Report from John and Karen, January 31st

John and I walked the beach from south of the Sheraton and Black Rock up to a spot just south of Castaways, then again from the north end of the Mahana up to the north end of Papakea (I checked the south end of  the Mahana this morning when I went to see if I could find those tang-catching spearfishermen), and finally we stopped at Honokawai Park - all in all, we found 13 of the blue Kahekili Management signs and put floppy "bumper stickers" and the laminated fish id cards that Darla uses for her surveys on 9 of them.  4 of them were attached to poles or posts in a way that made it impossible for us to attach the "floppies" to them short of drilling a hole through the actual sign, so we just left those alone.

 

Previously we walked the beach south of the Kahekili Park up to the north end, and south from the Honoapiilani Park - we found 4 signs that day and attached "floppies" on all of them. 

 

That puts our total at 17 signs - Liz, where are the other 3? Didn't you say there were 20?  Is there a map that shows where all 20 are?  My feet are sore!

Karen

Kahekili report for Jan. 30th by John & Karen

Sunday, January 30th, was a beautiful day at Kahekili in terms of conditions.  Lots of whales, too!  I ran into 4 spearfishermen.  I spoke to 1 spearfisherman when he was walking down to the sandy area, he was carrying 3 spears but when I asked him what he was going to fish for, he said he wasn't going to fish.  I asked him if he knew about the management area and herbivores being protected, he didn't know but didn't seem to particularly care, either.  He was a bit on the hostile side.  My second encounter was right after I got into the water, and this guy also didn't know about the management area or the herbivores being protected, but he was friendlly and receptive. 

I swam down to the Mahana, where I ran into 2 more spearfishermen.  I'm pretty sure they were 2 of the guys John and I spoke to a couple of days ago when they were with a threesome and 2 of them had brown tangs.  This time one of them had a convict tang and another fish that I couldn't see, and the older guy had a black bag that obviously had something in it but I couldn't tell what it was and he wasn't about to tell me.  They both said they didn't know about the management area or the herbivores being protected, I pointed out that we spoke to them the day before yet they still had a convict tang on their string, at which point they just ignored me.  I told them that taking manini is against the law in the management area, but they ignored me and pretended that I wasn't there.  They were in the exact same area that they were in 2 days ago, I'm sure we'll see them there again.

John & Karen's report from Kahekili today

John and I ran into 3 spearfishermen a little past the Mahana today, 2 of the 3 had Brown Tangs on their strings, and they were both out spearing fish for bait.  We talked to them, told them about the management area, and hopefully got through to them, although I don't know about the 3rd guy.  He was older, was a strong pigeon-speaker, and I wasn't sure if he understood what we were saying.  The 2 younger guys did, though, the guy I spoke to said, "Holy sh*t!"

On our way back down the beach, we ran into a school of 7 very large Omilu, all about 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet, very beautiful and a little intimidating!!  I told John I thought they were looking for their friend from yesterday (yesterday we saw a spearfisherman with a speared Omilu, about 2 1/2 feet - I e-mailed Liz, Darla and Luna about this spearfisherman; I gave him a flyer and invited him to join the Makai Watch, or at least check out one of the meetings, his name was Hoku), at one point the school started to circle us, so John ran them off.  They weren't afraid of us, though!  John got one of them separated from the pack, chased him a little bit, the rest of the school drifted off at this point and seemed to lose interest.

There was a huge crowd of schoolkids from Lahaina Intermediate at Kahekili today, a couple hundred kids running around in orange t-shirts.  After our swim, I talked to 2 women who were wearing the same orange t-shirts, they said today had been a "Rewards Day" for kids who hadn't gotten a "D" or an "F" the last quarter.  Evidently they have 4 "Rewards Days" a year, and 1 of them is at Kahekili.  John gave them flyers and talked to them about the management area and the possibility of getting the kids interested in it.

John also did more repair work on Emily's urchin cages today.

Local Knowledge: Merits (and hazards in its absence)

In general, it has become quite obvious to me that when it comes to any form activity and especially any ocean activity, "Local Knowledge" makes a very significant difference. One way and often the only way of coming about this knowledge is simply from personal experience and observations in the local; a learning curve as it were.

However there are other ways of gaining local knowledge and that is what I hope to explore here and frankly in regards to a very specific local and hazard.

To set the stage, please read the text and view the images I posted some time ago on This Web Page.

Just off the beach and between two large vacation complexes at North Kaanapali is a very seemingly inviting stretch of sand between two shall reefs. Located in this sand channel are three buoys in line which might easily be interpreted as designators for a swimming area.

In actuality, these three buoys are in place to indicate a permanent and dangerous channel that sports a very strong rip current when there are waves present and breaking on the shallow reefs to either side of it. There is a small sign posted up on the walkway that explains the buoys and how to exit the rip should it be in force. Unfortunately this sign is not read by the vast majority of swimmers who are out enjoying themselves in the area.

Any local with experience in these waters know about the rip and how to avoid it. The question is, how is this Local Knowledge best conveyed to others lacking in it??

I am of the opinion that more signs, better signs and more strategic locations of the signs would help. I also believe if the resorts were to include some form of Local Knowledge Tips and Alerts in a pamphlet or included in the room service directory or whatever in the rooms would be a great help.

This particular shoreline and reef system is also under the restrictions of the Kahekili Herbivore Fish Management Area and it would make sense that the do's and don't's of the KHFMA also be included in a Local Knowledge Tips & Alerts information piece.

