The HPA Middle School Theme Week took place from Feb. 11-14. Laura Jim put together a team of 11 students and 3 parents to join George Balazs, Stacy Kubis and Marc Rice at Kapoho to capture and tag green turtles in and around the thermal ponds in the area.

The focus of the trip was:

1. capture and download data from TDR tagged turtles - we had three of them out since last April.

2. Capture, tag and measure as many green sea turtles as we can from champagne pond, blind inlet and mangrove cove.

Kapoho has been an area where the green turtles have been growing more rapidly that other areas on the Big Island, and we are interested in seeing if we can better determine what is different about the area and pinpoint the reason for the differences in growth rates. The three TDR turtles may give us an idea of the travels of these animals and their diving, resting and foraging behavior.

Pictures of Trip

Quick time movie of Kapoha Mangroves and Turtles