KEALiA POND ERADiCATiON

The Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge is located on the south coast of Maui. Kealia Pond is one of the few wetlands remaining in the Hawaiian Islands. The Kealia Pond is 691 acre wetland home to the endangered Hawaiian stilt and the Hawaiian coot. The Kealia Pond open water and mudflat areas with vegetation provides nesting areas,feeding areas and habitat for endangered birds. The two endangered species that are most commonly found in pond are the Hawaiian Coot and the Hawaiian Stilt. The Hawaiian coot is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. It's natural habitats are freshwater lakes, freshwater lakes, freshwater marches, coastal lagoons and water storage areas. The Hawaiian Stilt is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. It's natural habitat is coastal pond and fish ponds. The endangered specie are threatened by habitat loss. There are a few native plants such as the salt grass and sea purslane that can be found in the Kealia Pond. The Invasive specie that are class was concerned about was the California Bulrush because it is a plant that disturbs the nesting grounds and does not provide a home for the animals. This is a serious matter because the endangered species have a hard time finding a home to rest and to lay there eggs.


This is a picture of the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge.



The Significance of the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge is that the refuge provides a home and feeding area for native water birds. It is important to help get rid of the California Bulrush because it takes over the pond and makes it hard for the endangered species to nest and to lay eggs. If the Bulrush continues to grow the number of endangered species will start to decline.


This is a graph of the height of the Bulrush before the treatment.



This is graph of the density of the Bulrush before the treatment.



This is a graph of the height of the Bulrush after we did the treatment



This is a graph of the density of the Bulrush after the treatment



This is a picture of the Test Area #1(Spray)



This is a picture of the Test Area #2(Cut & Spray)



This is a picture of the Test Area #3(Cut)



This is a picture of the Test Area #4(Control)



In conclusion I realized that the most efficient treatment to help eradicate the California Bulrush is to cut and spray. From my graphs it shows that the best solution is cut and spray and then the next solution would be to cut it and then the last solution would to just spray. At the beginning of the treatment I had a feeling that the cut and spray was going to be the most efficient treatment. For this Test Area we had to cut the bulrush right by the water height and spray it. I believe this treatment turned out to be the best because we cut the bulrush so low that it would have a hard time growing again and especially because we put a spray that would help kill it.

REEF Survery Blog

What is REEFS mission?


Reef is a monitoring program that was established in 1990. There mission is to To conserve marine ecosystems for their recreational, commercial, and intrinsic value by educating, enlisting and enabling divers and other marine enthusiasts to become active stewards and citizen scientists.
Procedure:


*Formed a group of 2
*Got a survery slate, snorkel & fins
*Got into the water
*Swam in Ko'ie'ie fishpond for 30 minutes
*Looked for fish to conduct my fish survery
*Got out of the water and filled out fish identificatioin survey


Discussion:


Unfortunately my partner and I did not see any fish while we were snorkeling in Ko'ie'ie fishpond. The water was not visible due to the sediment and the movement in the water. In Decmeber 27 there was a masive storm that hit Maui causing a lot of beach erosion to happen at Ko'ie'ie fishpond. Before the storm hit the fishpond was a great place to snorkel and to conduct fish surverys. The visibility was great and there wre great abundance of fish that lived in the fishpond. Now the fishpond contains a lot of sedimentand it will take awhile for the water to become visible agin do to the wall that controls the fish population.


This is one of my class mates snorkeling in the fishpond



The Outdoor Science class getting in Ko'ie'ie fishpond




Me and my group looking for fish to survery






For more information please feel free to vist "www.Reef.org"

FiSH POND (LOKO KUAPA)

The loko kaupa is the only Hawaiian fishopond completely filled with sea water and tides do not affect this loko. The loko kuapa was built to take advantage of the ocean currents, nearby streams and local fish and invertebrate population. The fishpond was also built to raise food to feed the people. Fishponds were built and used by ancient Hawaiians to harvest fish, and other marnine resources. Construction of the fishpond was reserved for males because woman were considered unclean after they reached puberty. The males would do all of the fishopnd work and the women were in charge of cleaning the fish and preparing it. But women and children also went and wokred in the sea gathering limu for the wall. The makaha or gate helps define the characteristics of the fishpond. Many speiceis of larval fish were able to enter the pond throught hte gate, but as the fish grew larger, were unable to escape. The larval fish were drawn into the fishpond by the brackish water, the amount of algae, plankton and other food sources supplied byt eh care taker of the pond. The fish could be harvested whenever requested by the fuling ali'i. Basically, a fishpond consist of a wall and a sluice gate. For a loko kuapa type of fishpond, the wall was made of boulders and stones of all sizes and was known as the kuapa. A sluice gate or makaha was placed at precise locations where currents occured.

