Hawaiʻi is now home to the largest marine protected area on the planet. Again.
Today, White House officials announced that President is acting upon the proposed expansion to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The expansion has been a hot button issue in the islands since its proposal in January. As Governor David Ige noted, it has been the source of “tremendous” debate, especially due to the exclusion of fishing from the expanded waters. The fishing industry fought hard against the proposal, leveraging TV ads, social media, town hall meetings and in-person testimony in Washington and Honolulu to prevent the expansion. But the pro-expansion movement has been resilient. Bumper stickers, signs, bookmarks and t-shirts with the hashtags “#ExpandPNMN” and “#GoBigObama” have been everywhere on Oʻahu. A flurry of town hall meetings, educational sessions, news conferences and media interviews rallied support. Led by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program, the pro-expansion movement garnered more than 1,409,000 letters and signatures of support, including more than 1500 coral reef scientists that voiced their support during the International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu in June. “This decision is scientifically supported and provides substantial hope of leaving a legacy of ocean resources and benefits for future generations,” the scientists’ letter stated.
Wednesday, KHON2 published a news report about a snake sighting in Honolulu. The original post was brief: “The state Department of Agriculture is investigating a report of a snake spotted in Nuuanu,” it began. It went on to say that the unwelcome tourist was spotted near a place called Morgan’s Corner on Nuuanu Pali Drive — less than three miles from my house — so naturally, my interest was piqued. But it wasn’t just that someone spotted a snake in Hawaii that caught my eye. After all, just two years ago, a five foot long boa constrictor was killed on the highway in the same area, presumably a released/escaped pet. It was the photo accompanying the story that really struck me, allegedly of the sighted snake before it slithered off into the rainforest:
That’s a very large — and very deadly — snake. Photo from KHON2
The second I saw it, my stomach clenched: that is a king cobra. A KING COBRA. That’s no ball python or little pet snake — that’s the world’s longest venomous snake, capable of delivering up to seven milliliters (or almost a tablespoon) of venom with its long fangs. It’s estimated that 50-60% of king cobra bites are fatal — a combination of the potent toxins and the overwhelming volume.
It can’t be a king cobra, I told myself. Not in Hawaii! So I asked my boyfriend Jake Buehler (who I lovingly call “Jakeapedia”), what he thought. “Looks like a king cobra.” So I turned to venom expert and snake guru (and friend of mine), Bryan Fry, a professor at the University of Queensland. “That is one seriously underweight king,” he told me. I looked closer at the photo, searching for any signs it could be something else. I reached out on Twitter, asking for IDs. I kept getting the same answer. What if it’s not a king cobra? I exasperatedly asked Bryan, providing hopeful alternative suggestions. “Nah, definitely a king. I’d recognize that head anywhere.”
A king cobra slithering around Nuuanu means two things. 1) that there’s a very dangerous snake on the loose. And 2) that someone is smuggling large, highly venomous snakes into the islands. The odds that a king cobra would accidentally arrive here are infinitesimally small. They’re native to India and Southeast Asia, and seeing as several thousand miles of water separate our islands from all continents, it didn’t swim here. They live in forests, not terribly close to most airports with direct flights to Honolulu, and they are ground-dwellers, which means they’re not likely to climb up into a wheel well of a plane anyway. No, if a king cobra arrived in Honolulu, someone intended for it to do so. And who even knows how they were feeding it — these huge serpents are snake-eaters primarily, taking the occasional lizard if necessary. Hawaii has no native terrestrial reptiles, and our introduced ones are small — not much to feed such a lengthy snake. Then again, maybe that’s why it looks so skinny... Continue reading “Trick or Trick: Hawaii Department of Agriculture Trolled with False Snake Sighting”
The beautifully diverse honeycreepers. Cover art for Current Biology, volume 21, issue 22
Though most people focus on Darwin’s famous birds, I would argue that the Hawaiian honeycreepers are the most dazzling example of adaptive radiation, especially by a finch. From a single finch ancestor arose a stunning diversity of honeycreepers, from the brilliant red I’iwi with its long, curved bill to the small, rotund ʻAkikiki. Over 50 species of these colorful forest birds once brightened the islands from Hawaii to Laysan, putting the 14 Galapagos finches to shame. Their tale is not just one of rapid evolution, though; it’s one of a brief and fleeting existence on this planet. All but eighteen are extinct, and of those that remain, ten are endangered or critically endangered and five are listed as vulnerable, leaving only three species that seem to be holding their own against the every-growing list of threats to their survival. Continue reading “Conservation Success To Boy’s Club: The Hawaii Creeper In Danger Of Extinction”
Roughly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. As I stand on a beach in Hawaii and look out over the vast, blue expanse in front of me, I am overwhelmed by the immensity of the Pacific Ocean. My brain wrestles with numbers far beyond its capacity to visualize. In that moment, it is incomprehensible that even seven billion humans could deplete such a boundless and unimaginable resource. Yet, I know that we are. We are emptying the oceans of their fish, one species at a time.
