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Kilauea: Over the Volcano – Hawai’i Makes New Ground.

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When our friends David and Rosie said they wanted to fly over from the U.K. and visit us near Vancouver, my wife Jen and I didn’t think it a major leap to keep going west until we reached the Big Island of Hawai’i, well, it wasn’t for us… Jen hadn’t been well and needed a rest, and David has for a long time wanted to photograph volcanic activity. The Hawaiian Islands it seems have something for everybody. 

Way out in the middle of the Pacific a crustal plate has been moving across a volcaninc hot spot (which is stationary) at about three and a half inches a year forming this unique group of islands. Kaua'i the oldest at around 4 to 5 million years old and Hawai'i the youngest at around 300,000 years, this is presently the most active and has grown in the last few weeks as lava has been pouring into the sea. But there is also fresh activity to the west of the Big Island where Lo'ihi is slowly rising under the ocean. and it will probably show up above water in around 50,000 years.
Way out in the middle of the Pacific a crustal plate has been moving across a stationary volcanic hot spot at around three and a half inches a year to form a unique chain of islands. Kaua’i is the oldest at around 5 million years of age and Hawai’i the youngest at around 300,000 years: this is presently the most volcanically active and has grown in the last few weeks as lava has began to pour into the sea. There is also fresh activity to the south east of the Big Island as Lo’ihi slowly rises from the ocean floor and will probably break the water surface in around 50,000 years.

Sadly, if your holiday is going to be a good one, you now need to book well in advance to ensure affordable flights and good accommodation; it was Rosie and Jen who organised everything a year before we started out – an alien concept to me as I can’t plan much beyond Tuesday and that’s only if I start thinking things through late on Monday night. If it were left up to me, the whole thing would have fallen to pieces, but it got done; our Hawaiian adventure was perched somewhere on a distant horizon… and I promptly forgot all about it.

Then, just before our friends set out for Canada I had an e-mail from David with new information, “Kilauea is clearing her throat” he wrote, “and if the fat lady really starts to sing it might affect our flights”. I started watching the news – it seemed that Pele the Goddess of volcanoes and fire was wreaking havoc on the south east of the Island we were about to visit.

P1350165Nothing however is quite what it seems, especially with news. The first camerawork I ever did for the B.B.C. was news, this at a time when news was more important than the people who presented it; but these days ‘news’ comes with a degree of spin as reporters no longer simply report, they also have to give an opinion.

It was true that after a quiet spell, Mt Kilauea was active again, or to be more precise,  fissure 8 on the east rift zone was, but the situation was more localised than we had been led to believe. So, when we arrived at our apartment the sky was hazy, but otherwise we were unaffected by the activity on the other side of the island. Nothing was about to blow and the locals remained philosophical – news is only news it seems when it ends up somewhere else.

On the eastern side of the island, looking into the hills from sea level, air pollution would build on days when the volcano was especially active over on the opposite side.
Looking into the hills from sea level on the western side of the island, air pollution would steadily build whenever volcanic activity became more intense.

Our day usually started well, but around 10.00 a.m. the vog (volcanic smog/fog) began to build in the hills behind us until any remaining patches of blue sky disappeared. It was a bit like being in L.A. on a warm still day, when smog hangs around, but in this case it was the trade winds bringing vog around the bottom end of an island and running them up the west coast to our base in Kailua-Kona, but the pollution was continually shifting and dispersing on the wind and it wasn’t a huge problem.

Nobody was making a fuss where we were, but the international news was building the situation into an insurmountable problem and pretty soon people were cancelling their holidays here, much to the detriment of the local economy.

A beach on the east coast fails to disappoint despite a haze due the poorer air quality.
A beach on the east coast fails to disappoint despite the haze produced by the poorer air quality.

Tropical islands with stable governments, and agreeable climates attract multinational companies: they buy up beachfronts, plant palm trees, enhance beaches, and sometimes trash local environments to create the gated coastal communities that are now so popular with many holiday-makers, not so much for me though, because locals should be part of the experience, even when they are trying to sell you something.  There is however more to consider than lean times for wealthy investors, small businesses that rely on tourism are also suffering.

Nobody can say for certain that a volcano won’t suddenly go off and wreak havoc across a whole island, but the science of the way Kilauea presently operates makes this unlikely. There have in the past been violent explosive events, but in recent time lava has tended to ooze rather than fly. The key is in the name, Kilauea means to spew or spread, and not ‘explode or boom’. Presently there are no major problems for those who are not directly in the path of lava flow, or immediately down wind of the plumes of noxious chemicals that volcanic activity produces especially when lava enters the sea.

In areas where larva has recently flowed, in this case across land between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea the landscape sometimes has an unworldy feel and may remain free of vegetation for many years and is largely depending upon altitude and weather conditions.
In areas where lava has recently flowed, in this case across the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, landscapes have become unworldly. Many will remain free of vegetation for years to come depending on altitude, weather conditions and proximity to unaffected natural areas.

Spare a thought then for the people losing their homes to lava on the south east of the island, although some locals on the west coast seem pretty unsympathetic, suggesting that anybody who choses to live on the slopes of an active volcano is asking for trouble, which may be true, but the disturbing rise in land prices across the Hawaiian Islands has largely been pushed up by property speculation; in consequence local people are stuck with buying what they can afford and those with the least money must suffer the consequences. It is a sad condemnation of the way the world operates by simply following the money; and presently there is no sign of change, in fact quite the opposite.

These guys are unlikely to be defeated by a bit of claggy air on the beach.
These guys are unlikely to be defeated by a bit of claggy air moving down our local beach.

Despite problems for some, our visit to Hawai’i seemed fortuitous – clearly this was the right time and place to photograph volcanic activity, but as always, the better the situation gets the more likely authorities are to close down options in the interests of safety.

We decided to drive southwards around the island from Kailua-Kona to see how far we could get before the situation deteriorated, stopping for a picnic close to the South Point of the island, and soon discovered that this was a great place to get blown off the lava cliffs into the Pacific – all you had to do was stand up.

The wind was gusting so oddly here I was pleased when Jen stopped taking pictures on the cliff top.
The wind was gusting oddly at South Point. Jen had become tired of resting and started taking pictures… I was pleased when she stopped because she was standing close to the cliff edge.

Viewed from our picnic site, the ocean appeared to be dragging itself away from the coast as the winds whipped across it. Things inevitably get rough here because trade winds coming down the west coast whip around the southern tip to meet the Kona winds running up in the opposite direction.

Down around the South Point of the Island is not an ideal place for a picnic, but we did it anyway.
Anywhere around the South Point seems less than ideal for a picnic.
Trees in the area seemed to be in a continual battle to stand up and in the end gave up.
Trees in the area continually battle against harsh winds and in the end appear to give up.

