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Boater offers more details on collision with whale (MAUI)
Honolulu Advertiser, January 7, 2004

Wailea firefighter Sandy Parker, 27, was alone in his 18-foot fishing boat Monday when a humpback whale surfaced about 20 feet in front of him.

Parker doesn't recall clearly what happened next. He was knocked unconscious by the impact, suffering deep gashes to his head, scrapes and bruises, and pain in his chest and hip. Doctors told him he had a mild concussion.

Parker believes he tried to turn the boat away from the whale's head, and may have struck it near the tail. He thinks he must have pulled back the throttle, because when he came to, the boat was motoring slowly in reverse. He doesn't know how long he was out.

"I think the whale is fine," he noted. Parker wasn't.

He believes he was traveling about 18 knots, from East Moloka'i to Kahului Harbor, shortly after noon. He had just passed Kahakuloa on West Maui and was in about 100 feet of water.

The boat may have been knocked on its side, he said. His radio antenna was snapped in three places. He also found bits of black, tarlike material sticking to his back and side, and on the boat. "I don't know what it is. Maybe whale skin," he said.

He steered the boat toward Kahului as his vision cleared. Before the impact, he had called friends to meet him at the harbor, and they helped him when he arrived.

He was taken by ambulance to Maui Memorial Medical Center, where physicians used 20 stitches and 12 staples to close his head wound.

It was the second major impact between a boat and a whale in two weeks. A 3-year-old Virginia boy died of head injuries after a collision between a humpback whale and whale-watching boat off O'ahu on Christmas Day.

Both accidents are being investigated, partly to identify ways to minimize future collisions, said Margaret Akamine, protected species program coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Akamine said federal law requires that boaters stay 100 yards from any whales known to be present. "We want to be mindful that there are reasons for those regulations," she said. "These are large, wild animals."

Parents sue boat captain over death of their son
The 3-year-old boy died after an incident involving a whale
Honolulu Star Bulletin, Jan. 6, 2004

The family of a 3-year-old boy killed in an accident aboard a whale-watching tour boat on Christmas Day has filed a lawsuit, faulting the captain in the death.

Three days after the memorial service in Norfolk, Va., for Ryker David-Lee Hamilton, his parents, Ryan Lee Hamilton and Renee Elizabeth Hamilton, of Norfolk, and grandparents Robert Hamilton Jr. and Sandra Hamilton, of Hawaii, filed suit in Circuit Court yesterday.

The suit was filed against Dream Cruises Inc., a California corporation; P. Michael Watson, president of Dream Cruises Hawaii; and Monroe Wightman, the captain of the boat.

The suit alleges that Wightman failed to maintain proper control of the American Dream, allowing the 100-foot tour boat to collide with a whale.

"From all the investigation we've done, this incident is purely the fault of the master for not paying attention to where they were," said Hamilton family attorney Rick Fried.

Watson said he had not received the lawsuit, but disputes that allegation.

The toddler and his parents and grandparents were among 75 crew and passengers on the American Dream when it left Kewalo Basin on Dec. 25. A half-hour into the cruise, the captain spotted a pod of humpback whales and was headed toward it when another pod surfaced in front of the boat.

According to Watson, the captain slowed and stopped the boat, but one of the whales apparently lifted its tail and swiped at the boat's left bow. U.S. Coast Guard officials said it was unclear whether the whale hit the boat, and its preliminary report said the crew acted appropriately.

Fried said the boat collided with the whale, causing the accident.

"I don't think there's any question about that. Every witness I've spoken to who was in a position to see has confirmed that," Fried said.

The boat struck the whale because the captain was not paying attention, Fried said.

"Had this boat not been going at a high rate of speed, it's highly unlikely the impact would have occurred."

Ryan Hamilton, who was holding his son, was jostled back on his heels, then forward, from the impact. When he went forward, the boy's head hit the top of a railing. The boy suffered fatal head and spinal injuries, Fried said.

About a half-dozen other passengers also fell but were not seriously hurt, he said.

Fried said the captain failed to follow federal regulations that require vessels to remain 100 yards away from whales.

Watson said the Coast Guard is conducting a full investigation.

"There's been a lot of different opinions bandied about what took place," he said, "and I can defer to the Coast Guard, and I certainly would be more satisfied with their conclusions than self-serving statements from a plaintiff's attorney."

The Coast Guard surveyed the boat and found no damage consistent with a collision involving a 150-ton boat and a 50-ton whale, Watson said.

