HPA JOINS UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII HILO AT PUNALU'U
At 0600 hours on Friday, 3/31, 5 HPA students, Laura Jim and Marc Rice began a 2.5 hour drive to the south shore of Hawaii Island and Punalu’u Beach Park. There we joined the University of Hawaii Hilo’s Marine Option Program students for the annual turtle tagging trip. This year was a little unusual because it has been 5 years since the last trip. During the day the team of students and researchers were able to capture, measure, weigh and tag 15 green turtles (honu). Eight of them were recaptures of previously tagged turtles and seven of them were new captures. All of the turtles appeared very healthy. We were able to help two turtles that had fishing line wrapped around their front flippers. It was a wonderful day of science and sharing between our two institutions.
Below: an aaerial view of Punalu'u bay shows the wide black sand beach and the lava benches offshore where turtles feed on limu (sea weeed).