The Hawaiian Islands are a small blip on the surface of the Pacific, formed by volcanoes that at some stage in their lives pushed rapidly upwards on comparatively small land areas. Hawai’i supports the volcanic masses of both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa thrusting up as they do to just two or three hundred feet short of 14,000 feet respectively. If measured from their base deep on the Pacific floor, both would rise considerably above Mount Everest and their weight is telling: Hawai’i  is subsiding by about an inch every year because it is right over the hot spot where the lithosphere is both thermally weakened and heavily laden with lava.

Standing just above the cloud line on Mauna Kea just before the tree line runs out into volcanic ash at about 9,000 ft, is possible to look across the saddle to Mauna Loa, here just peaking above the clouds.
If you stand just above the cloud line on Mauna Kea at about 9,000 feet just before the tree line runs into cinders, it is possible to look across the saddle to Mauna Loa peeping above the clouds.

P1340834The presence of these volcanic masses also disrupts air flow across this area of the Pacific, redefining the trade winds flowing around the Island and their power is something to be reckoned with. If Captain Cook had been able to avoid the winds that broke his mast when leaving Hawai’i he wouldn’t have returned to the Big Island and been killed by locals on Valentine’s Day 1779; instead, he would have continued on in search of a north west passage and history would have turned out differently.  It is also a sobering thought, looking out to sea from the South Point, (which is  just a few hundred miles south of the Tropic of Cancer), that the next landmass above water is the continent of Antarctica.

We continued on, driving around the southern part of ‘Hawaii Volcanoes National Park’, looking for an entry point to photograph native birds. The best park for this is to the east and presently closed due to a plant disease and it isn’t possible to go in unless you are with a group and have an official guide.

A spotted dove I think in the forest - taken to demonstrate the vog skies that make bird photography impossible
A spotted dove (I think) in the forest – taken to demonstrate how vog skies can make bird photography pointless.

The vog in any case makes for very poor viewing conditions and it is impossible to make a good exposure of birds against such a bland colourless sky when it only produces images known in the trade as ‘pee holes in the snow’. As it happens, I saw nothing of interest and we continued on eastward towards the lava zone.

We know that getting close to the action from the ground is unlikely, although it is possible to drive along certain roads in the affected area, but it is illegal to stop. We later discover that a local has taken outsiders in to witness the activity first hand – all have since been arrested and face legal action.

As we don’t live in the restricted area there is no reason why we should be allowed to drive in. We’d like to take pictures that tell a story, but roads are breaking apart and some are now impassible whilst others have completely gone. There is also a danger from airborne gasses: it would be wrong to underestimate the dangers of carbon monoxide, which doesn’t warn of its lethal potential because it is odourless; there is also sulphur dioxide which may combine with water vapour in the air or, as it is presently doing, react with sea water to produce airborne sulphuric acid, which you really don’t want to be breathing, anymore than the micro glass particles that are also airborne in the area. On occasions it is easy to walk around a lava flow, but sometimes, especially when  close to the source, the lava flows quickly and if you don’t know the lie of the land, it is literally lethal to put a foot wrong.

We continue as far as Na’alehu some thirty five miles outside of the restricted area, here there are people who have been evacuated out for safety reasons. 

Edward Hopper should have painted in Na'alehu - it would have cheered him up a bit.
Edward Hopper could have painted in Na’alehu – the sky is appropriately dismal, but the people might have proven too cheerful for him as they don’t appear cowered by present adversities.

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As I get out of the car my back goes rogue by the road and a woman working in a food van on the opposite side hurries over to check I’m O.K. –  as if these people don’t have enough to worry about.

A few miles up the road homes are being lost to lava, but in Na’alehu life carries on much as usual and nobody is moaning. It’s a great example of the best of small town America, and a different side of life from the one that usually gets reported on world news. 

Jen hangs out with coffee from the food van in Na'alehu.

Jen is resting over at the food van with a cup of coffee, Rosie remains in the car, and David and I set about getting information on the current situation from a man who’s house was destroyed by lava back in 2005, he has subsequently rebuilt, but it looks as if he might lose his house all over again.

His name is Gary Sliek and he’s recently moved out of the danger area; he shows us a picture of the first house as it was hit by a lava flow at 4.30 in the morning – it is burning intensely. The idea that your house on fire is a photo opportunity seems perverse, but what else can you do in the circumstances – it is almost a displacement activity and Gary is surprisingly philosophical about his loss.

David speaks with Gary Sleik in A'alehu about the local volcanic activity.
David talking to Gary Sleik in Na’alehu about volcanic activity in the lava zone.

Back when it happened, he remembers the lava reaching the house, with a release of methane the building quickly ignited and burnt until the roof came down to the ground and then went back up again supported on the bulging flow.

Gary has retreated to Na’alehu, working out of his van because his new house is now under threat, but there are no hard feelings. Like a lot of Americans Gary has an adventurous spirit, he doesn’t want to be trapped by a conventional life-style and makes a living photographing the volcanic activity that goes on around him – and does so with considerable skill. It might seem like madness to keep returning to an active lava zone, but clearly there is a thrill to living close, and recording the most fundamental destruction and creativity our planet has to offer.

Like water lava flows to the lowest point and high ground often preserves natural areas and if they are large enough to remain viable, will retain species to eventually recolonise the area.
Like water lava flows to the lowest point and high ground often preserves natural areas; if they are large enough to remain viable, species may eventually recolonise from these, but it takes many years.

Once above ground magma is defined as lava – its most prominent feature is that inevitably it is unstoppable. To get the best pictures, you need to be in the right place at the right time and Gary’s pictures make it clear that anything David and I might get in a couple of days would be inferior – we can’t match what Gary has done on the ground and it is clear that to achieve anything useful we need to get into the air. 

The best option is to rent a helicopter as there are presently no heavy restrictions to stop us taking a look from the air, and we will need the doors off to get decent pictures.

Enquiries are made and pretty soon we have a flight booked for our last available day here on 4/6/18, when we take a drive across to Hilo International Airport for an afternoon flight from Paradise Helicopters, Our pilot Daniel Speller knows exactly what there is to see and we rely entirely upon his judgement as to how we might cover the three main areas we will visit.

The problem with flying over a volcano is that conditions are not always ideal for taking pictures.
The problem with flying over a volcano is that conditions are not always ideal for taking good photographs.