Fried said they filed suit after making no progress during talks with the boat's insurer and attorneys. The Coast Guard is continuing its investigation into the accident.

FOR MORE ARTICLES ON THIS EVENT:

- Lawsuit possible over boy’s death on (whale watch) cruise, December 28, 2003
http://starbulletin.com/2003/12/28/news/index5.html

- Whale-watch safety stressed, December 28, 2003
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Dec/28/ln/ln04a.html

- Accounts differ on death of boy, 3, in whale-watch boat, December 27, 2003
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Dec/27/ln/ln01a.html
- Boy dies on whale cruise; December 26, 2003
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Dec/26/ln/ln04a.html

Hawaiian green sea turtle rebounds
The Hawaiian green sea turtle rebounds from precariously low population levels thanks in large part to a Hawaii researcher
By Diana Leone

The first year Hawaii's green sea turtle expert counted the animals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, he found 67 nesting females at East Island, French Frigate Shoals.

Three decades later, on the same island, George Balazs' research team counted 467 nesting females in a season -- a nearly 600 percent increase.

Using additional data from the main Hawaiian Islands and mathematical modeling, Balazs estimates that Hawaii now has as many as 35,000 mature green sea turtles and perhaps 250,000 juveniles age 6 or under.

What a difference 25 years under the protection of the Endangered Species Act can make.

"You ask anybody that's a water person, that lives around the water -- there's a definite increase in turtles," says Robert Morris, the sole veterinarian contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to treat sick and injured turtles statewide.

The honu's recovery is significant enough that if the trend continues, the Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service might ultimately remove the Hawaiian green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) from its threatened-species list.

That step, if taken, would involve public hearings, scientific reviews and time, says Balazs, leader of the Fisheries Service's Marine Turtle Research Project in Hawaii.

And during such deliberations, the turtles would have Balazs going to bat for their welfare -- just as he has for 30 years.

Balazs was a self-described "junior scientist" in 1973 when he first questioned whether people in Hawaii were harvesting honu at a rate faster than the animals could replace themselves.

His first few years of data collected in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands -- where honu that later live in the main Hawaiian Islands go to mate and lay their eggs -- confirmed his suspicion.

At the rate people were eating turtle steaks, the risk was growing that not enough of the animals would survive to perpetuate the species.

Balazs' original work helped get the honu listed in 1978 as a threatened species, which means the potential of up to a $25,000 fine and a year in prison for anyone convicted of harming or killing one.

The man universally considered Hawaii's honu expert seems to be the only person surprised at the impact of his work.

"He's a one-man show. He's driven and dedicated to honu. That's his life," says Morris. "His days off, what's George doing? He's out doing turtle work someplace. Not only the Hawaiian turtles, but in Japan and all over the world."

A Canadian couple that has been diving with sea turtles during summers on Maui since 1988 and promotes turtle conservation on their "Turtle Trax" Web site (www.turtles.org) has this to say about Balazs:

"Without George, there would likely be no honu. He's contributed enormously to knowledge of all marine turtles, not just the honu.

"There can only ever be one pioneer researcher -- the first to unlock a door. Jane Goodall was the chimpanzee pioneer researcher," Ursula Keuper-Bennett and Peter Bennett said by e-mail from their winter home near Toronto. "And for honu? That's George."

Checkup roundup

It's mid-November, and Balazs is on his way to Punaluu Black Sands Beach Park for his semiannual "checkup" of the honu that live there. As many turtles as possible will be caught, measured for growth and examined for health problems.

Arriving at 10 a.m., Balazs is greeted by professors, staff and 20 students in the University of Hawaii-Hilo's Marine Option Program. They have a canopy set up on the beach, with a sturdy table in its shade, for Balazs to perform his exam of as many turtles as four-person teams of students can bring to him over the next four hours.

The Punaluu study site has been ongoing for more than 20 years. At 19 other locations around the main Hawaiian Islands, Balazs and his staff of 4 1/2 workers team with a variety of volunteers.

"It's people that make programs like this work," Balazs says.

Within a few minutes, one of the turtle-catching teams is back with the first patient of the day riding in the inner tube, belly up to the sun. After that, every 15 minutes, a crew pops out of the ocean with another turtle.

"They're definitely stronger than you think," says Ashley Herd, a marine science and art student at UH-Hilo. The turtles captured this day measure up to 2 feet wide. "If they want to get away from you, they're gone."