Today, 85 percent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited, overexploited or have already collapsed. Combined, the world’s fishermen catch 2.5 times the sustainable number of fish every year. Scientists predict that if current trends continue, world food fisheries may collapse entirely by 2050. “We are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish,” explains Pavan Sukhdev, special advisor to the UN Environment Programme.
What we need are better management strategies. Now, researchers from the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University are turning to the past for advice. Loren McClenachan and Jack Kittinger used historical records to reconstruct fish catches for the past seven hundred years to see if earlier civilizations did a better job than we are at managing their fisheries. The authors were able to characterize historical catch rates in the Florida Keys and Hawaii by reviewing a variety of historical sources, including species-specific catch records from the 1800s and archaeological reconstructions of population densities and per-capita fish consumption.
“Seven hundred years of history clearly demonstrate that management matters,” said Loren McClenachan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of environmental studies at Colby College. In Florida, fisheries were characterized by years of boom and bust through sequential collapse of high-value species, many which are still endangered or extinct today. The Keys fisheries were set up for failure – unlike other historical island communities, the Keys were highly connected to other markets, increasing fisheries demand. Furthermore, they have historically lacked a centralized management system. But, while fisheries in the Florida Keys have always been poorly supervised, fisheries in Hawaii were once far better than they are today.
Annual fisheries catch per reef area for the Florida Keys and Hawaii over time.
“Before European contact, Native Hawaiians were catching fish at rates that far exceed what reefs currently provide society,” said Kittinger, co-author and early career fellow at the Center for Ocean Solutions. Native Hawaiians pulled in over 15,000 metric tons of fish per year, and these high yields were sustained over several hundred years, despite a dense Hawaiian population. “These results show us that fisheries can be both highly productive and sustainable, if they’re managed effectively.”
Much of the management system in Hawaii was tied to class and gender. For example, most offshore fishing was done by a professional fishing class who were familiar with their local environment. If they wanted to fish, they had to ask their chiefs, who regulated the fishing gear and canoes. The most valuable (and vulnerable) species like turtles and sharks were reserved for high chiefs and priests, reducing fishing pressure.
The key to the Hawaiian’s success lay in using a diverse suite of management measures. Many of the methods they used are similar to strategies employed in fisheries management today, including protected areas, community-based management, regulation of gear and effort, aquaculture, and restrictions on vulnerable species.
Perhaps the greatest difference between management then and now, however is that in native Hawaiian society, rules were strictly enforced. “Rules were accompanied by robust sociocultural institutions,” the authors write. The ancient Hawaiians did not hesitate, and punished transgressors with corporal punishment. “Clearly, we don’t recommend this,” said Kittinger, “but it’s easy to see there’s room to tighten up today’s enforcement efforts.”
He’eia Fishpond in Kane’ohe Bay, Hawaii. Image c/o Paepae O He’eia
Other differences exist as well. For example, while aquaculture was used by the native Hawaiians, these fishponds were maintained for different reasons than we farm fish today. Fishponds did not contribute substantially to total fish production, but instead served as food security during tough times. As such, Hawaiians stocked fishponds with very different species than modern farms. Fishponds contained small, algae-eating species, requiring little from the sea to support them. Modern aquaculture, in contrast, relies heavily on wild-caught feeder species to support lucrative, luxury species like salmon. Five pounds of wild-caught fish are needed to produce one pound of farmed salmon, and instead of acting as a backup for when wild fish are scarce, fish farms make up a whopping 50% of our consumed fish production.
Kittinger and McClenachan hope that understanding successful management strategies by historical societies will lead to better management of our current resources. “The evidence we present from historical reconstructions shows that reef fishery sustainability has been achieved in the past,” they write, “which can guide actions for a more sustainable future for reefs and the communities that depend on them.”
Reference: McClenachan, L & JN Kittinger (2012). Multicentury trends and the sustainability of coral reef fisheries in Hawai‘i and Florida. Fish and Fisheries, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-2979.2012.00465.x