It didn’t take long to fly to the source of the activity, but as we flew I was shocked to see that there was nothing natural about the land below us. Most of it had been plantation in one form or another for a couple of hundred years, eventually divided in places for housing, and holiday resorts, in particular along the coast. It is naive to think that visiting a tropical Island will demonstrate the best of the natural world; it’s never like that with commercial ventures mostly taking precedence. Nobody needs it anyway, because our children will all go and live on Mars!  It’s the new big thing, although the surface of the red planet is about as hospitable as the lava flow we are about to witness and as welcoming as the complete desolation that lies ahead of us between the scudding clouds. Then on the surface a red raw gape in the distance suddeny appears and then disappears into another bank of cloud. Now I’m preoccupied with how many other helicopters might be up here, but this is suddenly forgotten as we come out the other side, to arrive almost over the raw churning rent.

IMG_0606The magma is clearly visible bubbling in the fire beneath us and I begin taking pictures. Rather prosaically it is called ‘ fissure 8 on the east rift zone’, which is presently the most active point of magma release from the slopes of Kilauea and it’s totally impressive, constantly coughing and spitting red fury; and in contrast to the steady flow of lava that  oozes from the side of this angry gash, as if a punch drunk fighter has been smashed in the face, hit the deck, and is now dribbling spittle and blood from an hideously swollen mouth, but the brutality here is on a very different scale; and had it been night time we would have picked out the glow of the lava as it slid away from the newly developing cone.  

Looking down into fissure 8, I seemed to be directly over it and if I had released my seat belt I am sure I would have tumbled straight in.
Looking down into fissure 8.

I had set a 100 – 400mm lens on my camera because I wanted close ups, but was surprised now at how close we were getting as Daniel banked the helicopter almost over the vent, avoiding a plume of dark smoke issuing from one side, the clarity was exceptional as he continued to bank in my favour, until the rent came into view full frame. It occurred to me that if I released my seat belt now, I might easily tumble into the fiery work of the Goddess Pele – the others commented on the heat, but for some reason I didn’t feel it.

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Our seating positions were organised according to body weight in order to balance the aircraft; Rosie sat centre front and I was positioned on the opposite side to the pilot. At times, I seemed to be almost hanging out – it was a tight squeeze, but we didn’t get the buffeting that David and Jen were experiencing in the back. If I refrained from poking my lens too far out, the shaking familiar to a helicopter with its doors off was manageable for pictures, although when I did lean out to pull a little extra into frame the camera felt as if it might be whipped from my hands: for this reason everything we carried was attached to us, because losing an item into the tail rotor might be fatal. For the steadiest pictures, it made sense to stay within the confines of the aircraft canopy and for most of the time I managed to do so; things were easier still when using a smaller camera for the wide shots.

Jen was on the opposite side at the back and Daniel moved the aircraft into position so that she might also get a view and take photos of the fissure, and despite the turbulence she managed a series of good pictures.

Jen's wider picture of Fissure 8 puts the lava flow into context with its surroundings.
Jen’s wider picture of fissure  8 puts the lava flow into context with its surroundings.

Daniel repeated the process positioning the helicopter to allow for further photo opportunities and then flew on a short distance to the north west to see the now quieter volcanic cone Pu’u ‘O’o which had until recently been responsible for much continuous activity in the area since 1983. In the last 10 years this and the summit crater were the most active regions, but more recently some 20 fissures have opened up along the east rift zone.

The previously active cone of Pu'u O'o and yes, I really have no idea how this is pronounced.
This, then is Pu’u ‘O’o – its crater floor collapsed on April 30th and the contents drained away. Two days later the summit lava lake began to drop and nobody is certain where that has gone.

This summit crater was active earlier in the year, but is presently quiet, the lava that once filled it is no longer there and the same is the case for the contents of Pu’u’O’o. If this lava were now flowing from the newly formed fissure 8, it would account for only about 2% of what has gone missing. Volcanologists are naturally concerned. “Where can it be?” I hear Daniel say over the headphones – I think it was a rhetorical question, but I’m far too busy to respond by suggesting that it might well be in our bathroom; more likely it is moving east and relates to the activity of the fissures on the east rift zone. 

A case of deja vu: once again I had that feeling that I might easily topple in.
Deja vu? Only a few minutes have passed and once again I have the feeling that I might easily topple into a crater, this one seems quieter but it remains active.

We bank once again, but this time follow the lava flow which conveniently for us has reached the sea today, throwing up clouds of toxic steam and gas, although my pictures of the event don’t seem especially dramatic.

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The lava has entered the sea in the lower Puna district and it was a surprise to see how close some houses are to the flow but so far escaped  – it is a bit of a lottery – I notice a couple burning. Getting home insurance here is of course impossible and it’s sobering to witness the loss.

Near the top of frame the sea fizzes creating a plume laden with sulphuric acid as larva hits the water and lower in the frame, houses are on fire.
Near the top of frame the sea fizzes creating a plume laden with sulphuric acid as lava hits the water; lower in the frame, houses are on fire.

As I am writing this, it is clear we returned to the airport without event, exhilarated, but with bad hair; wealthier in experience but not so much in pocket – it is as if we had poured our dollars directly into the volcano which in a sense we had, but without doubt, it had been worth it. Others hoping to make a later flight would not be so lucky as conditions were beginning to deteriorate.

P1350031The ground plan of the area we photographed has changed quite a bit since our flight: beach-side holiday resorts have completely disappeared and Kapoho Bay has pretty much filled with lava. There has been more activity from fissure 8 in the last month, more than during the whole of the active period of Pu’u ‘O’o that lasted nearly 35 years. The 8th fissure is now building a more substantial cone and lava is spewing higher than when we were there. It is time perhaps for the new fissure to be given an unpronounceable name! More than 30 billion gallons of lava have been thrown out of it over the last month and this has completely changed the shape of the island.

arva flowing away from Fissure 8.
Lava flowing from Fissure 8.

In reality we don’t have much control when nature confronts us so directly, although essentially it is indifferent and doesn’t target us specifically. What is certain is that we are powerless to do anything other than observe and record the extraordinary changes that are taking place here; and what a humbling experience it is to witness first-hand, this, the most fundamental process of creation.

 

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Hawaii: Green Sea Turtles – a glimpse of life at the edge of the oceans.

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As a child I was fascinated by a sea turtle’s shell that stood in the fireplace of my grandparents house during the summer months of the year to hide a coal-dusted grate. I was small back then, and it seemed so big.

Then, when I went to school I learned more: sea turtles were often eaten by people in tropical coastal regions, and their subsistence lifestyles could be improved by selling turtle shells to travellers as tangible reminders of visits to exotic places.

My grandfather had been at sea for much of his life, which explained how one turtle carapace found its way to the then seafaring town of Southampton, England. No doubt many other shells made similar journeys, until a realisation dawned that sea turtles were suffering overexploitation and the importation of turtle products was made illegal.