Speices:

Aholehole:(Flag Tail Fish)
Is one of the "sea pigs" used as a subsitute for pig for certain ceremonies, or for any ceremonies where pig are not avaliable."

Moi:(Thread Fish)
Hawaiians believed that the fish ate lehua blossoms, which are a deep red, and derived color from the flowers.

Papio:(Jack Fish)
Women and could not eat this fish.

Kaku:(Great Barracuda)
Eaten broiled but not eaten raw.

Limu:(Seaweed)
In the loko kuapa, the limu was the only specie a women could touch and harvest.

Intertidal Zone Mania

In my group we learned about the intertidal zone and the other types of zones. There is a zone called the splash zone that is not immersed by water but gets wet from salt spray. The upper intertidal zone is only immersed at high tide. The lower intertidal is only exposed at extreme low tide. The subtidal zone is always submerged and contains deeper tide pools. The last zone is the tide pool zone where it is a permanent collection of water. Since there are different zones in the intertidal zone it causes the temperature and salinity to change frequently. The intertidal zone is a good habitat place. It allows creatures a place where they can survive and have an easier time living. The intertidal zone also provides food for creatures that live in the zone. It makes it easier from them to collect food and not have to travel far to get it. Erosion protection is an important for the intertidal zone because if erosion would ever occur it would go into the ocean. Wave buffer is also important because if we didn’t have it there would not be an intertidal zone. So the intertidal zone is an important zone.

In order to answer are question and to do are experiment we visited Waipulani pond located on South Kihei road on the island of Maui. In our study we trying to find out if there were more crabs in the subtidal or lower intertidal zone. When we got to Waipulani are group found are testing area and then we used a digital thermometer to check the temperature. Then we used a pipette to get a drop of water from the ocean to place on the refractometer to check the salanity. Then we placed a quadrant by the subtidal and counted crabs for 3 minutes. We did it again for another 3 minutes. When we were done doing that we used a transect to measure 4 meters out into the lower intertidal. We then placed a quadrant and counted how many crabs for 3 minutes. We repeated that again and got our data. When we were done we averaged all are findings.

This is a picture of a group member counting crabs in the subtidal zone using a quadrant.

This is a picture of one of my group members looking for crabs in the lower intertidal zone.

This is a picture of a tool we used called a quadrant.

This is a picture of Waipulani Pond on South Kihei Road in Maui.

This is a graph of our data that we averaged.

We found that there were more crabs that live in the lower intertidal zone rather than in the subtidal. According to our graph we averaged are data by numbers per meter squared.

Plankton Madness Project

Plankton is a little creature that lives in the ocean. There do not have the ability to swim aganist the current. Plankton is so important becuase if we did not have it we would have all the animals that live in the ocean. We studied plankton to learn how important plankton is in our lifes. We also studied it to learn about the food web and how plankton relates to it. It also helped us understand that if we didn't have plankton we would have other animals in the ocean.

For this experiment we went to the Kihei Boat Ramp to do are studys. Our group towed a plankton next on the South dock at Kihei Boat Ramp. When were done we emptyed the water and put it into are samples. We used those samples to identify three major planktons (copepods, arrow worms and acanthometras). We took two more additional samples to identify the specimens. While we were there we took the temperature by using a digital thermometer. We also found out the turbidity by sticking the test tube with the secchi disk into the water and emptying out water until we could see the disk. We used a refractometer to check the salinity. At the end of the class we didn't have enough time to look at our specimens under the Proscope so we put are samples into the refrigerator. Then the next day we did are studies. We took are samples and put them into a petri dish and view them under the Pro scop which projected onto the laptop. We then counted all the specimens so we could get a rough estimate on what types of planktons there were in the water. We found out that t majority of are samples contained copepods. So to answer are essential question, there are more copeopods in our sample then arrow worms and acanthometras. There are some pictures and graphs from our studies.

This is a picture of my group when we were at Kihei Boat Ramp. Our group sampled the different type of samples at Kihei Boat Ramp.
This is a graph of my first sample from the Kihei Boat Ramp. There was more copeopods than arrow worms and acanthometra in our sample.

This is a graph of my second sample from Hookipa. There were only arrow worms in this sample.


This is a graph of my third sample from Kihei Boat Ramp. There were only copepods in our sample.