will not be release for several weeks after the tags are attached, we program the tags to be in standby mode of nearly three weeks before they begin transmitting locations (they use very little energy when in standby mode.
In addition, we are reducing the number of days the tags transmit locations to every other day in an effort to extend the battery life of the tags. IN THEORY, by reducing the frequency of transmission by 2, we should increase the number of days that the tag can transmit by 2... That is what we are hoping for!
Most plastics in the ocean break up into very small particles. These small plastic bits are called "microplastics." Other plastics are intentionally designed to be small. They're called microbeads and are used in many health and beauty products. They pass unchanged through waterways into the ocean. Microplastics are of concern because of their widespread presence in the oceans and the potential physical and toxicological risks they pose to organisms.
Rachael Zoe Miller is a National Geographic Explorer, inventor and Explorers Club Fellow working to protect the ocean through expedition-based science, conservation and storytelling. She is the founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit addressing marine debris through cleanup, education, innovation and solutions-based research. She is also a co-inventor of the Cora Ball, the world’s first microfiber-catching laundry ball, and sea life artist for Coraclip, a renewable alternative to wasteful virgin-to-landfill plastic bag clips. Miller leads teams on expeditions whose results are published in peer-reviewed journals and experiences translated into education programs; recent expeditions include sampling the entire Hudson River for microplastics in the air, water and soil; microplastic sampling from onboard the E/V Nautilus in the Hawaiian archipelago; and research in the Arctic and Antarctic with Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic as a visiting Explorer/scientist. She and her team have received multiple awards and recognition, including Best VideoRay PR Story for using ROVs to find and remove marine debris, being named an Ocean Exemplar by World Ocean Observatory, and winner of the Most Innovative Idea in Microplastics from Think Beyond Plastic.
On Sunday HPA’s Marine Science team welcomed her to campus for a training on CSI for the oceans - using forensics to investigate microplastics pollution. 6 high school students and 4 HPA faculty members spent 5 hours learning how to assess microplastics in our oceans. The team collected water samples from 3 sites, returned to the lab to filter, collect and analyze any plastic microplastics in the water. The intention is to use this technique to assess microplastics in Hawai’i’s shorelines to add the global understanding of microplastics as well as enable HPA students to conduct independent studies investigating topics surrounding this issue.
Laura Jim, Marc Rice and 8 HPA STRP students traveled to Hualalai Four Seasons Resort on thursday (4/4/24) to capture, tag and conduct a health assessment of resident honu along the shoreline from Kumukea Beach to Kukio Beach. We were joined by Tyler and Maika'i from the Hawaii State Division of Aquatic Resources and George Balazs for the work day. We arrived at 0815 and set up our work site. The surf was pretty rough along Kumukea Beach and we had to move our capture work to Kukio Beach which is more protected. We were able to capture two honu at Kumukea and 9 at Kukio Beach. Six of the honu were new captures and 5 were recaptures from previous trips. One of the recaptures (H76) had moved to Kukio from Mauna Lani where it had been captured and tagged in October of 2023 (a distance of ~25 miles).
All 11 of the honu appeared healthy and were weighed, measured, tagged and released by the research team.
Below are the growth rate calcuations for the 5 recaptures. Note that H 76 was the honu that moved from Mauna Lani Bay to Kukio Bay some time between October 2023 and April 2024.
The table below shows the growth rates of the 5 recaptured turtles.
On Tuesday, February 3rd, Laura Jim escorted three HPA students - Murphy Makely, Charlotte Kassis and Pemma Norbu- to Kona Village and Kahuwai Bay. The group was gifted the opportunity to volunteer with The Nature Conservancy's Kanu Koa Project. The project aims to accelerate the growth of reefs by planting corals in Kahuwai Bay that were deemed corals off opportunity, coral colonies that had been broken off from the recent swells. Part of this work includes research on the optimum method of "planting" the coral - either using a nursery system or planting directly on the reef itself. Students learned about corals of opportunity, how to fragment coral, and how to glue fragments. We worked exclusively with lobe coral, Porites lobata.
Laura Jim, Marc Rice and 7 HPA STRP students traveled to the Waikoloa Hilton on Tuesday (1/30/24) to capture, tag and conduct a health assessment on resident honu that spend time in the "lagoon" at the Hilton Hotel. We arrived at the hotel at 0730 and began transporting our equipment to the lagoon area. We were set up and ready to work by 0845 and Ms. Jim and the capture team began the in-water work.
Two middle school students joined us to learn about the program and participate in the field work. They are hoping to be able to complete the training necessary to become part of the HPA Sea Turtle Research Program.
The area between the two arrow is the lagoon area where turtles reside. This day, a number of them were feeding back in the area behind the bridge on the right of the picture. The waterfall, where honu often gather to feed was not running and there were very few honu in that area.
Over the course of the day, Ms. Jim and here team were able to capture 15 honu and we measured, weighed, tagged and did a health assessment on all of them ... we were finished by ~1445. There were lots of hotel guest and interested onlookers and the HPA team did a great job of informing people about what we were doing and why it is so important.
Of the 15 honu captured, 6 were recaptures and 9 were new captures. The honu ranged in size from 40 cm (18 lbs) to 66 cm (84 lbs).
SIX of the 15 turtles were recaptures and we had data from the previous capture so we could calculate a growth rate (cm/yr).
Below are photos taken during the day.
Setting up our working area.. the tide was a little high but dropping
Getting all the equipment out and organized... the tide has dropped already.
The capture team bringing in the first honu of the day.
Turtle H173 was a recapture from our last trip to the Hilton on 2/7/23. It had grown about 1 cm in 1 year.
The THE team releases a honu while hotel guests watch.
Keeping control of a honu and preparing to put in in the carrier for release.
Painting a number on a honu as part of the Honu Count program operated by NOAA.
Recording data and looking at the Caulerpa algae that honu in the area like to feed on.
The team releases a honu after it has been worked up.
The HPA capture team heads out for another honu.
Charlott brings in the smallest honu of the day.
Catherine and Fischer take a honu out for release.
H 244 is ready for release.
Carefully putting our largest turtle into a carrier for release.
