Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park (KAHO)
Field Work October 20, 2022
Laura Jim, Marc Rice and 11 HPA students traveled from HPA to KAHO to conduct a one day capture / recapture tagging trip at one of our site where we have been working for many years. Because of Covid we haven't been there for 3 years. At the invitation of Kaho's Biologist/Acting Division Lead, Natural and Cultural Resources Jackson Letchworth, we arrived at the park with our equipment at 0835 and were helped with the unloading by a whole bunch of wonderful park personnel. We got to work as soon as we were set up, done with introductions, and had been given a little background about the park.
The capture teams went north to Zone C to start with and were soon back at the working area with 3 honu. We began weighing, measuring and. recording data right away and by 1130 hours we had completely worked up and released 9 honu.
After a nice lunch we got back to work and were able to process 6 more honu before we had to depart for HPA's campus. It was a very busy, wonderful day and we were very thankful for all of the help and camaraderie that our hosts provided.
In total we captured 15 honu (8 recaptures and 7 new captures)
The mean average of straight carapace length was 54.0 cm
The Median straight carapace length was 52.8 cm
Below are a gallery of pictures from the days work:
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| The shoreline of our work area at Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Site. |
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| Our work site. |
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| Our turtle sign to let visitors know what we are doing. |
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| Students and Park personnel out on the reef flat looking for feeding honu. |
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| Bringing a captured honu back to shore. |
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| Laura Jim and student bring a honu up to the workup area after |
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| Transporting a honu in an animal carrier. |
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| Applying paint to an etched number on the left scute of a honu prior to release. |
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| Students preparing sampling equipment for use. |
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| Making sandwiches for lunch. |
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| The chow line! |
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| Lunch time! |
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| Recording tag numbers from the honu on the table. |
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| The team gathered at the end of the day for a team photo. |
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