Aloha Reporter » Environment

Friday Night Flights Turn Out the Lights

AR — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:27:22 +0000

On Kaua’i, Birds’ Friday Night Flights Turn Out the Lights on Prep Games

It is a frequent sight during autumn evenings on the island of Kauai: young seabirds mistake the lights of a football stadium for the moon and stars during their migration to the ocean, causing them to become disoriented, fall from the sky and die.

The deaths of the birds has become such a problem that officials at the three high schools on the island have canceled Friday night football for the entire season and moved the games to Saturday afternoon.

Hawaiian Coral Saved by Freezing Sperm

AR — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:11:53 +0000

Image via University of Hawaii at Manoa, Credit: Virginia Carter

As corals face a daily bashing through warm, polluted waters, the scientists at University of Hawaii at Manoa and the Smithsonian Institution are building up a bank of frozen sperm and embryos of Hawaiian coral species, just in case. The diversity of coral species is vital to Hawaii’s marine ecosystems, providing the habitat necessary for the survival of the myriad of fish, crustacean and plant species around the islands. So of course, researchers want to do all they can to protect them from extinction. In theory, the frozen cells can be unfrozen even 1,000 years in the future to restore populations.

20,000 Tons of Hawaiian Rubbish

AR — Tue, 25 May 2010 07:41:56 +0000

Robert D. Harris of the Sierra Club examining garbage delayed for shipping to the mainland.

At first glance, it does not look much like garbage. More than 20,000 tons of it have been shrink-wrapped into green bales that are neatly stacked, ready to ship about 2,300 miles across the Pacific to the mainland as an another export — “opala,” as garbage is called in Hawaiian.

But the trash’s passage has been delayed again and again since it first began piling up here in the tropical heat last September. Now, when the wind changes, it offers a pungent reminder of how Oahu’s latest plan to dispose of some of its trash has gone awry.

Plastic Beach, Hawaii

AR — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:06:33 +0000

Ocean debris turning Hawaiian beach ‘into plastic’

Consumer waste from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is turning a Hawaiian beach “into plastic”, Tropic of Cancer presenter Simon Reeve has found.

Conservationist Sam Gon escorted him to the remote Kamilo Beach, where plastic bottles, bags, tyres, rusting petrol cans, and other waste from around the world washes up.

They found more plastic particles than sand, as they dug a hole on what has been described as “the world’s dirtiest beach”.

View Video of Kamilo Beach …

Source: BBC

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