Specific to this location and hazard, I don't believe signs and notices alone can preclude the possible physical harm and even death potential the rip and shallow adjoining reefs represent. Ideally there would be a life guard present at least at times when the rip is strong. In the absence of some expert monitoring the area I think some form of rescue equipment that could be manned from the beach and by the general citizenship could save lives and aid folks in avoiding harm. The buoys themselves could be marked better and perhaps with some instructions.

Beyond this specific and obvious hazard in example, I believe the notion of Local Knowledge and a means of imparting it to folks who wish to partake of what the local has to offer deserves some consideration and thought. With present technology and all indication of greater technology to follow (Google Earth and Yelp, for example) I think our reefs and shorelines deserve as much attention as restaurants, gas stations and retail outlets presently get!

Star-Advertiser & Maui News articles on new DLNR Chair William Aila

Today the Honolulu Star-Advertiser ran a story on new DLNR Chair William Aila.

You can also check out an article from the Maui News from earlier in the month.

Hawaii EcoTube: photos from "mud flood" in Kihei!

Check out the latest post at Hawaii EcoTube - with photos of the recent storm's impacts.

Great Article on Fish Larval Dispersal

Check out this article on Science Daily: Drifting Fish Larvae Allow Marine Reserves to Rebuild Fisheries.

Here is a link to the online open access journal Plos-One where you can access the original paper in its entirety.

Reference:  

Mark R. Christie, Brian N. Tissot, Mark A. Albins, James P. Beets, Yanli Jia, Delisse M. Ortiz, Stephen E. Thompson, Mark A. Hixon. Larval Connectivity in an Effective Network of Marine Protected Areas. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (12): e15715 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015715

DAR's Final Report to NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program

The State of Hawai'i's Division of Aquatic Resources has released a report on the outcomes of its monitoring program, "Long-Term Monitoring of Coral Reefs of the Main Hawaiian Islands" prepared by William Walsh, Russell Sparks, Camille Barnett, Courtney Couch, Stephen Cotton, Darla White, Kristy Stone, and Eric Conklin. 

Click here to view the report in Google documents.

Below is the Summary of Findings for MAUI from the report:

Benthic
• Nine of the 20 currently monitored coral reefs have experienced significant changes (paired t-tests of first survey year vs. most recent survey year, p<0.05), with coral cover declining at 7 sites and increasing at 2 sites.
• Coral cover declines at three sites (Honolua Bay, Mā’alaea Bay, and Papaula Point) were so severe that these individual reefs may have already experienced a total coral reef ecosystem collapse.
• Sites experiencing significant coral reef declines appear to be affected by anthropogenic impacts such as land based pollution, sedimentation and overfishing.
• Monitoring sites with stable high coral cover (Kanahena Bay, Olowalu, and Molokini) appear to be away from urban areas, are fairly remote or are located offshore.

Fish
• Comparisons between fully protected reserves versus areas open to fishing show that marine reserves have consistently higher resource fish biomass levels, larger sized fish, greater numbers of apex predators, and the greater abundances of schooling grazers.

Shallow Water Habitat and Fish Surveys (lay-net regulation assessment surveys)
• Fish biomass levels were higher in areas where past lay-net fishing effort was lower.
• Qualitative habitat assessments show the areas that experienced the highest past lay-net fishing effort had the most degraded reef habitats with algal cover at 20% or higher at most of these survey locations.

Kahekili Herbivore Baseline
• 242 Sites have been surveyed to establish a firm baseline of fish, benthic cover, and urchin populations.
• Benthic community structure and fish biomass varied significantly by habitat, and therefore may have markedly different responses to the management implementation.

Volunteer Herbivore Grazing Assessments
• Over 100 trained volunteer community members have participated in 532 surveys, totaling over 2400 contributed hours
• General grazing trends for both acanthurids and scarids were similar. A significant negative correlation for grazing rate versus fish size was observed, which is intuitive because smaller fishes require continuous energy for growth. Conversely, bite sizes increased with fish size.
• The area of algae scraped by scarids over a year has a significant positive linear relationship to size (i.e. larger fish have a greater impact on algal removal).
• Both scarids and acanthurids are critical grazers for controlling algae on the reefs. Not enough data was gathered on kyphosids due to infrequent presence of this family in the study sites.

Roi Control Assessments
• Data has been collected on community efforts to reduce roi populations on Maui. Most of this effort has been at one location, Olowalu.
• When data on both CPUE and the number of roi escaped are combined, a significant decline in roi abundance can be seen.
• While roi have been substantially reduced, they are still present in moderate densities despite months of removal effort.
• Ciguatera analysis of fish weighing over one pound indicates that 69% of the population contains ciguatoxin.

Coral Disease Assessments
• HIMB researchers’ data showed a 47% decrease in coral cover over a period of one year at a site known as Montipora Pond, wherein a nearly monotypic stand of Montipora capitata has a chronic outbreak of Montipora white syndrome. DAR Maui took over monthly monitoring efforts to learn more about this outbreak. The outbreak shows patterns of waxing and waning, with an increase in coral mortality.
• NOAA and DAR Maui have partnered to gather data on coral disease at four sites on Maui in order to test a satellite predictive tool model for Hawai′i. The first of two years of data collection has been completed.

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Thank you for visiting our collaborative community blog! This site was created to provide a platform for education and outreach, an opportunity to connect and document local efforts, and to create a forum for the exchange of ideas.

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