When Turtles Are in Trouble, Who Do You Call?
A few months ago I was walking my two dogs at Kealia Beach, a long stretch of sand on Kaua`i’s east side, just north of Kapa`a. It’s a beautiful beach, serving as the coastal boundary of the Kealia River Valley, which descends from the majestic Makalea mountains.
Unfortunately, Kealia is often dotted with trash, both plastic debris deposited by sea currents and tradewinds and assorted litter abandoned by those who frequent this popular beach.
So I was walking along, remaining alert to where I placed my bare feet, when I spotted something roundish in the sand, not far from the waterline. At first I thought it was a battered piece of plastic, but upon closer inspection I realized it was a Hawaiian green turtle (Chelonia mydas). It was dead, its small carapace fractured and peeling, but still largely intact.
It didn’t seem right to just leave it there, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. I figured somebody kept track of such things, but who? I called Don Heacock, the state’s aquatic biologist on Kaua`i, both because I know him and I’d seen his picture in the local paper many times. He was usually photographed at the scene of a whale, dolphin or turtle stranding, and sometimes a monk seal birth.
But Heacock, workaholic that he is, remarkably was on vacation. I tried some other numbers: a local vet, a friend at the Fish and Wildlife Service. And that’s how I heard about the sea turtle stranding network. It’s a coalition of volunteers and government workers all around the Hawaiian islands who are coordinated by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Since Heacock, the main Kaua`i contact, was unavailable, I was given a number on O`ahu to call. The woman who answered the phone asked if I would be willing to go back to the beach and get some information on the turtle, and of course I agreed. I collected a tape measure, a pair of work gloves and a notebook and went back to Kealia. First I measured the carapace; it was about 20 inches long and 13 inches across. Then I donned my gloves and carefully dug the sand out from around the turtle so I could see its flippers. They were whole and bore no metal tags. Then very gingerly I checked its head and neck for tumors, and found none. Finally, I turned the turtle over. Its underside was undamaged, which bolstered my suspicion, based on the shattered carapace, that the turtle had been hit by a boat and not attacked by a shark.
I called the O`ahu number again to report my findings and didn’t think much else about it. A few days later, Heacock called me. I told him what had happened and he gave me more details about the network. I was struck to learn that folks all around the state were volunteering their time to run out to beaches at any time of the day or night to investigate a stranding report. They would dutifully collect the same data as I had, and might also take a tissue sample or send the entire carcass to O`ahu for a necropsy. If the animal was still alive, and perhaps entangled in fishing net, they would do their best to free it or take other steps to ensure it wasn’t suffering.
Heacock says he receives an average of 30 calls a month related to marine life, although half are monk seal sightings. About 90 percent of his calls come from the police, who are contacted by residents and visitors. He thinks that’s a good trend. “People need to take the approach that protected and endangered species are everybody’s responsibility. The citizens, the maka’ainana, are the eyes of the land. We wouldn’t know about half this stuff without the public calling us.”
He believes the network is doing a good job of responding to stranding reports and collecting data on both live and dead turtles. “The only way we can determine the overall health of these animals is by monitoring them,” he said.
But what was being done with all the information the networkers had gathered? Was it collecting dust on a shelf somewhere or moldering in cyberspace?
So I called O`ahu again, and this time NMFS worker Shawn Murakawa answered the phone. She advised me that the network, started in 1982 by her boss, George Balazs, was expanding its presence on the various islands and making use of the information collected. Balazs and others have published a number of papers based on data gathered from the strandings.
The program was launched primarily to make some sense out of fibropapillomatosis, the tumor-causing disease that is afflicting turtles in Hawaii, as well as Florida, Australia, Barbados and the Pacific coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica. “Unfortunately, we still haven’t figured out what’s causing it,” Murakawa said.
Researchers have discovered, however, that the prevalence and severity of tumors has increased significantly since 1982, along with annual strandings. Just 10 to 20 strandings were reported each year in the early 1980s, compared to 200 to 300 in the late 1990s. Turtle populations in Hawai`i also have risen substantially in that time. Some 2,377 strandings were reported between 1982 and 1998, with O`ahu accounting for about 75 percent of the calls. About 65 percent of the stranded turtles were found dead. Based on necropsies performed on hundreds of stranded turtles, researchers have determined that fibropapillomatosis and spirorchidiasis are major causes of strandings. Tumors have increased substantially over the 17-year study period, afflicting 47 to 69 percent of the stranded turtles over the past decade. Fibropapillomatosis is found among turtles on all the six inhabited islands; however, for some reason west Hawai`i is virtually free of it.
Researchers also have discovered from the stranding data that juvenile turtles comprise the bulk of strandings and also have the highest occurrence of tumors. And tumors have been found much more frequently in females than males. More alarming, perhaps, is the rise in oral and eye tumors, and the two types of tumors in combination. Researchers say such tumors are highly prevalent in stranded turtles, and their occurrence has increased significantly since 1990, along with internal tumors. These oral tumors seem to be a manifestation of fibropapillomatosis that is unique to Hawai`i; no oral tumors have been reported in Florida.
But while tumor research is the main focus, Murakawa says data and specimens collected by the stranding program are aiding other research efforts. These include studies on net entanglements and various turtle diseases, along with molecular genetics, diagnostic testing and feeding habits. The agency also tries to coordinate data from its turtle tagging program into the stranding program.
Murakawa agrees with Heacock that public cooperation is crucial to the program’s success. “If people didn’t call us, we wouldn’t have any other way to get this information about strandings. The majority of callers are pretty concerned. They usually want to know why it died.”
The agency has been capitalizing on that concern by expanding both its public outreach efforts and the stranding network. It has printed up an information packet to hand out to folks at strandings and sends its outreach coordinator to keiki fairs, fishermen’s festivals and other events. At the same time, the network is growing. In the past, it was made up mostly of NMFS personnel on O`ahu, aided by the state aquatic biologists and Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement Officers on each island. “It’s great the state biologists have been helping us out, because it really isn’t part of their job,” Murakawa says.
In just the past year, students enrolled in the Marine Option Program at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo have joined the network, as have volunteers with the Maui Humpback Whale Sanctuary. The Big Island and Maui are now well covered, but the program could be beefed up on Kaua`i, Moloka`i and Lana`i. Still, Murakawa says, “We’re really excited to see it moving out more into the community.”
On Kaua`i, Heacock plans to press some of the folks who signed up to keep 24-hour watch over that island’s newborn monk seal into service for the stranding network. He recently used 56 volunteers from the National Tropical Botanical Garden to excavate turtle nests at Lawa`i Kai beach and count broken shells, tallying up 478 hatchlings.
Heacock believes people want to help, but said volunteers can be fickle, losing interest if they aren’t trained or called upon often to help. And some are looking for more glamorous assignments than dealing with a rotting turtle carcass on a remote beach. “Unfortunately, sea turtle strandings are not as sexy as monk seal pups.”
O`AHU: 983-5730 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.; 587-0077 weekends, holidays and after hours
MAUI: 984-8110 or 879-2818 (Ma`alaea to Makena)
BIG ISLAND: 974-6208 (Hilo); 323-3141 (Kona); 887-6196 (Kamuela)
KAUA`I: 274-3521
MOLOKA`I: 567-6618
LANA`I: 565-7916
On all neighbor islands, dial “O” for the operator and ask for Enterprise 5469 to report turtle strandings after hours and on weekends and holidays.
— Joan Conrow
Volume 11, Number 2 August 2000