'Iolani School, Turtle Diggings and the Oscar Elton Sette

A busy couple of weeks!

We had a GREAT time skyping with JoAnn Stepien's class at 'Iolani School on O'ahu --  Thanks to 'Iolani School teacher JoAnn Stepien and FWS Volunteer Barb Mayer, joined by NOAA E&O Coordinator Wes Byers.  Take a look at pictures Wes put onto his Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Facebook page.  And a most special thanks to the students!!!  'Iolani School's Marine Debris Awareness class welcomed us for a visit last week.  The visit included map study, dissection of albatross boluses, skyping with Tern volunteer Erin Kawakami, looking at marine debris collected off a turtle entrapped at French Frigate Shoals, and other activities.  

JoAnn Stepien's Marine Debris Awareness class at 'Iolani School on O'ahu, pays attention while FWS Tern Volunteer Barbar Mayer leads discussion on Tern Island.  Barbara brought albatross boluses, bones and eggs, as well as marine debris from entrapments, for the class to experience these firsthand.

Students skyped live with FWS Volunteer Erin Kawakami on Tern Island.    Erin is from the Big Island, and has wanted to visit the Northwestern islands her whole life.  One of these kids could be a volunteer, or perhaps the manager, not too long from now!!!

Our next big news at Kānemilohaʻi:  808 Nesting Honu on East Island alone!!!!  This has been a record breaking year, with more nesting turtles than ever recorded before -- the next best year was 589 nesting turtles.  

Honu 808!!!  This was the last of the nesting turtles identified by the turtle techs this field season.  If you look REALLY closely, you can see the '808' on her carapace, with a ying-yang for the '0'.  She is basking on Tern Island in this photo; you can see some turtle eggs she inadvertently dug up in the sand.  We'll expect another big nesting season in three or four years, with lower counts in between.

Balance in all things:  Unfortunately, with so many turtles digging, they have also dug up a large portion of the shrubs along the south side of  Tern Island.  This will probably speed up erosion along the south side, as well as eliminate a good deal of shrub habitat, of which we have none to spare.  (Note the boobies refusing to give up this bush!)  If the decision is ever made to permanently decommission the runway at Tern Island, we will plant shrubs in that area, providing a significant gain in shrub habitat.  Until then, we'll try to encourage both natural and propagated beach naupaka across the island.

More turtle digging means fewer Tristram's storm petrel burrows.  Turtle nest-building has removed a significant portion of the Tristram storm petrel area on Tern Island this year, moving all the way up into our reproductive monitoring plots.  We've been moving the nest boxes back onto solid ground several times this year, but the turtles keep digging further and further back, digging up burrows and tossing nesting boxes aside.  Tristram's usually return to the same burrow to nest; we hope to keep the pairs that were nesting in this area by increasing the number of artificial nest boxes.  Burrowing birds have a difficult time without shrubs to consolidate the soil, and protect the burrows from crushing by albatross, turtles, and humans.

As the turtle nesting season winds down, the turtle team wrapped up their field camp.  The whole gang pitched in to help them take down camp. They spent the next few days cleaning all the field gear, and packing it away for the next season.

The Amazing Summer Team at Tern gathers on the porch to show their muscle!  From top left to right:  Brendan Hurley,  Shawn Farry,  Ben Cook, Irene Nurzia Hamburg; second row:  Erin Kawakami, Scott Sturdivant, and Meg Duhr Shultz; bottom row:  Tyler Bogardus, Paula Hartzell, and Mark Sullivan.

The fall crew -- Scott Sturdivant, Erin Kawakami and Meg Duhr Schultz -- have started on their native plant propagation and planting projects, planning what they will be doing over the coming months.  So far they have created some additional catchment areas for fresh water for their plants, and outlined where they will be concentrating their efforts -- in addition to all of the regular bird monitoring they will be doing.  They've also been finding the first of the turtle hatchlings, and returning them to the sea.  (Some hatchlings get lost and confused in the vegetation.)  More from them in the coming months!

Above:  Erin Kawakami and Scott Sturdivant work on creating catchment for their native plant propagation projects. 

The summer crew splits up --  Erin, Meg and Scott (at right) get ready to say goodbye to Irene and Tyler (at left).  The crew arrived together in June.  While the turtle crew heads out until next year, the bird crew will stay on Tern until December.

Hugs goodbye.

One of the small boats off the NOAA Research Vessel Oscar Elton Sette arrives, bringing fuel for us to run our own boats.  Everything we use on Tern has to be delivered like this -- first on a large vessel from Honolulu, then on a tender from the ship to the island.  The Sette crew and scientists normally are performing marine research activities in the Monument; this time they are going up the Northwestern Island chain picking up the seal crews at the end of the field season.  The Sette will be back to Tern in a couple weeks to pick up our seal crew.  

Irene and Tyler leave with the NOAA Research Vessel Oscar Elton Sette crew.   They will ride up to Midway, and take a plane back to Honolulu.  Irene and Tyler worked some seriously long hours recording nesting sea turtles this year, and deserve such a great trip.  Thanks, crew!!!

So that's it for the news for now -- A hui hou, and see you next week! 

This week's gratuitous bird and sunset photos:

This is the life:  ʻĀ makaʻele (masked booby) chick relaxes on a coconut.  Masked boobies nest on open grounds, so do very well on all of the sandy islands in the atoll, as well as on Tern Island.  They have big fat wide feet, like people, for standing on the ground.

Gin Island spit.

Birds of Tern Island.

An ʻĀ wāwae (red-footed booby) chick.  This one has most of his feathers now -- although he retains his chick fuzz-hood.  Red-footed boobies nest in shrubs, and have red monkey-like hands (okay, feet really) which are agile and finger-like, for grasping branches.

La Perouse at sunset.