Up until the 1960s travel to distant places was mostly undertaken by boat and at a far more leisurely pace than it is today by plane. Earlier in his life my grandfather had worked on passenger ships and learned around 130 ways to make a serviette more interesting - a tradition that continues on cruise ships today, although the preferred medium is now a towel. Last week, this turtle (made by Mani) was found crawling across a bed on a cruise ship rather than up a tropical beach. Each evening  out on the world's oceans thousands of white towels transform into ghostly creatures - an art form that is largely unrecognised, although it is often superior to the junk art that some cruise companies peddle to their passengers.*
Up until the 1960s travel to distant places was mostly undertaken by boat and at a far more leisurely pace than it is today by plane. Earlier in his life my grandfather had worked on passenger ships and learned around 130 ways to make a serviette more interesting – a tradition that continues on cruise ships today, although the preferred medium is now a towel. Last week, this turtle (made by Mani) was found crawling across a bed on a cruise ship rather than up a tropical beach. Each evening  out on the world’s oceans thousands of white towels transform into ghostly creatures – an art form that is largely unrecognised, although it is often superior to the junk art that some cruise companies peddle to their passengers.

By the time I was a teenager all sea turtles were in decline and the old shell in the grate was now something of an eye opener: if creatures that swam in the remoteness of the oceans faced possible extinction, then many other plants and animals more accessible to humans must surely suffer the same fate.

This turned out to be true, but sea turtles are especially vulnerable due to an evolutionary past that ties them to the land – if only for brief periods. This land based connection goes back a couple of hundred million years – then, around 120 million years ago they experienced a rapid evolutionary change that led to a lifestyle that confined them almost entirely to the sea.

In Hawaii a green sea turtle comes up for air to the delight of a group of holiday makers.
In Hawaii a green sea turtle comes up for air to the delight of a group of holiday makers.

Some sea turtle species occasionally haul out onto rocks to rest or sun bathe, but mostly they live beneath the waves. All however must come regularly to the surface to breathe, and females have a tie to the land that has never been broken – mature individuals must emerge onto sandy beaches to lay their eggs; this can occur several times during the nesting season, although once egg laying is completed a female might not return for two or three years.

Usually females arrive at night, and their egg laying habits are often predictable, which makes adult females and their eggs vulnerable to over-harvesting by humans. This land based contact has become a disaster for sea turtles, an unfortunate situation for creatures that have successfully negotiated the world’s oceans without much change in structure or lifestyle for millions of years.

In recent times sea turtles have been disappearing at an alarming rate. All of the seven species that inhabit the world’s oceans are declining in numbers, although in some places legal protection and concerted conservation efforts have slowed the process. Nevertheless, it is difficult to protect animals that range so widely, and care under one jurisdiction may not be as diligent or forthcoming as it is under another.

Like many others, my family has a fondness for tortoises and turtles and my sons first toy reflects this. Certainly this little guy is green, but it is probably the colour of the turtles flesh that is responsible for its name.
Like many others, my family has a fondness for tortoises and turtles and my sons first toy reflects this. Certainly this little guy is green, but it is probably the colour of the turtles flesh that is responsible for its name.

Seldom has so much research gone into a group of animals with so little return, although a great deal has been discovered in recent years. It is now known that temperatures within the nest decide the sex of emerging babies, and it is apparent that during infancy mortality is high – not only are hatchlings vulnerable travelling down the beach to get into the water but they also suffer heavy predation during the early years of life.

There is still much to learn about where young sea turtles go once they are at sea and how they navigate to wherever they need to be. Later in life, mature females will return to lay eggs on beaches, where many years earlier, they also started out. The problems of surviving to maturity seem insurmountable; predation and hits by boats take their toll, many are drowned when caught in fishing nets and all are vulnerable to pollution. It can take half a lifetime for a sea turtle to reach maturity and for those that make it, a life spanning more than a hundred years is a possibility. 

A mature female green turtle might return to a beach once or several times during the egg laying season, others may come to just rest up for a night, but unlike T.V. shows where there is often additional lighting it is often difficult to pick a turtle out on a beach at night when it has been churned by the comings and goings of other females. If the urge can be resisted it is best not to photograph or video turtles during egg laying, although camera technology has improved to the point where additional lighting may be unnecessary and a long shot without lighting is less likely to cause a disturbance. Mobile phones are a curse - not because turtles find it difficult to take calls when they are egg laying, but because mobiles are carried by people who photograph everything from lunch through to coffee and such people are unlikely to pass up a picture of a chance encounter with a chance encounter with a turtle, they will often have their devices set on automatic which means flash photography should be avoided. IN this situation it is best to leave turtles alone to get on with this essential part of their lives.
A mature female green turtle may return to a beach once or several times during the nesting season. Wildlife television programmes will often use lighting to record this activity because mostly it occurs at night, but in natural light it is difficult to pick a female out on a beach that has been churned by the comings and goings of many individuals. Because female sea turtles are easily disturbed when egg laying they are best left alone. However, low light camera technology has greatly improved in recent years and a long shot such as the one above, using only available light is unlikely to cause problems. Unfortunately, mobile phones can be a curse – this has nothing to do with turtles not picking up when they are egg laying and everything to do with those who see themselves as at the centre of the Universe… photographing everything from lunch to coffee. These people are unlikely to pass up a chance encounter with a turtle and will often get too close with their devices set on automatic – the resultant flash photography can seriously disturb egg laying females.   

I didn’t attempt to view sea turtles until I was in my 30s and it happened quite by accident… Sadly, this wasn’t a great success. I had gone to Costa Rica to film bats, taking with me a young freeloader who had attached himself to the B.B.C. by claiming special knowledge of the area I was visiting and with the promise of help in return for a ticket to paradise.

In this manner I got stuck with a guy who was clearly out to make a name for himself by journeying to remote places simply to write about them. There was, he said, only one place where we could be guaranteed to see one particular species of bat, which straight away sounded suspicious, coming from somebody who was either too busy catching up on his sleep or not feeling well enough to do anything at all. With limited time available to locate bats I allowed myself to be drawn into his scheme and rented a light aircraft and a pilot to fly us halfway across Costa Rica to a remote location on the Pacific Coast.

It wasn’t long before we were dropping down and bumping along a  remote airfield which had been cut into the forest, but during the flight it became clear that my helper had another agenda. He had begun talking excitedly about the beach at the end of the landing strip famous for its ‘arribada’ – a Spanish word that means arrival – in this case the arrival of female Eastern Pacific olive ridleys sea turtles, that were expected just prior to the full moon to lay their eggs’. Ridleys are not large turtles and were once far more common than they are today, but like their close relative the Kemp’s sea turtle, they have a habit of synchronising their visits as a single spectacular event.

