Kaloko-Honokohau (KAHO) Tagging Trip

Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018

On Thursday, an HPA team of 12 student (9 Upper and 3 Middle School students) lead by Laura Jim and Marc Rice joined Sallie Beavers and her colleagues at the National Historical Park to capture and tag honu.  Our last tagging trip to KAHO occurred on April 3, 2018 during which we captured 26 turtles.
Our team arrived at 0815 h and set up for the work day.  We were ready to begin capturing by 0930 after a talk by the park service about the cultural significance of the park and where we would be focusing our capture efforts.

The capturing work began immediately after the orientation and we started processing turtles shortly thereafter.  The students were divided into three teams and they each took turns capturing and working up the turtles (measuring, weighing and doing the health assessment).

By lunch time (1130 h we had 19 turtles processed. Six of these were new captures and 13 were recoveries.  After a lunch break we got back to work and captured an additional 21 animals.  Eight of the 21 were new captures and 13 were recaptures.

Summary:

We worked up a total of 40 turtles. There were 14 new captures and 26 recaptures.  Overall, the animals we captured appeared to be undernourished with a few of them receiving emaciation codes of 1 and one of them receiving EC = 3. 

There were certainly a lot of turtles in the area and I suspect that we could possibly have done 60 animals if we had the energy and time!!

The wonderful folks at KAHO were well prepared and facilitated capture and moto tooling so that we could work quickly through a lot of turtles.  Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work.  

Aloha and have a wonderful weekend,

Below are some images of the capture and tagging work that students, park service personnel and volunteers conducted.

The working area at Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park.

Sallie Beavers (National Park Service) talks about the special features and cultural significance of the Park.

A small honu is captured and placed in a tube for tranport back to shore.

Students help to control a honu so that measurements and health assessment can be taken.

Tag numbers are read to the data recorder.

Controlling the animal is essential 

One of our captures had metal tags from when it was first captured back in 1997 at Puako Hawaii (about 30 miles to the north of KAHO.

This turtle was first captured at Puako, Hawaii in 1997.  The caliper indicated its size at that time... meanng that in 21 years the poor critter had only grown about 10 cm in carapace length!!!

Painting the moto tool number that was etched into the shell of each captured honu.

Laura Jim with the three middle school students.

Taking a honu out into the water for release.

Releasing another honu.

Lunch time.

The HPA, NPS and Volunteers who worked all day to process 30 honu.

Parent's Weekend Field Trip

10/21/18- Saturday

We took a group of 11 parents and students on a field trip to Kiholo Bay to talk about the HPA Sea Turtle Research Program and visit The Nature Conservancy's Kiholo site and project.  The day was overcast and cool on the way down and cleared up shortly after we got there.  We talked about the tagging program and HPA student involvement in field research, the life cycle and biology of Honu and then visited Rebecca Most (TNC) for a little talk about their Kiholo project.  There were plenty of turtles in the water and several baskers on the island so everyone got a chance to see our wonderful Honu! 
After visiting the TNC site we walked over to the Wainanali'i Lagoon and most of the folks in the group took a refreshing swim. 

We departed around 1530 hours and were back at the parking area by 1600.  Everyone in the group had their own transportation so we had a cold drink at the Turtle Mobile and then everyone said their goodbyes and departed.
It was fun to meet the parents and it is always fun to visit Kiholo and talk about turtles and conservation.

Parents and students joined together at Kiholo for a group picture before hiking out. 

Keawanui Tagging Trip

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Laura Jim and Marc Rice and an HPA team of 2 MS and 8 US students traveled to the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel/ Keasanui to capture and tag honu (green turtles).  The Mauna Lani Bay Hotel is closing for renovations for one and one-half years so we wanted to get a baseline of what turtles are there now and what their health status is.  This way, we will have something to compare the results from future capture trips at this site.  We want to see if there is any change in population size/condition resulting from the reduction in tourists in the area.

We were able to capture 10 honu during the day long activity.  They ranged in size from 13 pounds to 55 lbs... all juvenile turtles.  There were 3 turtles that we had tagged previously and 7 newly captured turtles.  All turtles appear to be in good health but their growth rate remains quite low.

Below are some pictures from the day's activities.  All students participated actively and positively in the capture and workup of the turtles as well as interacting with the many tourists that came by.

Kiholo Tagging Trip- 9/10/2018

Monday, 9/3/2018

We will kick off the tagging year with a trip to Kiholo Bay next Monday (9/10/18)  We will have mostly experienced HPA students during this first trip because I haven't had the time to get new students trained yet.  They will be invited for our second tagging trip on Sept. 25 at Mauna Lani Bay.
Our goat at Kiholo is to take a look at the turtles to see how they are growing and what their health status is... particularly if they are getting enough to eat.  The reason we are particularly concerned about body condition is because we have picked up several dead juvenile honu along the west coast during the last two months that were very emaciated- they were starving.
I will post the results of our trip a couple of days after we get back.
If you want to know a little more about the area we will be working in you might want to look at this youtube video.

9/10/18- Monday

Laura Jim and Marc Rice took 12 students to Kiholo Bay to work with Rebecca Most and Barbara Seidel of The Nature Conservancy at the Kiholo fish pond area.  We set up our field station between the two ponds at 0915 and began working immediately.  We worked until 1530 hours and then took a break after packing our equipment for a short but refreshing swim in the ocean.

In all we were able to capture and work up (measure, weigh and do a health assessment) 33 green turtles or Honu.  Eight of the 33 were recaptures and 25 were new captures.  Since we had not been back to Kiholo in over two years, it was not unexpected to see a few new recruits... however, nearly 76% new turtles was way more than expected.  The turtles ranged in size from a tiny 7 pound juvenile to a 77 cm., 162 pound subadult.  Most of the turtles were doing very well... nice rounded bodies indicating well fed animals.  There were quite a few small juveniles in the sample of 33 indicating that there is good recruitment from the open ocean at Kiholo.

The largest turtle (named Kevin by the students) was 162 lbs. with a  Curved Carapace length (CCL) = 81.5 cm.  It was first captured and tagged at Kiholo on Sept. 23, 2000 and it weighed 62 lbs with a CCL of 65.1 cm.  It was subsequently recaptured  on 3/5/2003 and on 2/20/2007.  After 18 years it has grown from 65.1 cm CCL to 81.5 cm CCL for an annual growth rate of 0.9 cm/year.  This is a very slow growth rate and means this animal probably still has another 10 years to go to reach maturity!

At the end of the day, everyone felt very good about the work that we did and the data that was generated.  The data has already been sent to NOAA in HNL for recording in their master database.
The students did excellent work remaining attentive throughout the long, hot day.

Below are a series of pictures of the day's events.

The HPA and TNC tagging team.

The work area at Kiholo..

View of the southern fish pond where we captured turtles.

Mrs. Jim and students capture a couple of honu.

Bringing in a honu for measuring.

Carrying a honu for measurement.

162 poiund "Kevin" swims by under the bridge as students watch.  

A juvenile honu is getting a checkup.

Some of the team holding a honu for observation.

Our smalles turtle- only 7 pounds.

A honu on the table being measured .. the white mark means it has been captured so that we don't recapture it.

A juvenile honu ready to be returned to the water after being measured and weighed.

Doing an oral observation.

Putting in a couple of PIT tags.

Ami reading PIT tags for this honu.

Keeping an eye on a couple of our captive honu prior to measurement and wighing.

A juvenile honu.  The white paper on the back shows the weight of the honu.

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Our awesome data recorder entering tag numbers.

At the end of the day, everyone got to go for a swim.

                                               The black pebble beach was like landing on a bean bag chair in the surf.