(Kailua-Kona) – Off-road vehicles are driving in an area that has been cordoned off to protect a Hawaiian monk seal mother and her four-week-old pup named Hiwahiwa (means precious), in the Mahaiʻula section of Kekaha Kai State Park.
State Parks
(Honolulu) - The DLNR Division of State Parks is lessening restrictions and reopening park areas in conjunction with various county-specific rules and guidelines. Passive beach use is now allowed at all State Parks beaches, although some gates will remain locked for resource management, people’s safety and due to fiscal constraints. COVID-19 rules and social distancing guidelines remain applicable, following each county’s emergency orders.
(Līhuʻe) – A team of eight law enforcement officers from the Kaua‘i Police Dept. (KPD), and the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) wrote 15 citations yesterday to people in the Kalalau Section of the Nā Pali Coast State Wilderness Park on Kaua‘i.
(Līhuʻe) – Opportunities to hunt for feral pig and feral goats in the Nāpali Coast State Wilderness Park is opening. The areas open to animal control will be between the Ho’olulu (4-mile valley) to Kalalau Valley (11 miles), portions of Hunting Unit G. The animal control is necessary for watershed protection purposes.
(Honolulu) – Late Sunday night into the wee hours of Memorial Day, officers from the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement and the Honolulu Police Dept. worked to clear an estimated 200 people from a beach at the Mokuleia Section of Ka‘ena Point State Park on O‘ahu’s North Shore. Witnesses report the crowd was even bigger earlier in the evening.
(Honolulu) – Sacred Falls State Park has been closed 21-years, after a Mother’s Day 1999 rockslide killed eight people and seriously hurt dozens of others. In spite of hundreds of trespassers getting citations for entering a closed area since then, continued rockfalls and landslides in the park, and numerous encouragements for people to stay out, they continue to come.
(Līhue) – Kaua‘i hunters are invited to apply for Special Use Permits that allow for some additional days of the week to hunt goats, pigs and deer in all existing hunting Units EXCEPT Units A, B and L. Many hunting areas on Kaua‘i are open on weekends (Friday-Monday) only. Beginning Monday May 18, 2020 licensed hunters may hunt more days of the week by submitting an online application at www.KauaiForestUsers.com. Permits will be processed several times a week; not every day due to a lack of staff.
(Honolulu) – Today, as DOCARE Officer Fagota Tataipu Jr. recounted the Mother’s Day 1999 Sacred Falls tragedy, it was hard holding his emotions back. While patrolling the long-closed state park, Tataipu tearfully commented, “It’s one of those incidents in your life that you can never forget. It’s one of those, that even though Mother’s Day is a special day, you can’t help but reflect back on 1999 when we came up here because of the rockslide and so many moms that lost their lives.”
(Honolulu) – Hawaiian monk seals, green sea turtles and other marine animals that frequent our shores have largely had near-shore waters and beaches to themselves for the past six weeks. With today’s announcement of the reopening of select DLNR Division of State Parks units across the state, park managers and aquatic biologists are reminding people to be respectful of the places we share with Hawai‘i’s treasured marine creatures.
(Honolulu) – The DLNR Division of State Parks is re-opening select parks and monuments across the state with an emphasis on social distancing and exercise and continued restrictions on gatherings of any sort. The announcement is in line with Governor Ige’s emergency rules, as well as advice from the Hawai‘i Dept. of Health.