A couple of scientists were working the area, otherwise there was nobody else about. Accommodation was limited and the turtles hadn’t so far shown up. I soon got busy searching the local forest for roosting bats and managed to find and film a couple of species without disturbing them, but the bats weren’t unusual and it was down to good fortune rather than any special knowledge provided by my helper who preferred to sleep through the day rather than search out bats.

The proboscis bat is a species of South and Central America; and in terms of markings these were the nicest I have seen, but in retrospect they didn't warrant the journey... and were, some might say, hardly a substitute for ridley sea turtles.
The proboscis bat is a species of South and Central America; and in terms of markings these were the nicest I have seen, but in retrospect they didn’t warrant the journey… and were, some might say, hardly a substitute for ridley sea turtles.

Another night passed without any sign of the turtles and I told my colleague that we would have to fly out the next day because there was filming to be done and time was limited, but he refused to leave, claiming he felt too rough to help move my gear back to the runway. Unfortunately, I had no alternative but to leave him to freeload off of the scientists because as far as I could tell, he had no visible means of support and certainly no way of paying for a flight out, for all I know he might still be there, buried in a shallow grave close by the turtle eggs… but more likely, he has done very well for himself as chances often do.

Sea turtles continued to eluded me for another thirty years until one day a green sea turtle popped its head out of the ocean while I was standing on a beach and I finally got my chance to photograph one in its natural habitat. 

In 2010, with my wife and daughter, I encountered green turtles in the surf in Hawaii – quite shockingly they were the size of coffee tables as they washed back and forth in the tidal zone feeding on algae; and they were potentially dangerous if they crashed into you, especially if you were caught standing on the sand rather than floating alongside them in the water.

Quite recently we had left New Zealand where my neighbour had imparted some useful information; he told me that if a sheep runs in your direction you should bend your legs and point them away from the impact, this keeps your knee caps intact because essentially they bend willingly only in one direction. This also worked well with turtles  – although dealing with them surging back and forth in the surf wasn’t an everyday event for me, in the absence of sheep the advice was useful.

Alice and I watch a green turtle surging back and forth in shallow water.
Alice and I watch a green turtle surge back and forth in shallow water.

More recently, I was sitting on a Maui beach, whilst my wife and daughter snorkelled in the ocean. When they go into the sea they swim as mermaids might. I on the other hand have no affinity with water and float the way that concrete usually doesn’t. This is always a surprise, because despite having no natural buoyancy, I  feel confident in the sea until things begin to go wrong and then it’s a different story. Earlier in the week whilst snorkelling over a coral reef, my mask had filled with water and whilst trying to clear it… I gulped in water. One near drowning experience a week should be enough for anybody and I decided to sit this one out. 

My wife and daughter are more at home in the ocean than I am.
My wife and daughter are more at home in the ocean than I am.

Add to the mix a couple of recent local shark attacks and it wasn’t that difficult to stay out of the water. Understandably, fewer people had been swimming offshore of late. Tourist boards don’t usually advertise shark attacks on their lists of interesting local events, but the snorkel shop had mentioned this tiny detail… and when they advise staying out of the water – you take notice.

In reality, the chances of your surfboard getting bitten in half by a shark, or worse still your leg, are small compared with drowning without a shark in sight, or a motoring accident on the way back from the beach; even getting struck by lightning is easier to achieve than becoming a shark’s lunch, if you hang out in the right place.

All the same my anxiety level shoots up when I think about swimming in low visibility tropical waters as was the case on this day, but it wasn’t the thought of sharks that bothered me, it was the reduced chances of taking a decent photo in the murkiness – otherwise I’d have been out there.

By mid-afternoon the tropical light was busy smashing intense colour out of everything around me, and the beach was intensely beautiful.
By mid-afternoon the tropical light was busy smashing intense colour out of everything around me and the beach was intensely beautiful.

It wasn’t long before I noticed a large walrus of a man sitting close by staring out to sea. Then a teenage boy came running up the beach and called out, ‘There’s a turtle out there you just gotta see. I’ve never seen one that big before.’ But the old man was in no rush, he knew that green sea turtles were grazing algae off rocks in the shallows below us, as occasionally a shell would appear above the water as a turtle was caught by an incoming wave, and now and again a head would pop up for a gulp of air. You might blink and miss it, but turtle watching isn’t like bird watching once in the water: observing turtles grazing is a slow relaxing experience, although in rough surf there is always a chance of a bashing. As I dwelt on this thought the man sauntered down the beach, waded out to his waist and then flopped gently into the water. He wore no flippers and seemed comfortable in the ocean. Around 20 minutes later he was back. ‘She’s a big one alright’, he said, as he flopped down onto his beach towel and I knew then that I had to go and see for myself.

Entering the sea I felt comfortable snorkelling in shallow water and once beyond the point where the waves were breaking, I was still getting dragged back and forth on the swell.

Beneath the waves I am drawn backwards and forwards with the pulse of each wave just like the fish, but once I get the hang of the motion I move into deeper water.
Beneath the waves I am drawn backwards and forwards with the pulse of each wave just like the fish, but once I get the hang of the motion I move into deeper water.

 As I got further out it was still possible to stand on rocks with my head above water, but it was better not to, as I would certainly have been bowled over by the waves;  it sounds counterintuitive but once amongst rocks it is safer to stay under water to negotiate them. I kept going, with no clear idea now of how far I was from the beach.

On my way out a variety of different fish, these kihikihi, hold my attention as the waves above gurgle and bubble, with my breathing audibly loud and clear in a way that it never is on land.
On my way out a variety of different fish, these kihikihi, hold my attention as the waves above gurgle and bubble, with my breathing audibly loud and clear in a way that it never is on land.

The whole process became hypnotic and I felt relaxed… which was good, but in my case, best not to get lulled into a false sense of security.  Then about fifteen feet ahead something big was moving in the water and I was thinking – this is about the right depth to meet up with a shark along the beach line, but thinking ‘shark!’ wasn’t going to be helpful, so I pushed on until the silhouette of a large turtle began to take shape.

What was most surprising was how far the turtle moved back and forth with the wave action, and I watched as this enormous creature swung around the axis of its head in an attempt to keep feeding in the same place; for a moment the weed fanned across the rocks before it was closely cropped by a munch of the turtles ‘beak’ pushing up a puff of detritus that clouded the water. The turtle then moved methodically on to the next growth – some of it already cropped by other turtles.

Along side the big one.
Along side the big one.

