The 25 winners of the 11th annual My Hawai‘i Story Contest were announced today. My Hawai‘i is an annual environmental writing contest for middle school students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, from across the state. The top 25 poems and short stories were selected from 305 submissions and will be published in an anthology that is distributed to schools, libraries statewide and online on Hawai'i Conservation Alliance (HCA) site.
Aquatic Resources
(Honolulu) – Two successive summers of serious coral bleaching in waters around the main Hawaiian Islands and in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has led to the development of the first-ever Hawai‘i Coral Bleaching Recovery Plan.
LIHU‘E – The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) announces an open fishing season for rainbow trout in the Koke‘e Public Fishing Area (PFA) on Kaua‘i, beginning Saturday, June 17, 2017.
HONOLULU – If you love your fresh-caught local lobster or Kona crab, remember the closed season for ula (spiny lobster), ula papapa (slipper lobster) and Kona crab runs from May 1 through the end of August. During that time it's illegal to take, possess, or sell these shellfish.
After wildlife biologists and veterinarians relocated a 10-month-old Hawaiian monk seal on March 30th from the Lihi Canal in Kapa‘a, to a beach on the island’s west side they’d hoped she would stay away from the canal. Two days ago the seal, identified as RH92, returned to the canal along with an adult seal (RK13). Together they’ve been seen feeding on small fish in the manmade waterway along with discarded fish parts. The return of RH92 to Lihi is prompting stepped-up public awareness and outreach and potentially enforcement of littering laws for fishermen who dispose of fish parts in the water.
Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources are working together to try and understand what led to the death of an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, tagged as RB18.
HONOLULU – Gov. David Ige, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and the U.S. Secretaries of Interior and Commerce have signed an updated Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) adding OHA as a co-trustee of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. It is the largest, contiguous, fully protected conservation area in the U.S. and encompasses 583,000 square miles of ocean waters, including ten islands and atolls in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
HONOLULU -- The Waikiki-Diamond Head Shoreline Fisheries Management Area (SFMA), O‘ahu, will be closed to fishing for one year, from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2017.
WAILUKU, MAUI -- A groundbreaking ceremony yesterday at the Maui Annex state building at 130 Mahalani Street is preparing the way for demolition of the 57-year old building, and construction starting in early 2017, of a new 7,000 square-foot building on the one-acre state parcel that has housed four divisions of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
KAPA`A, KAUA‘I -- A large fishing net, estimated to weigh about two tons, was removed from the beach at Kapa‘a fronting the Coral Reef Resort, yesterday.