Hawaiʻi has long been considered the endangered species capital of the world, as the Islands are home to hundreds of endangered and threatened plants and animals. On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed delisting nine more Hawaiʻi species from the Endangered Species Act—meaning, wildlife officials will stop searching for them. The nine—eight birds […]
Kekoa means “warrior” in Hawaiian. And this warrior—an endangered Hawaiian monk seal known as KE18—lived for about a decade at the Long Marine Laboratory at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Now he’s back—and living at Sea Life Park in Waimānalo on Oʻahu. Kekoa, a 9-foot-long male, was removed from the wild years ago
If there‘s one thing park rangers do best is give advice. And the friendly—and knowledgeable—rangers at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on Hawaiʻi Island have put together a list of tips for anyone planning a trip to its sprawling 333,308-acre park. Here’s how you can plan like a ranger—and trust us, you may want to bookmark
Driving up to Sweet Land Farm in the sleepy community of Waialua, with shining blue skies overhead, my 4-year-old son was glued to his Kindle. It was the only way I could keep him occupied during the 45-minute drive from our home in Honolulu to the farm, tucked away between a massive, Mainland-owned egg farm
In the Hawaiian culture, names are immensely important. Names tell a story, share a history or honor a loved one. And that’s true even when that name is bestowed on a Hawaiian monk seal, one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. In late May, a group of second-grade students from the Hawaiian
Hawaiian monk seals are getting a lot of attention this week—and not because they’re critically endangered. (They are.) Two video clips of visitors appearing to disturb Hawaiian monk seals in Hawaiʻi have gone viral recently, prompting an investigation into the incidents by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and community outrage over the illegal
It’s a sunny Saturday morning in Hilo when my boyfriend and I drive up a rocky road to Lavaloha cacao farm, gazing at the clear, blue sky and empty fields along the way. At the top of the hill, we’re greeted by large palm trees swaying in the wind next to a quaint farmhouse overlooking Hilo Bay. We park the car and
Of the premier attractions on Maui, catching a sunset at Haleakalā—which in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) means “house of the sun”—should be at the top of your list of things to do. From the summit, just over 10,000 feet in elevation, you can watch the sun gradually fall below the horizon as the clouds turn
Most people might throw away the bottle caps, fish nets, buoys, plastic fragments and other marine debris that washes ashore, but 26 Kaua‘i artists turned what most of us would consider trash into 66 thought-provoking works of art. Those pieces are now on display at the Kaua‘i Society of Artists’ “Washed Up” exhibit at the
Initially proposed by Hawaiʻi Sen. Mike Gabbard, Senate Bill 2571 prohibits the sale of sunscreens that contain oxybenzone and octinoxate, two chemicals that have been scientifically proven to induce coral bleaching, harm and even kill young coral larvae—and it has gone into effect this year. So what does that mean for visitors and locals? Can
If you’ve ever snorkeled in Hawaiʻi, you’ve probably seen it—and you probably didn’t know how important it was to Hawaiʻi’s ecosytem. Cauliflower coral (Pocillopora meandrina)—called koʻa in Hawaiian— is a surge-tolerant species of reef-building coral that you often find in exposed shorelines around the Islands. As its name indicates, this coral resembles the cruciferous vegetable,
When Doug Brunner first visited Hawaiʻi in 1988—during Spring Break while he was attending college in Wisconsin—he fell in love. With the plumeria tree. “I was amazed at all the varieties,” says Brunner, who now owns Maui Plumeria Gardens in Haʻikū on Maui with more than 400 trees. “There was the common Celadine, but there
