April 2011 at Tern Island

Aloha kākou, e komo mai o Kanemilohaʻi!

Its already April (however that happened) and life continues on here at Tern Island, as it does elsewhere.  Our big news is the arrival of the NMFS seal crew, including Shawn Farry, Mark ("Sissy") Sullivan, Brendan Hurley and Ben Cook.  The seal crew will be monitoring Hawaiian monk seals here at the atoll, as part of a larger effort to monitor and assist this critically endangered species.

The NMFS seal team translocates a newly weaned ʻīlio holo i ka uaua (Hawaiian monk seal) from an outer French Frigate Shoals island to Tern Island.  Seal pups are frequently fatally bitten by sharks on some of the islands (4 of 8 were bitten on this island last year), while they are fairly safe from shark predation on Tern, where we have had no shark-bitten pups.  Protecting the seal pups from shark predation is necessary because the population is so low now that every pup counts.  NMFS seal crew members (left to right) Ben Cook, Shawn Farry, Brendan Hurley, and FWS Volunteer Lindsey Kramer.  Photo by Mark Sullivan.

Proud ʻā makaʻele (masked booby) parents watch over their chick.  The MABO chicks are growing -- We look forward to their goofy 'snow man' suit as they get bigger.  This is one of the few species we can tell males from females easily; the males hiss and the females honk.  Photo by Lindsey Kramer.

We continue trying to improve our monitoring and management efforts for the wildlife at Tern.  The artificial shade shelters we have put up are being used by koaʻe ula (red-tailed tropicbirds), uaʻu kani (wedge-tailed shearwaters), pākalakala (gray-backed terns), and the albatross chicks (mōlī and kaʻupu).   We've been monitoring temperatures in different vegetation types, and the effect on nesting success in albatross; now we're also monitoring temperatures in different artificial nest boxes, trying to find the best design to emulate the fairly constant temperature found in burrows.

A bigger hat for the house: Seabirds that nest in burrows have experienced high mortality due to invasive ant species, the burgeoning uaʻu kani population (they kick other species out of their burrows), and people accidentally crushing burrows while walking. One way we try to minimize these negative effects is to provide some artificial nest boxes that ʻseemʻ like burrows, with a small dark entrance, like the one shown here.  Tristram's storm petrels -- which breed only in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and a few islands in Japan -- are a small burrow-nesting seabird that has been eliminated off many islands where they used to be, due to the introduction of rats and mice.  (Their close cousins, the ʻakēʻakē or band-rumped storm petrel, live on Kauaʻi, and are having a real struggle to survive.)  Tristram's have a higher nesting success rate in these artificial boxes which provide at least partial protection from ants and large people-feet, although the birds prefer to use burrows.  We are always looking for ways to improve the boxes, to better emulate their natural environment, while protecting them from invasive species.  FWS Volunteer Sarah Youngren has found that a larger shade top on nesting boxes lowers the maximum daily temperature experienced by the chicks inside, and so are likely to help increase chick survival in the boxes.  We're trying out a number of designs, but have to do so slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb the birds.  Photo by Sarah Youngren.

Honu (Hawaiian green sea turtle) resting on the beach.  Other green sea turtle species don't bask in the sun like this -- Must be a Hawaiian tradition!  :-)  Photo by Paula L. Hartzell

Team Tern Spring 2011:  Bottom row, left to right:  Sarah Youngren, Curt Youngren, Paula Hartzell.  Second row:  Brendan Hurley, Kristina Dickson, Jimmy Macaulay.  Third row, sitting:  Ben Cook, Lindsey Kramer, Mark Sullivan.  Standing:  Shawn Farry and Dan Rapp. 

[Because Google's Blogspot, the software program being used in this blog, has a 200-character limit for the list of labels in a post, we were not able to include Hawaiian wildlife names in this post's labels.  E kala mai, sorry!]