2021-05-18 Game Management Advisory Commission Mintues

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Cynthia Punihaole: My name is Cynthia Punihaole, Director Kahaluu Bay Education Center. The program from the Kohala Center. We have been helping educate our visitors and our local community on reef etiquette. How to take care of the reef, since 2006. The reason I'm here this evening is to just share with you the press release that went out from the County on Kahalu'u Beach closing for coral spawning. I'll give you some history back in 2000, prior to 2015 and again 2019 the coral at Kahaluu Bay the impact of visitors was very severe, but we found the coral were still able to manage taking care of themselves. But then and in 2015 and like I said again in 2019 because of elevated ocean temperature, it impacted the West Hawaii coastal area and at Kahalu'u Bay 90% of the cauliflowery coral had died. And so back in 2018 we asked the County, we realize that the Cauliflowery corals only spawned a couple of times a year, so we asked the County if we could have closure time, to help the gametes or the keike's, when they spawn be able to look for a good place to settle. And during that time, we've seen some successes, as baby coral growing, but we also know that, Kahalu'u have been impacted by other stressors, cesspools, runoffs, and we see the nitrogen, the phosphorus, the numbers are pretty high. And so, however, during post Covid last year within a couple of months we saw a rejuvenation of the bay. The Limu just prolific on the tidal flats. The amount abundance, talk about abundance of marine species, coming into the bay, in fact, schools of Halalu, that we haven't seen for years, and years, cause I am a Kamaaina to this place, and ama coming into the bay. So, it's has been a double edge sword it is a blessing for the environment but it is difficult on our economy. And so, we look what had happen back in 2018 when we did the closure, we saw some coral started to grow 2019 we did a closure we saw, babies growing then, but then in 2020 it was closed that time and very few people were snorkeling and we found we have over 100 babies in the bay and we, think we have a responsibility ... To really take care of our place, and coming next week on the May 28th through June 5th, 2021 is when the cauliflowery will spawn again. We don't have that many good cauliflowery heads anymore. Most of them are damage and so we W