Author: jessicaelse

Author and award-winning journalist Jessica Else currently works as the environment reporter on the island of Kauai and enjoys writing about sustainability projects, endangered animals, health and wellness, festivals and food, and outdoor adventuring.

Good pig, Bad pig

New research out of the University of Hawaii supports the state’s work to eradicate invasive and prevalent feral pigs, but also shows ways in which watersheds can benefit from the animals.

UH announced the publishing of two studies Friday, both looking at bacteria and invertebrate colonies in soil from Volcanoes National Park and Pu‘u Maka‘ala Natural Area Reserve.

One study reported direct benefits to soil bacterial communities when feral pigs were removed from the area of study. The other reported a benefit to having the pigs in the ecosystem, showing earthworms and ground beetles were positively associated with sites rooted by feral pigs.

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Southwest’s First Flight

Passengers throw shakas on the first Southwest flight from Kauai to Oahu.

Passengers cheered as the first Southwest Airlines flight out of Lihue landed in Honolulu on November 10, marking the beginning of the carrier’s flights to and from Kauai.

The long-awaited flight 1083 wasn’t full, which provided extra space for passengers in the already roomy cabin. Festivity was in the air during the 25-minute flight.

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Hawaii’s Coral Pledge

 Hawaii has announced it’s newest tool in protecting coral reefs — a six-step pledge that aims to educate visitors and residents about real actions they can take to help preserve the reefs. Tour companies and others in the visitor industry are already signing the pledge — and the public can, too at https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/coral-pledge/

Straightforwardly named, “The Coral Pledge”, the document highlights these six action points:

• Let Fish Protect Reefs
• Corals Like Their Space
• Stand on the Sand
• Use Reef-Safe Sunscreen
• Contain Any Chemicals
• Anchor Away from Reefs

As Hawaii simmers in warmer-than usual ocean temperatures, experts monitoring the expected coral bleaching said in early November that it’s not as severe as was predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in September.

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Catching the world’s plastic

Skip Schaefer gets souvenirs from around the world delivered to his backyard on the island of Kauai.

That’s if you include the area Schaefer roams around his actual backyard, the stretches of beach around Aliomanu on the eastside. His house overlooks the bay and he walks the beach daily.

Schaefer loves adventure and when he’s not traveling internationally with his family, he hops for miles along the rocky shoreline to get to places most people don’t ever reach — but plastic does.

“We get stuff from all over the place,” Schaefer said during a recent hike out to a remote part of the shoreline south of Moloaa Bay, holding up a mangled, blue plastic storage container with what could be Japanese characters along the side. “This isn’t from here.”

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Unpredictable could be the new norm in Hawaii

Research out of the University of Hawaii forecasts more frequent and extreme El Niño events, and that could mean more unpredictable rainfall, hurricane activity, sea-surface temperatures and changes in sea levels around Hawaii.

A study recently published by a team of international climate researchers considers the past 33 El Niño events spanning from 1901 to 2017, aiming to discover how climate change will affect the next generation of strong El Niño events.

What they found is that it already has.

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