Using a measuring tape and calipers, Balazs measures the dimensions of each animal. The information will be entered into the massive database that has provided Balazs and others raw material for hundreds of scientific papers over the years.

The turtles seem to bear the indignities of the exam with a quiet patience. Their least favorite part appears to be the mouth exam. Several turtles respond by spitting out seaweed.

Balazs wipes up the smelly mess with disposable diapers brought for that purpose and continues.

When the checkup is complete, the turtle gets a blotch of temporary white paint on its shell to keep it from being captured again that day.

The atmosphere on the beach is part science lab, part carnival. Tourists and locals line up behind the plastic caution tapes around the work area to take pictures.

When a field trip of kindergarten and first-grade students arrives, things really get lively. But it all contributes to Balazs' goal of getting more people to know honu. Because as far as he's concerned, to know them is to love them.

"Maybe someday you'll grow up and be a biologist, and you'll use the data we are collecting here today," Balazs tells the students from the Big Island's Pahala Elementary.

For adults, there are handouts with "frequently asked questions" about what the group is doing to the turtles.

While Balazs and a crew work on one turtle, there are always two "on deck" to be examined. The steady supply contrasts sharply with the 1970s to the '90s, Balazs says, when "we'd be tickled pink if we were able to catch even two, three or four turtles" in a day or night of work.

The missing years

After hatching, sea turtles swim away from land. They don't return to near-shore waters until they've grown from palm size to dinner plate size.

Balazs' research on turtle growth rates in the wild has shown him that a young turtle lives at sea for about six years.

"What they do during the years they are on the high seas is the last great mystery," Balazs says, and the area he'd recommend to anyone starting turtle research today.

He also found that it takes 20 or more years for a honu to reach sexual maturity in the wild. Though they probably don't live to be 100, they do live a long time. How long may only be known when currently tagged turtles are recaptured.

Advances in technology allow satellite tracking of turtles at sea that was impossible a decade ago. The battery-powered transmitters are attached to a turtle's shell using a surfboard repair kit and last several months.

Between 1996 and 2000, Balazs and Fisheries Service colleague Jeffrey Polovina have tracked 40 Hawaiian honu, more than 20 loggerheads and four olive ridley sea turtles.

A young captive-raised honu made history earlier this year, transmitting its location during a nine-month, 3,000-mile swim around the Hawaiian Islands.

Such information could eventually lead to guidelines for longline fishing boats that would help them avoid ocean areas where juvenile turtles congregate, Balazs says.

Balazs is tracking 27 loggerhead turtles off Japan, three loggerheads off Taiwan, three green turtles off Hawaii and eight loggerheads off California.

At East Island -- the starting point of his turtle research career -- Balazs mounted a "Turtle Cam" last year that scans the 12-acre island from atop a 65-foot pole, providing him with photos and video of turtle behavior dawn to dusk.

Balazs and company also head a network that responds to sea turtle strandings (alive or dead) on all the main islands and study the fibropapilloma tumor disease that has become the turtles' worst enemy now that hunting has been banned.

Despite all his professional time spent focused on turtles, Balazs would be excused for trying try to get away from them during downtime. But honu occupy his leisure time, too. His destination on a recent vacation was a tour of temples honoring turtles on a small fishing island between mainland China and Taiwan. One of his hobbies is photographing, with permission, people's honu tattoos.

One day, he noticed a woman posing a baby on a blanket near a basking sea turtle at Laniakea on Oahu's North Shore, then taking a photograph. The woman told Balazs that she'd been taking monthly portraits of her child with a honu as background.

Balazs was charmed.

"I love to watch how people interact with them."

Maui battling seaweed invasion
By Rebecca Carroll, Associated Press
Monday, January 5, 2004

KIHEI, Maui — Seaweed is a common hidden ingredient in ice cream, toothpaste and luncheon meat. Some people even look for it in vitamin supplements and fancy face creams. But for an increasing number of shoreside neighborhoods and ecosystems, alien seaweeds are unwanted invaders.

Wading through several feet of algae spurred to action Kihei's Waipu'ilani Beach community, which successfully petitioned for a $250,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to develop an innovative seaweed-removal method, using a modified potato digger.

At Waipu'ilani, conditions are nearly perfect for seaweed: Trade winds drive it toward the shore, where shallow water, ancient fishponds and a natural coral formation prevent it from drifting away.

