University of Hawai`i zoology student Lindsay Young has discovered something unexpected while studying Laysan albatross at O`ahu’s Ka`ena Point Natural Area Reserve: 25 percent of nesting pairs there are female-female. Although members of the public and the NARS Commission chuckled at the announcement at last month’s commission meeting, the pairings make perfect sense to Young.
At Ka`ena, albatross numbers have been growing over the years, she said, with much of the growth coming from an influx of females from other islands. With females outnumbering the males, it’s not surprising that the females are pairing up, she said. Young suspects that the eggs these female-female pairs are not a result of females producing clones, but rather of a male “coming in and having more than one female,” which is rare, she said.
In addition to the female-female pairs, Young has noticed that a few black-footed albatrosses, a threatened species found mainly in Japan, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and a few offshore islands off the main Hawaiian islands, have been frequenting Ka`ena. Young predicts that they may begin nesting there in the near future.
A long overdue update of the Hawai`i Ocean Resources Management Plan, released by the Coastal Zone Management Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, calls for changes in the way ocean management is viewed and practiced.
In her introduction, Office of Planning director Laura Thielen says the plan “presents an entirely new course for Hawai`i.” In the past, the plan states, management of Hawai`i’s ocean was “sector-based,” focusing in the protection of specific resources and the regulation of certain activities. The new plan advocates a shift toward area-based management, much like the ahupua`a system practiced by ancient Hawaiians.
The proposed tasks listed in the five-year plan incorporate native Hawaiian cultural values and aim to tackle a wide range of issues, including marine protected area management by communities and non-profit organizations, the restoration and operation of ancient Hawaiian fishponds, and ocean tourism growth policies.
Tetra Tech, Inc., prepared the plan with assistance from the Hawai`i Ocean and Coastal Council, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Marine and Coastal Zone Advisory Council, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, and the state Office of Planning. The plan, first published in 1991, had not been updated until now, although it had been reviewed in 1998. To download a copy, visit [url=http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/czm/czm_initiatives/orm_pdf/2006_Ocean_Resources_Management_Plan.pdf]www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/czm/czm_initiatives/orm_pdf/2006_Ocean_Resources_Management_Plan.pdf[/url]
As of 1999, forty-three percent of Hawai`i’s native flora – some 600 species – was at risk of extinction, says state botanist Vickie Caraway. To save as many of these species as possible, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, with funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has assembled a new squad of resource managers that are part dare-devil, part horticulturalist.
The Plant Extinction Program (PEP), housed under the DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, was established this year and to date includes just a handful of people spread across Maui and O`ahu, where the project first began. DOFAW is still seeking team members on Kaua`i and Hawai`i. PEP staff focuses on about 186 species, all of which have fewer than 50 individuals left in the wild. The PEP collects all of those individuals – sometimes by rappelling down steep cliff faces – then propagates them and replants them in protected areas.
PEP’s work complements that of the Hawai`i Rare Plant Restoration Group, an ad hoc coalition of conservationists that includes more than 60 people from various public and private organizations.
Official PEP cooperators include DOFAW, The Nature Conservancy of Hawai`i, the Olinda Rare Plant Facility, the Pahole Rare Plant Facility, the University of Hawai`i’s Lyon Arboretum, the Center for Conservation Research and Training Seed Storage Facility, Maui Land and Pineapple Company, the National Tropical Botanical Garden, the USGS Biological Resources Division, the National Park Service, the Army, and the FWS.
“PEP relies on the concept that preserved genetic material is not an endpoint of conservation; rather it is an essential tool that prevents extinction. With the wild of so many rare plants in drastic decline, off-site protection allows land managers in Hawai`i the time to plan and execute habitat protection and restoration programs, and ultimately to recover the species that might otherwise have become extinct,” Caraway said in a recent DLNR press release.
A Correction: Last month’s story on Kawai Nui marsh erroneously stated that 2006’s House Bill 3056 and 2007’s HB 1899 clarified that the levee system was part of the marsh area to be transferred by the city to the state. The bills, in fact, recommended amending Act 314 to delete the levee from the area to be transferred.
April 2007 — Volume 17, Number 10