June 24, 2004

The Honu of Kapoho

The trib is making my life easy this week with some stories worth telling for a change

Remember the honu (by the way Honu is both singular and the plural)Well some lucky folks down by where Mike and Claudia used to live have honu that have gotten into their ponds. The land is so low here that many people have natural or man made salt water ponds on their property that are refreshed by sea water at tidal intervals. Some ponds are "puka" holes or depressions in "Pahoehoe" or the smooth lava that flowed through here as recently as 1960. Some ponds are over steam vents and are warm and bubble like a boiling pot, but not nearly as warm. They often have schools of fish that permanantly reside in them and the snorkeling is delightful, and of course private as it is your pond!

Some Honu may have been swept into the ponds during a storm, some may have crawled into them, still others were "placed" there. Read on about these " very controversial "pets"...

Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004
Green turtles residing in Kapoho Beach lots


By DAVE SMITH
As any snorkeler can tell you, green sea turtles are frequent visitors to tidal ponds at Kapoho.

However, there are several turtles that most people do not see.

That's because the three turtles have been residents of several privately owned ponds around homes in the gated community of Kapoho Beach Lots for decades.

The 1978 passage of the federal Endangered Species Act made it illegal to injure or even harass green sea turtles, which are considered a threatened species.

But according to Paul Ortiz, an attorney with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, green sea turtles in captivity before 1978 are "grandfathered" under the law.

The grandfather clause applies only to threatened species, which means it would not include the hawksbill turtle, which is much more rare and classified as endangered.

It's not clear how the turtles came to be in the walled ponds in the first place.

Lenny Terlep, a conservation officer with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said their origin is a mystery.

"No one knows," he said.

All three of Kapoho's "resident" turtles have been tagged by wildlife officials for identification.

One of the turtles is in a pond at Kapoho Paradise Estate, a vacation rental property owned by the Yunis family.

Lynette Yunis said she doesn't know how the turtle named Arthurena came to be in the pond of the home she and her husband purchased in the 1990s.

George Balazs, a researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, examined them a year ago and found them in "reasonably" good health.

Balazs said that none of the three had any signs of fibropapillomas, tumors that can occur in some types of sea turtles. He called that significant because the disease -- often severely advanced -- is commonly found in wild green sea turtles in the Kapoho area.

But the good health has not always been the case with the captive Kapoho turtles. A necropsy conducted on one that died in 2000 found the turtle suffered from malnutrition.

Dr. Thierry Work, a veterinarian with the U.S. Geological Service who specializes in wildlife diseases, said the turtle suffered from hypothyroidism caused by a lack of iodine.

The ailment was apparently the result of being fed a diet consisting primarily of papayas.

"We think it just didn't have the proper nutrients," Work said.

Green sea turtles in the wild eat marine algae, or seaweed, which is naturally high in iodine.

Yunis said she was told of the necropsy findings and she rarely feeds her turtle papayas.

In 2001, Balazs, concerned about the possibility of further turtle deaths, asked Yunis to consider setting her turtle free. She declined.

Tuesday, Yunis told the Tribune-Herald that she believes her turtle, which is featured prominently on Web sites promoting the vacation rental, is safer in the pond than in the open ocean.

"I monitor what it is fed and the portions, and I believe that's why it is so healthy," she said. "I've been taking care of it the best I've been told to."

She acknowledged that while the turtle appears to enjoy interaction with humans, it lacks contact with other turtles.

"From a breeding standpoint, it would be better for my turtle to be set free," she said.

But she believes that the possibility the turtle could be exposed to tumors is justification enough not to set it loose.

"I really feel it would be a death sentence," she said.

She also believes that after such a long period in the pond, the turtle would not be able to forage in the ocean.

However, Balazs does not believe that to be true.

Attempts to reach the owners of the other two turtles were unsuccessful.

I say these are vagrants that should be allowed to stay with the property owners permission. After all they are Kama'aina.