 I remained parallel to the turtle for the most part allowing myself to be pulled on the swell whilst remaining at a constant distance, and avoided moving seaward side so that I was not pushed onto the turtle. This is important because touching a turtle in Hawaii is not only illegal but also detrimental to its health. Many green turtles around the Islands suffer from skin lesions which may be caused by pathogens transferred directly from human to a turtle skin. The presence of suntan lotion may also be a factor and so it is best not to apply it when snorkelling.

Total internal reflection - coming up for air creates an interesting image.
Total internal reflection – coming up for air creates an interesting image.

I was so absorbed in the great creature that I didn’t notice until fairly late, something looming to my left. Suddenly there was another turtle… the one I had been watching had moved closer to another, and soon they were almost touching.

I back off a little to avoid contact as the turtles increase the claggyness of the water as they feed.
I back off a little to avoid contact as the turtles increase the claggyness of the water as they feed.

For the most part turtles ignore one another, but for a moment the larger individual used its bulk to push the smaller one from where it had been feeding (see video below). Perhaps this was no more than a coming together of shells – I was too busy avoiding contact with the pair to be certain – for a while I was the filling in a turtle sandwich and the three of us washed backwards and forwards across the reef until I could get clear.

There was a sudden flash of yellow as I was joined by my daughter; we held our positions on either side of the turtle just long enough for this photo.

Wide angle lenses are frequently used to make foreground animals look bigger in comparison with a person in the background - nevertheless, this was a good sized turtle.
Wide angle lenses are frequently used to make foreground animals look bigger in comparison with a person in the background – nevertheless, this was a good sized turtle.

Animals that have eyes on the sides of their heads, as turtles do, are usually herbivores that require a wider range of visibility than we do, essentially to avoid predators and it is likely they process visual information slightly differently from us. Our frontally positioned eyes prioritise depth perception which is usually a feature of predatory animals. Hanging around on either side of a turtle gives it two visual images to process which for a turtle might indicate double the trouble. Because reptiles are expressionless and have limited use of body language it is often difficult to assess when they are being disturbed until they move away. For this reason, if another snorkeler shows up, I usually move away as the new arrival will sometimes get excited by the encounter and move about too much when the appropriate mode is to just be another turtle. Alice and I keep our joint encounter brief and soon return to the beach. 

A quick picture such as this one (taken without flash) will often be enough to identify an individual at a later date.
A quick picture such as this one (taken without flash) will often be enough to identify an individual at a later date.

Green sea turtles are not especially bothered about being observed in areas where they are free from persecution, but any observation should be short in duration and not too close. Being at one with nature can be a selfish activity, and it is important to know when to move on.

Turtles have clear markings and scale shapes that aid in their identification even when individuals are observed years apart. A picture will requires other essential data if it is to be useful  – when and where the picture was taken with a brief description of the conditions. If reliable pictures could be co-ordinated in the future they might provide a better understanding of turtle movements, their lifestyles and even population numbers.

Turtles are declining so rapidly, almost any information that can be gleaned might one day prove useful, but only if it can be achieved without disturbance. On the plus side it is encouraging to think that taking a picture might hold more than simply aesthetic value and might in some small way be a future aid to conservation.

A short video on Pacific green turtles grazing algae in a tidal zone. 

N.B. Do not swim close to rocks in rough surf, snorkel with a partner and use buoyancy aids when necessary – even good swimmers drown. Please do not touch or follow turtles, never visit in numbers and always maintain a respectful distance in order to allow them to get on with their lives without distraction. 

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HAWAII: Haleakala – Flowers Above the Clouds.

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On 6th February 1982 I made my first trip to Haleakala – The Sacred House of the Sun – a dormant volcano on the beautiful island of Maui.

This might sound like a grand adventure, but anybody can do it – all that is necessary is a reliable vehicle and a head for heights, because the journey from sea level to ‘almost’ the top, can be achieved by road within a couple of hours; this may well be the fastest land ascent to 10,000 feet anywhere in the world. Only two things will catch a traveller out, the first is the sudden ear popping change in altitude, and the second – what they will find when they get there.
At the top of Haleakala the landscape is hardly a tropical paradise, but it is enchanting.
At the top of Haleakala the landscape is hardly a tropical paradise, but it is enchanting.

Once up on the lip of the crater, it is difficult to believe that you are still on a tropical island, because the landscape rapidly changes to something quite other worldly. Back in the reality of this planet Haleakala has seen perhaps ten eruptions over the last one thousand years, most recently in the late 1700s and it will certainly go off again at some time in the not too distant future.

This extraordinary environment can be interpreted in two ways – either through mythology, or by engaging science.

To the local Hawaiian people this is a sacred place created by Pele, the goddess of volcanoes who was followed here by her vengeful sister Namaka – a sea goddess. The less spiritual amongst us might question what business a sea goddess has roaming around at the top of a volcano, a place totally out of keeping with her natural habitat. If trouble was likely… which of course it was, then I’d have put my money on Pele – but never bet on what the gods will do, because they move in strange ways beyond the understanding of mere mortals. The outcome was a running battle across the crater floor with Pele finally torn apart by her sibling on the far side to the north east. 

The story ends disappointingly for supporters of  the volcano goddess, whilst a scientific explanation runs an equally dramatic course now hidden in the depths of time.

Haleakala, like so many places in Hawaii, is unique. Looking across the plug of the crater you might think that you are on another planet rather than standing near the top of the largest dormant volcano on Earth. The crater is 3,000 feet deep, two and a half miles wide, 7 miles long and takes in an area totalling about 19 square miles. Just like the other volcanos in the Hawaiian chain, this one started on the Ocean floor and over the last two million years has risen to around 10,000 feet and perhaps a little higher when erosion is taken into consideration.

The craters here are like something from another planet - Mars perhaps.
The craters here are like something from another planet – Mars perhaps.

Mark Twain described the views from up here as sublime.

Once above the clouds looking out across the crater floor, it is easy to understand how the mystical legends of Haleakala developed and not at all difficult to accept that a new wave of believers also consider this place intensely spiritual. This is great news because places with spiritual significance are more likely to get protection than those without it. It seems odd that in these more enlightened times conservation can be influenced by faith based belief systems rather than relying entirely upon the facts – but we shouldn’t knock it when worthwhile environments are getting conserved. Mystery excites our imagination, it is how our brains are wired – we are all suckers for a good story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Science on the other hand has the disadvantage of being open ended.

So there was all this interesting stuff to consider on my first day up on the volcano and what was I thinking… that this is Hawaii and I haven’t got a sweater –  I’d totally ignored what 10,000 feet above sea level can do to air temperature. I had come to film for the B.B.C. and my producer Roger Jones had made no mention of needing one, probably because he wasn’t my mother and considered that somebody doing my job should at least have a brain… but mine wasn’t working that day; as we climbed I began to see ice and snow by the side of the road and slowly it dawned on me that when I got out of the vehicle I was going to be very cold.