Native seaweeds have washed ashore here for much of the past century, at least, but the addition in recent decades of the non-native Hypnea musciformis variety has significantly amplified the problem.

The variety more commonly called Hypnea probably got into Hawaiian waters in the 1970s after a failed attempt to cultivate it for kappa carrageenan, a gelling agent used in chocolate milk, puddings, toothpastes and other products.

Now the variety is among several invasive seaweeds that plague the Islands' beaches.

Invasive seaweeds are well established in other parts of the world, said Celia Smith, a University of Hawai'i botany professor who heads a research lab that has been looking into Waipu'ilani's problem and trying to find parallels in other parts of the world.

Caulerpa taxifolia has been vexing underwater ecosystems in the Mediterranean for about a decade. The robust and fast-growing seaweed has spread to Adriatic coasts, Australia and even California and Florida, annihilating sea grasses and other marine life along the way.

French navy divers have tried pulling it up by hand, and researchers have tried everything from killing it with salt to blocking its sunlight with giant plastic and aluminum tarps.

Waipu'ilani residents researched various seaweed-removal techniques and finally decided on the modified potato-digging machine to pick up the unwanted beach cover which, left alone, rots into a foul-smelling slime.

The county bought the machine, called a "beach master," last year.

"It's not a perfect solution, but it seems to be working pretty good compared to the bulldozer," said community member David Mackwell, referring to a souped-up Ford 2120 tractor that used to move seaweed (and sand) to one end of the beach.

Now the county plans to use the bulk of Kihei's EPA money for a truck to haul the seaweed to a composting site, as needed. In the past, some of the seaweed has been used for fertilizer and much has ended up in the county landfill.

It makes economic sense to remove the seaweed from the beach, according to a study last year, which said Waipu'ilani's seaweed costs the area millions of dollars a year because nearby property values are lower than in areas without an algae problem, and because the beach gets less recreational use than others nearby.

But to Smith, whose research focuses on nutrient levels in Kihei's water, simply removing the seaweed doesn't get to the heart of the matter. Increased seaweed is feeding off something in the water, and Smith is trying to find what that nutrient is and why it's there.

"We have to cure the problem," she said. "All that we're doing with trucking stuff away is treating the symptoms."

Rough Seas for Orange Roughy: Popular U.S. Fish Import in Jeopardy, Says World Wildlife Fund
12/30/03, Newswire

Reckless overfishing is rapidly causing the demise of orange roughy and other imported fish species popular with U.S. consumers, according to a new scientific study released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and TRAFFIC. The study finds that rapidly expanding and unregulated fishing in deep waters is fast depleting species that could become commercially extinct if protective measures are not taken immediately by international governing bodies.

"The report shows that some deep ocean fish stocks, like orange roughy, have been wiped out in less than four years," said Simon Habel, director of TRAFFIC-North America, the wildlife trade-monitoring network. "As Americans buy more and more orange roughy, they contribute to the pressures that could ultimately take the fish right off their plates and out of the seas as well." The United States is a significant and growing market for orange roughy, importing more than 19 million pounds annually in recent years and accounting for nearly 90 percent of documented catches.

The U.S. is the main importer of orange roughy. New Zealand is the main supplier, providing more than 60 percent of U.S. imports in 2002, followed by China (18 percent) and Australia (17 percent). Namibia was a major supplier, experiencing rapid expansion if its fishery and accounting for nearly one-third of U.S. imports in the mid-1990's. Later, that same fishery declined rapidly and Namibia accounted for only 2 percent of U.S. imports in 2002.

Orange roughy have firm flesh that produces a white, boneless fillet that is amenable to freezing, and have proven quite popular with U.S. consumers. Once commonly known as slimeheads, orange roughy (or Hoplostethus Atlanticus) were renamed by New Zealanders to reflect the bright orange color and rough scales of the fish, and to sound more palatable to consumers. The fish live in very deep waters and are caught in large trawls.

Orange roughy live to beyond 150 years of age and do not become sexually mature until around 25 years of age. As a result the fish are potentially slow to recover from the effects of overexploitation. Generally, deep-sea species are depleted more quickly and recover even more slowly, if at all, than inshore species. They often live near seamounts, which are much like underwater mountains, and are often covered with unique corals and other species. Fish are often caught by dragging trawls over seamounts.

