things that come from the sea

 Giant Green Sea Turtles
                  Hawaii's biggest ocean adventure

about the giant green sea turtles in Hawaii...

In old Hawaii, honu was a popular food at lu'as and family gatherings.  People paid top dollar for turtle meat, and it soon became a lucrative commercial enterprise.  As consumers' appetite for turtle meat grew, Hawaii's sea turtle population plummeted.  Since 1974, laws protecting sea turtles have greatly aided their recovery.  

There are a lot more honu around than there were forty years ago.  But today's turtles face growing threats like beach development, commercial fishing, pollution, and mysterious tumors.

These mysterious tumors were first reported by scientists in the 1930's in Florida.  In Hawaii the first confirmed case occurred in 1958.   Though the cause of the disease is not yet confirmed, a herpes virus that affects only sea turtles is highly suspected.  The tumors are classified as fibropapillomas.  Fibropapilloma tumors can grow rapidly, sometimes exceeding twelve inches in diameter.  They may greatly interfere with or even prohibit swimming, eyesight, eating, or breathing, and can be life threatening.

We still have a lot to learn about sea turtles.  But we do know there aren't as many sea turtles as there should be.  Sea turtles die when they eat plastic bags, tar and other trash floating in the ocean.  Sea turtles also die when they get hooked on commercial fishing lines, and get tangled up in fishing line and nets.

If you're snorkeling or diving, don't grab or try to catch a ride on a sea turtle.  They breathe above the water and can be seriously stressed by being held under water.  If you don't thrash around in the water, most turtles will go about their business so that you can watch them feed and interact with each other.

Turtles are air breathers, so they must come to the surface to breathe through their nostrils.

Turtles have specific "cleaning stations" where they go to have their bodies cleaned by various reef fish.  At the cleaning station, the honu will "pose" and wait for fish such as wrasses, tangs, and butterfly fish to eat parasites and algae off it's body.

Sea turtles ingest salt water and process the excess salt with their kidneys and also through glands near their eyes.  The sea turtle doesn't cry because it's sad.  The tears are how a sea turtles gets rid of some of the salts it absorbs from the sea water.

Green sea turtles aren't really green, they are named that because their fat is green.

The plastic that finds its way into the ocean never stops polluting.  Practice and promote picking up litter on every dive or visit to the beach.

The most noticeable difference between the sexes of green sea turtles is that the tail of adult males is much longer than that of the females.

Male sea turtles stay in the water and almost never come on land.  But female sea turtles come on land to lay their eggs.  Most sea turtles nest about six times in one season.  But they may skip two or four years before they nest again.  Nearly all of Hawaii's green turtles nest at French Frigate Shoals, located about five hundred miles northwest of Honolulu. Sea turtles swim back to the area where they hatched.  Some scientists think sea turtles lay their eggs on the same beaches used by their mothers.

Baby sea turtles swim all night long and all through the next day.  They keep swimming until they are many miles from shore, here their main enemies are fish, sharks and birds.  The water below them may be a mile deep. The turtles' main food way offshore are tiny animals called plankton.

Baby sea turtles grow quickly if they find enough plankton to eat.  After a few years, they reach the size of a dinner plate.  Now they need food that is bigger than plankton.  So most of the young turtles swim back to shallow water and graze on sea grass.

Sea turtles cannot pull their head into their shells the way land turtles do.

Sometimes sharks attack even the biggest turtles.  That's why so many sea turtles are missing pieces of their flippers and shells.

Only a few sea turtles survive to be adults but some can live to be over 100 years old.

Thanks for reading about Hawaii's turtles.  Education is the key to understanding the oceans around us.  Hawaii is one of the few places where sea turtle conservation has been significantly successful.  This success is largely due to good public education programs, and effective enforcement of state and federally protected areas, such as the restricted beaches of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  Keep learning about the amazing diversity of life in the sea and how you can help to protect it. 

If you are able to encounter Hawaii's turtles in the wild, remember to respect their space so that they may continue to bless us with their presence.  Show them some aloha.

Aloha - to love, show kindness, and bid good fortun

Our heart is set to help protect the giant green sea turtles of Hawaii and work to conserve the environment.  We do what we can to clean up litter on each outing and dive adventure.  Financial support for our efforts is appreciated, but never expected from our website guests and adventurers

PROJECT RENEWABLE ENERGY

Green Sea Turtle in Hawaii

Bring cloth bags from home for your groceries or other purchases.  The plastic bags used at the checkout stand are not recyclable and could end up killing marine wildlife.

Reward yourself with a Turtle Encounter.  You've worked hard to achieve your success, and you've finally made it.

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