My wife Jen on Haleakala in 2010. Up above the clouds so high.
My wife Jen on Haleakala in 2010. Up above the clouds so high.

Once you start to climb more steeply, the ascent is rapid; at some point your ears pop, the sky goes grey for a while as you go through the clouds, and on a good day, on the other side it will be sunny with sharp light and deep contrast in the shadows. Up here the air is clean and at night there is no supplementary lighting – perfect conditions for an observatory and it is therefore no surprise to find one.

Haleakala Hight Altitude Observatory. Hawaii's first astronomical observatortry and one of the most important observing sites in the world.
Haleakala High Altitude Observatory. Hawaii’s first astronomical observatory – one of the most important observing sites in the world.

 So what’s the point of going up Haleakala for a wildlife film-maker. 

There is presently no discernible life on Mars  and this place certainly feels the way we might imagine another planet to be, but with the bonus of at least some oxygen to breathe. Look out across the crater and before you is a rolling bed of cinders for as far as the eye can see. 

This place not only has one of the oddest landscapes in the world, it also has one of the oddest plants to be found in Hawaii.  The silversword (Ahinaha) manages to survive, by living life in the slow lane and although it can’t move about like a triffid, it can grow to triffid like proportions – a fully grown plant with flowering raceme seems just too big to be living under such inhospitable conditions.

A silversword slowly increases in size growing upwards for well over twenty years and then having put all its energy into a lifetime of super slow development it goes out with with a bang, achieving one mighty glorious mass flowering – then it dies.

A Silversword in bloom 24th June 2010. I imagine that if Vincent Van Gogh had managed to get here he surely would have painted this.
24th June 2010. The Haleakala silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum) in bloom –  Everything this day seemed better than on my first visit – in particular these wonderful blooms and of course the weather. I imagine that if Vincent Van Gogh had managed to get here he surely would have painted these flowers – if you haven’t guessed already, silverswords are members of the sunflower family.

So, this is what I came to film all those years ago – one of the world’s rarest plants in flower, in one of the world’s most inhospitable places; and by the end of my first visit I was shivering so much I had to lock the camera off and run it without touching, so that my shot wouldn’t have the jitters. A wonderful opportunity, but all I could think about was getting down from the crater before I became the first person to die of hypothermia on a tropical island.

The swordlike silver leaves have evolved a dense layer of silky hairs that reflect the intense solar radiation on a day like today and provide insulation on the days like this one and provide insulation on the cold days when you have forgotten your pullover, unlike you the silversword will be fine. The hairs also slow airflow over the leaf surface and reduce water loss in this arid environment.
The swordlike silver leaves have evolved a dense layer of silky hairs that reflect intense solar radiation on days like today and provide insulation on colder days when you have forgotten your sweater, but unlike you the silversword will be fine. The hairs also slow airflow over the leaf’s surface and reduce water loss in this extreme and arid environment.

I’ve been back to the crater several times since, when thankfully it was warm and sunny and I didn’t need my ‘just in case’ sweater although I now never forget it. But here’s the bit that I like best – the one thing that no self respecting photographer will tell anybody… you can film or photograph silverswords from the car park; there aren’t huge numbers of plants, but plenty enough for pictures that will cover various stages of development, and if you can’t get it all done within 50 feet of the car, then you’re really not up to much. The most difficult part is getting low enough to avoid having bits of car or the road in shot … and missing out the tourists is tricky because well over a million visitors make their way up here every year. 

These daisy like flowers are brash and colourful - quite a surprise amongst the beautiful desolation. They are pollinated by a yellow faced bee; but sadly I don't have a good close up of the pollinator.
These daisy like flowers are brash and colourful – quite a surprise amongst the beautiful desolation. They are pollinated by the yellow-faced bee, found only in Hawaii and threatened by introduced predators. Sadly I haven’t managed a good close up of a bee yet.

I guess when you get to my age and people see you lying motionless on the floor waiting for the background to clear they think that maybe you’ve had a heart attack. The last time I was up Haleakala was a few months ago along with my wife and daughter; and a group of young men began talking about my situation. “Please let me help you up sir”. said one, “Even if you don’t want to be helped up…” Then another “I don’t know if you’re happy just lying there motionless, but please, let us help you up. We really must insist…” This was amusing, but they were far enough away for me to ignore them without seeming impolite – I affected my grumpy persona to avoid conversation and the wasting of time – you never know how long the light will hold. I’ve missed a good many shots with this insular approach… the light has gone, you get back to the parking area and don’t mind a chat. Somebody says, “Did you see that fabulous owl?” And you’re thinking, ‘Owl… what owl?’

Photographing a young silversword in the stark lighting of a sunny day up on Haleakala.
Photographing a young silversword in the stark lighting of a sunny day high on Haleakala.

The most enjoyable thing for me was the realisation that I have probably seen some of the flowering silverswords when they were just starting out in life and now I was coming back to see them at their end as they burst into flower.

The problem is, that at the time of my first visit I didn’t know that a record of the plants might be useful.  Although it had occurred to me when I was younger, that many species were already in trouble, I hadn’t naturally thought ‘take a picture, save the Planet’, and so I didn’t go for a wider reference  picture of the car park. This was an oversight as I later had no clear recollection of where plants were, their sizes, or how many. Back then the last thing on my mind was photographing the car park, and consequently I have no evidence to support my feeling that there are now fewer plants growing in this area than there once were.

Luckily my wife does see the point of taking pictures in a car park but in 2014. I'll come back when I'm 80 and check out the changes.
Luckily my wife does see the point of taking pictures of a car park but not until 2014. Now  I’ll have to come back when I’m 80 and check out how the plants are growing.

However, there may be other reasons for thinking there are now fewer plants growing.

2014 was a great year for the silverswords, they managed a mass synchronous flowering. In other years when there were only a few plants in flower it was perhaps easier to notice the smaller individuals coming on, but when large and impressive plants are doing their thing they really grab your attention.
Whatever the case, the silversword is better off now than it has been for some time. Not so long ago goats grazed here, eating anything vegetative they could find including these wonderful plants, but now there is proper control, the silverswords are making a comeback.
17th Novemeber 2014. A silversword at the end of life. Gone to seed with the promise of future life to come.
17th November 2014. A silversword at the end of life. Gone to seed with the promise of future life to come.

Trails exist away from the parking lot where other silverswords may be seen. Beyond the range of the average tourist it is possible to walk and see plants in a more natural setting, although it is important to stay on the trail.

