Chapter XXVI: Ode to the French Frigate Shoals Honu

Here's where the “and more” part of the ‘Monk Seals and More’ blog comes into play... Those who know me have been expecting me to find a way to write about turtles at some point, and are likely surprised that it took me this long. Well, The FFS Team (Mark, Erin and Cheryl) has been super busy with the seals out here, but we just can’t help but notice all the turtles crawling around. Where do all those Hawaiian green sea turtles that we see in the main Hawaiian Islands come from? It’s been well documented by NOAA/NMFS George Balazs and his turtle team that over 90% of them hatch from right here in the beautiful French Frigate Shoals. Good choice, honu!

East Island is the most popular nesting destination, but all accessible strips of sand and coral rubble beaches on all these islands are totally covered with what resembles bomb blast craters (the nesting turtles’ body pits): Tern, Trig, Gin, and Little Gin. Seals love to lounge in these pits, by the way. We’re at the tail end of nesting season now, but with the typical 2-month incubation period that puts us in peak hatchling season. Lucky us! One night we watched ~80 hatchlings make a break for the ocean in the moonlight- an awesome sight indeed. Their tiny flippers make tracks that kinda look like bicycle tracks, and with this high quantity of emergences there’s not a smooth patch of sand to be found.

Every morning just after sunrise, we take turns checking certain spots around Tern Island for any seabirds, seals or turtles that get themselves trapped amongst the seawall rubble. This dawn patroller also looks for hatchlings that are heading in the wrong direction. The vegetation lining the beach is littered with misoriented hatchling corpses, sadly. Surprisingly, we often find them crawling down the middle of the runway, far far away from where they need to be.

The heat of the day is obviously too much for them to handle, so we scoop them up and take them to the nearest beach and let them go.

We of course fend off the crabs, because they are ferocious predators. Once they reach the water though, they’re on their own to swim the gauntlet of fish, sharks and diving frigates. These tiny turtles have a lot going against them in this big scary world of ours, so it’s the least we can do to give them a little helping hand.

Because hey, we all get a little lost sometimes…

On our seal patrol of Tern yesterday morning, Erin and I stumbled upon a major emergence of ~70 hatchlings. We took a video clip of the whole thing (coming soon to a theater near you). Here are just a few pictures of how it unfolded:

We’ve also been helping out the USFWS volunteer, Jessie, with nest excavations. Digging up a smelly turtle nest doesn’t sound like much fun to most people, but I’m a turtle nerd so regardless of how many hundreds of times I’ve done it, each one usually leads to something interesting. Even if we don’t rescue any live hatchlings, the digging of these ~3 ft deep holes has its rewards for sure. Check out these fine examples of early and late (alien-like) development:

Besides the nesting scene, honu can be found cruising around the reef and basking on the beaches. Ahhh, paradise…