The HPA STRP team traveled to Kukio/Hualalai on October 9th to conduct a honu health assessment. Laura Jim, Robyn Scarth and Marc Rice were accompanied by 11 HPA STRP student volunteers and we were hosted and assisted by members of the Hualalai wildlife biology staff for which we are very greatful. We were able to capture 10 honu (the ocean was quite rough and limited our capture efforts) . Of the 10 honu captured, 8 were recaptures and 2 were new captures. All of the honu were weighed, measured, tagged, assessed and given a “Honu Count” number prior to release.
Below is a table of the growth rates observed for the recaptured turtles showing a very slow rate of growth with an average of .58 cm/yr.
