Hilton Waikoloa (1/29/25)

HILTON WAIKOLOA HONU HEALTH ASSESSMENT (1/29/25)

Laura Jim, Robin Scarth. Marc Rice and 12 HPA students traveled to the Hilton Waikoloa Hotel to conduct a honu health assessemtn/tagging  at the hotel’s lagoon.  We were joined by George Balazs and Rosanne Shank.  We arrived at the hotel at 0830 h and were assisted by hotel staff to transport our equipment to the lagoon where the students set up the work area for weighing, measuring and assessing the honu.  We were able, during the course of the day, to capture, tag and conduct health assessment on 11 honu.  2 of the 11 captures presented a somewhat emaciated status while the others seemed robust and healthy.

Of the 11 honu captured, 8 were recaptures and 3 were new captures.  The calculated yearly growth rate for the 8 recaptures is shown in the table below:

Growth Rates for 8 Recaptures

ID 

No.

first capture date

first capture date SCL

1/29/25 SCL

Years At large

GROWTH RATE (CM/YEAR)

235

1/30/24

53.9

56.5

1.00

2.6

236

1/30/24

54.6

56.2

1.00

1.6

68

10/23/19

61.9

63.8

5.27

0.4

238

1/30/24

50.5

51.1

1.00

0.6

174

2/7/23

58.9

61.4

1.98

1.3

168

2/7/23

63.6

66.9

1.98

1.7

72

10/23/19

54.8

58.4

5.27

0.7

70

10/23/19

50

59.7

5.27

1.8