Wave Farm Planned to Harvest Ocean Energy
Minneapolis, Minnesota - December 29, 2003 [SolarAccess.com]

Minnesota-based energy technology company Independent Natural Resources Inc. (INRI) has successfully tested its new system for transferring ocean-wave power into renewable energy. Conducted in a wave tank at Texas A&M University's Offshore Technology Research Center, INRI's tests validate the results of several years of concepts and planning, showing the company's "Seadog" wave-pump technology has the potential to serve as a viable source of renewable power by harvesting renewable power from ocean waves.

To further prove the wave pump's viability, INRI is now looking to create a "wave farm" test field in a coastal area capable of providing consistent ocean swells -- a concept similar to electricity-generating "wind farms."

"Our tests at Texas A&M last month exceeded our expectations and we're confident that our engineers have developed a new proprietary technology that can serve as a safe, efficient system for gathering renewable energy from ocean waves," said INRI CEO Mark A. Thomas. "Going forward, we're seeking actual ocean environments where we can place a wave farm test field involving either 14 or 200 Seadog wave pumps. If the wave pump continues to perform as well as our tests have shown, we believe it has the potential to be a breakthrough for global energy production."

INRI's Seadog ocean-wave pump captures energy from ocean swells or waves to pump seawater to a land-based reservoir or water tower, where the water can be returned to the ocean through hydroelectric turbines, thereby producing inexpensive, renewable electricity. Tests on a scale Seadog prototype proved that a full-size version of the pump could consistently pump water 275 feet uphill at a pre-determined flow rate.

"Our technology avoids many of the problems other ocean-based power-generating technologies are struggling with today, because the Seadog doesn't involve any electrical components that can be damaged by sea water," said INRI Vice President Doug Sandberg. "And, because our device pumps water to a reservoir, it can store potential energy and generate power on demand, even when waves are too low to generate power. These two factors represent key advantages for our product."

According to INRI calculations, the company's wave-pump technology is potentially capable of generating 755 MW of hydroelectric energy for every one-square-mile pump field, assuming ocean swells averaging at least nine-feet. With swells of at least five-feet, a one-square mile pump field could generate approximately 242 MW.

"Coastal locations offering consistent wave heights of five-feet or greater aren't that uncommon," Thomas said. "For example, Point Reyes, off the coast of northern California, features more than 50-miles of coastline with wave heights regularly reaching five to 21 feet."

Laser may help target ocean trash
By Jan TenBruggencate, Honolulu Advertiser Columnist

Scientists are using a new aircraft-borne laser to identify rafts of marine debris at sea, where they can be removed more cheaply than if they are allowed to wash ashore, snagging reefs and damaging marine life.

"I think a pickup at sea can be done fairly inexpensively — a lot less expensively than cutting it off the reef," said James Churnside, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Environmental Technology Laboratory.

Churnside has been working with a technology called lidar, or light detection and ranging.

A laser is pulsed from an aircraft to the sea at 30 bursts per second. The equipment times how long it takes for the light signal to reflect back to the plane.

The equipment gives a different reading if it is able to enter the water and reflect off plankton, sediment or even bubbles than if it hits debris floating on the surface. "Debris on the surface shows up as a shadow," Churnside said.

He and his associates tested the system in Alaskan waters, first identifying from satellite images the areas where they believed oceanic debris rafts would be found, then confirming it with lidar testing.

"We were able to find concentrations of debris where the satellite data predicted they were," he said.

While lidar work hasn't been done around Hawai'i, Churnside said satellite predictions suggest there are large fields of debris floating in the subtropical convergence zone that normally lies north of the Islands.

The field is likely to be denser in winter, when the currents "are conspiring to sweep stuff together," he said. During El Niño weather conditions, the field can move far enough south that the debris runs ashore in vast quantities on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, he said.

Debris including all kinds of floating matter is perhaps most dangerous to marine life when it is made up of great clumps of netting, rope, plastic strapping and fishing gear. Birds, seals, turtles and fish can get tangled in it, and if big piles of it wash ashore, it can rip up coral heads as it rolls in the surf.

The Alaskan work has been supported in part by native communities affected by the marine trash.

"The problem of ocean debris is very real for remote Alaskan native communities," said Tim Veenstra, president of Airborne Technologies, the firm that conducted some of the aerial survey work with lidar over Alaskan waters.

"For instance, the beach at St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands is regularly affected by this debris. Not only is it an eyesore, but it has an impact on returning salmon runs."