Department of Land and Natural Resources

(HONOLULU) – The options available to land managers and owners of coastal properties facing serious beach erosion are limited, expensive, and unlikely to provide permanent fixes. That’s one of the conclusions of a presentation to the Board of Land and Natural Resources last Friday.

(HONOLULU)- The DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) announces the opening of the 2021-2022 Game Bird Hunting Season on Saturday, November 6, 2021. The fall game bird hunting season will run through Sunday, January 30, 2022. To comply with federal mandates, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and to meet current state regulations, the last day for hunting mourning dove will be January 16, 2022.

(Līhuʻe) – There’s no argument the photos are stunning, with brides and grooms perched on ridges overlooking the rugged Nāpali Coast State Wilderness Park, beneath a waterfall, or at sunset on a quintessential Kaua‘i beach. These are the works of commercial wedding photographers, many of whom fail to get permission and/or required state or county permits, authorizing them to set-up and shoot in specific locales. 

(KAHULUI) – Two Maui residents, a father and his son, are charged with the take and possession of a green sea turtle, a protected species, after being spotted by a DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) officer on routine patrol. 

(Līhuʻe) – It was last seen on Hawai‘i Island five years ago and thought possibly to be extinct. A rare, critically endangered fern that grows on ʻōhiʻa and on a few other native tree was recently discovered by a team from the Hawai‘i Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP). 

(HONOLULU) – Imagine your job is hanging 300 feet on a thin rope, on nearly vertical cliffs, in Waimea Canyon on Kaua‘i. This is precisely what Adam Williams, a botanist with the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), and Scott Heintzman with the state’s Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP) do on a regular basis. 

(HONOLULU) – Researchers know that endangered Hawaiian monk seals range broadly across the Hawaiian archipelago. Data shows that 10-14% of adult monk seals move from their birth island to other islands.  They’re impressed that a six-year-old female seal, designated as KG54, swam 1,300 miles from Kure Atoll, the northernmost island in the chain, in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, to O‘ahu, arriving here on a north shore beach last Wednesday (Sept. 22, 2021). 

(HONOLULU) – 100,000,000 is a hard number to wrap your head around. One trillion is even tougher and that’s the number of trees a new challenge hopes to plant, conserve, or restore this decade worldwide. https://www.1t.org/ 1t.org is part of the World Economic Forum’s efforts to accelerate nature-based solutions and was set up to support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. 

(KAHULUI) – The rusting fence around the Kanahā Pond Wildlife Sanctuary on Maui is closer to being replaced with a predator-proof fence, with Governor Ige’s Wednesday release of initial funding for the project. The bird sanctuary, surrounded by urban and industrial development, has also been a focus of this week’s mass clean-up of trash, vehicles, and camps from adjacent Amala Place. 

(Honolulu) – An unprecedented number of Hawaiian monk seal deaths on the island of Moloka‘i, this year, has law enforcement officers from the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) and the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) investigating.