Internship report # 2

Cheryl King

These past two weeks have been very productive. I spent four days on The Big Island of Hawai'i, which is the island that Bill Gilmartin, Hawai'i Wildlife Fund's co-Founder and Director of Research (and my supervisor for this internship) lives on. The purpose of this trip was to get all of HWF's accounts in order for tax filing. Why pay an accountant ten times as much as I make with the same outcome? Basically, I had to balance all four accounts: Education, Payroll, Research, and Keone'o'io (a human impact assessment of a natural historical site on Maui). Then each account's expenditures had to be categorized and calculated (while confirming that all receipts were accounted for and legitimate). The total of these four accounts' categories of expenditures and the grand total were figured. Each person's total wages were tallied and their appropriate tax forms mailed to them.

Going through this process helped me understand more about HWF and what is involved with a non-profit organization. I also got to spend some quality time with Bill. He's an excellent role model- in the field of wildlife conservation and in life. And I was able to snowboard on Mauna Kea (13,000+ ft), a novelty experience for Hawai'i, and one of the top priorities on my "To Do" List!

A man named Steve Williams has volunteered to help us with this project. He has helped coordinate the "Dawn Patrol", a group of citizens who walk Maui's few known nesting beaches looking for tracks, for the past four years. He is actually a dentist, but the involvement with this project has given him a good turtle background. A friend of his, Forest Star, is the leader of a State funded environmental task force working on restoring natural areas to their original conditions. We share this common goal. Honestly, we don't know for sure what the hawksbills "like or don't like" about any particular type of vegetation. We do know that hatchlings have been unable to dig through root mats and they've gotten caught in this particular invasive species, torpedo grass. And we can definitely justify returning native species to this beach because they belong there. Who can argue with that?

Steve talked to Forest about our project and he arranged for his group to come to Kawililipoa Beach for one day, which was last Saturday. Five workers, plus Steve and I, showed up to help. There is a two foot border of aki aki grass (native) lining the makai (ocean side) edge of the beach, then after a little mixing of the two species, the introduced torpedo grass practically takes over the secondary dune. After assessing the situation, Forest recommended using Roundup fertilizer on the torpedo grass. He explained the near impossibility of permanently getting rid of this grass- it's super tough and thick with deep roots shaped like gingerroots. Even if we did spend a couple of weeks pulling all of it, chances are good that it would come back. And he informed us that this particular grass is only found at one other site on Maui and we have the opportunity to eradicate it in both places, making it extremely difficult to reestablish itself here. That sounded great to me, in theory, but I was more concerned with the turtles. The idea of using chemicals on a fragile dune system in close proximity to the ocean didn't appeal to me at all. But as Forest explained the commonality of its usage in similar situations, without any known repercussions, I began to warm up to the idea. And he is known as one of Hawai'i's plant experts, so he's very knowledgeable about the topic. But, Steve and I decided that we should research it and clear the idea with a representative from FWS and DLNR, the triad that makes up our honu'ea conservation effort.

So we decided to focus our day towards digging out a defined border between the aki aki making up the edge of the dune and the torpedo grass. That way, if we do decide to spray, the aki aki won't be affected. It was truly difficult work and we didn't finish the job, but we made some solid headway. We definitely have our work cut out for us. I'm just glad that we've begun this portion of the project and I'm learning more about Hawai'i's plant life.