Safeguarding Hawaii’s Sea Turtles

Join Malama na Honu and become a citizen scientist defending an endangered species

BY ANNA STEPHENSON

Malama na Honu volunteers. Photo by Ulziibayar Badamdorj.

At a beach in Haleiwa, endangered green sea turtles bask under the watchful eye of volunteers from Malama na Honu, an organization whose name in Hawaiian means, “Protect the Turtles.”

Founded in 2007, Malama na Honu is a constant fixture at a Haleiwa beach whenever there are turtles. They also have a comprehensive educational outreach program, teaching adults and children alike about the importance of the honu, or green sea turtle, and how to protect them.

Why this quiet cove? “This is the education beach,” said Debbie Herrera, the volunteer education coordinator for Malama na Honu from Mililani. “On other beaches, people who see the honu are on their own. Here, there’s always someone from Malama na Honu to answer questions. … You can imagine the number of volunteers we need.”

“Most volunteers never know anything about honu,” Herrera said. “But once they get here, they become obsessed with them. Everyone loves honu.”

Herrera requested the beach not be named for the safety of the honu.

According to the Malama na Honu website, the organization is currently tracking 20 individual turtles – five males, eight females, five sub-adults and two juveniles.

Herrera said each honu has had its identifying characteristics noted and has been given a Hawaiian name. Many of them have English nicknames, like Oliva-Dawn. OliviaDawn’s Hawaiian name is Ipo or sweetheart. She’s a frequent feature on Malama na Honu’s Instagram and Facebook pages, where they post photos of the basking honu.

“She is very colorful on the beach,” said Herrera. “She does amazing sand art … because she always moves around. She has that reputation of being the turtle who comes up and definitely dominates. We used to call her the honu with restless leg syndrome because she moved around so much. She’s here all year round.”

According to the World Wildlife Fund, honu are threatened by “overharvesting of their eggs, hunting of adults, being caught in fishing gear and loss of nesting beach sites.” The Malama na Honu website says here in

Honu Olivia-Dawn’s Hawaiian name is Ipo, or sweetheart. Photo by Sarah Farquharson.

Hawaii, another threat to honu comes from everyone, tourist and local alike, who are asked to stay at least 10 feet, or 3 meters, away from honu at all times, whether on land or in the water.

Volunteers at Malama na Honu are at the beach every day of the year from sunrise to sunset and are broken into three shifts of three to four people each. Volunteers answer questions and participate in an outreach and nesting team.

Volunteers are expected to commit to at least two three-hour shifts per month. “We’re citizen scientists,” Harrera explained. “When a honu comes up, we record data. We mark down what time she came up and what time she returned to the ocean. All the data is compiled and at the end of the month we give it to [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. … On the nesting site, we have a cooperative agreement with Fish & Wildlife.”

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, volunteer orientations are currently suspended, but the volunteers are still coming. “People who never came to the North Shore because of the traffic are coming now,” Harrera said. “We’re seeing a lot more people on the island coming out here.”

“I’m here pretty much every weekday for at least two shifts, sometimes the whole day,” said Zoe Gieger, an intern with Malama na Honu from Massachusetts. “Our main goal is to protect the turtles from any harassment. The way we do that is by setting up a rope boundary around it [when it comes ashore] to give it 10 feet [of space] and answering any questions tourists of the beach might have of the turtles. [We make] sure everyone’s respectful of the space and the really cool basking patterns these turtles have.”

Gieger continued, “It’s been really interesting. Debbie’s given me a bunch of books about the honu. … I can answer so many questions. It’s been really interesting to go from knowing practically nothing about the turtles to knowing a lot. … It’s been cool to see the same turtles and different turtles and read about what their history is like.”

When asked if she had a favorite honu, Gieger said, “That’s hard to choose. I have a few favorites. One that’s been coming out a lot recently is George, or Keoki, and he’s an adult male. His story is really cool because before they knew what his gender was they called him ‘Clawdette’ … because he had kind of a claw shape on his back left flipper from a tiger shark attack.”

She also described Hiwahiwa, an adult female who holds the record for the deepest recorded dive by a member of this species: 570 feet. Prior to her dive, scientists believed that honu only dove 500 feet at the most, Gieger said. Another honu Gieger highlighted was Maka Nui, who is now a sub-adult but was previously the youngest turtle to ever come out to bask.

“Their eyes are really wide looking at everything,” Geiger said. “So Maka Nui means ‘big eyes.’”

Josiah, 10, recently began volunteering for Malama na Honu with his mother. “I’ve always kind of had an interest in sea life,” he said. “[We do shifts] maybe twice a month.” He expressed his excitement to be helping out.

To volunteer, email Herrera at kuuipo4kc@yahoo.com.•