Another member of the silversword family is Dubautia menziesii. Less impressive in form It also grows up near the crater rim. They have evolved from a rather ordinary ancestral tar weed found in California which arrived on the Hawaiian Islands some time in the distant past.
Another member of the silversword family is Dubautia menziesii. Less impressive in form it also grows near the crater rim. Both plants have evolved from a rather ordinary ancestral tar weed found in California which arrived on the Hawaiian Islands some time in the distant past.

The spiritual nature of Haleakala might also account for the longterm survival of silverswords because until modern times. In the past few people would have come here to simply wander.

Many tribal societies display belief systems that appear to the modern world little more than superstition, but there is often more to appreciate than most of us realise. In the modern world we continually walk in places where perhaps we shouldn’t, destroying the essence of a place by directly damaging fragile ecosystems.

Scientific research is essential to any conservation agenda, but there is another side to the story. Our continual erosive presence in wild places has become a problem: we believe that we have the right to roam wherever we like, often in numbers, with a total disregard to the wishes of local people. But it may be that what most of us regarded as primitive cultures, have belief systems that are more in line with the needs of the environment than our own, especially when they advocate limited access to places that have spiritual significance.

One flowering at the end of a long life of steady growth must be considered a success ending with the production of many thousands of seeds.
Flowering at the end of a long life of steady growth must be considered a success when it ends with the production of many thousands of seeds.

As outsiders we should always tread with care, especially when local people do so for reasons they can’t explain beyond extraordinary tales of the imagination. This way of thinking certainly makes good ecological sense high up on HaleakaIa, as silverswords may be damaged or die if the volcanic cinders around their roots are trampled. In a broad sense the environment here doesn’t look delicate, but in the finer details it is.

Similar myths and legends apply to other beautiful locations around the world. Many of us will visit them to fulfil personal challenges or inner needs. Often we are just tourists looking for fun. For whatever reason, our assumed levels of sophistication have masked our ability to notice the problems we are causing.

One of the great heroes of Polynesian mythology is Maui – his exploits are optimistic and culturally significant on the Island that bares his name.

A story passed down through the generations tells of an evening when the sun set too quickly – this annoyed Maui because the day had passed before all of the chores could be done, and so he hatched a plan. Aided by his brothers Maui would catch the sun in a net when it came up in the morning and refuse to let it go until an agreement had been reached for the sun to move more slowly across the sky. To everybody’s surprise Maui succeeded in his ambitious plan.
Modern day heroes of mythological proportions will cycle up the volcano. It can take 6 hours, although going down is easier... providing the brakes hold out.
Modern day heroes of mythological proportions will cycle up the volcano. It can take 6 hours. Going down is easier… providing the brakes hold out.

And so on a clear day up at the top of Haleakala, it is possible if you stand in the right place, to watch the sun come up and go down without obstruction from foreground hills, mountains or volcanos and in consequence the day becomes longer. But there is more… up here you see a more distant horizon – the sun rises earlier in the east and sets later in the west. Effectively, the higher you go, the longer the day. Polynesian mythology is closely tied to the natural world and local people may have appreciated this, and it makes perfect sense when Polynesian legend claims this place as ‘The Sacred House of the Sun’.

Remember that if you take a picture that might one day help save the planet… tread carefully… even if you don’t know exactly why you should.

For further details of the Tarweed family see:http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0903b.htm

For park details on the silversword:
http://www.nps.gov/hale/learn/nature/silversword.htm

Also, ‘Silver Swords in Bloom’:
http://khon2.com/2014/07/30/rare-silverswords-in-bloom-on-haleakala/

With thanks to Dr. Roger Jones for introducing me to Haleakala.

 

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HAWAII: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. PART 2 – INVASIVE SPECIES.

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On my first visit to Hawaii I saw a bumper sticker that I found amusing, because clearly there are no bad days in Hawaii.

Is there's another meaning to this that I didn't get on my first visited all those years ago.
Maybe there’s another meaning to this that I didn’t get when I first visited in the early 1980s.

Every day on a tropical island seems pretty much the same to an outsider;  barring the occasional storm, pleasant weather and spectacular light are the order of the day, but maybe there are more problems in paradise than most of us realise, although suggesting a luggage sticker has been designed with irony in mind might be stretching it a bit.

There are odd little things you notice. You might for example begin to wonder what’s going on when you go to hire your snorkel gear, because the second thing the sales person might try to do after fitting you up with underwater gear is to fit you up with a time share… it’s difficult to believe that anybody would waste half a day of their holiday looking at an apartment that on any level headed day outside of paradise, they’d want no part of.

But never mind that, the real disappointment is that on all the main islands there are any number of resorts where you can move from a high-rise hotel to a golf course, or a private beach and later return for a meal without ever making contact with reality. Unless you go out of your way, there’s no real need to set foot on anything that truly belongs on the Islands, whether that be a native grass, or if you’re feeling really mean… a native insect!

This is rather lovely in tourist dreamland, but it doesn't touch base with reality and at some point a visitor really should.
This is rather lovely in tourist dreamland, but it doesn’t touch base with reality and at some point a visitor really should.

As I was leaving the Hotel the girl on hotel reception said, ‘Come again when you’ve earned some more money’. At the time this seemed mercenary, but at least refreshingly honest. 

The tourist market is designed to extract money from those who have it as quickly as possible… and that’s fine, even though it often has nothing to do with supporting local economies. The real issue is, that worldwide, holiday resorts have been developed that degrade or destroy the environments around them. The justification is usually progress and providing jobs for local people, but in truth the smaller fish are often poorly paid, whilst the sharks tear into the profits and carry them away to some place offshore.

Without question, the Islands have a lot going for them – there’s sunshine,  a tropical sea, rainbows, hula, mai tai and friendly people… and perhaps a little more Hawaiian guitar on the radio than is absolutely necessary, but the real question is… where is natural Hawaii?

In a single word the answer is extinct, or close to it. Clearly it would be madness to sell a holiday destination by pointing out that Hawaii has been described as the extinction capital of the world; and the Islands are now so full of introduced species that there is confusion for tourists and residents alike as to what really belongs here.

The greenhouse frog Eleutherodactylus planirostris is one of many introduced frogs eating their way through Hawaii's native invertebrate species.
The greenhouse frog Eleutherodactylus planirostris is one of many introduced frogs eating their way through Hawaii’s native invertebrates.

The introduction of reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals have proven to be overwhelmingly inappropriate. They have arrived in waves over the years and are partly responsible for the annihilation of many unique and extraordinary native species.

It is thought that were no amphibians or reptiles on Hawaii before the arrival of man. Certainly there were no brown anoles when I first visited – these appeared in the mid-1990s and are now so numerous in some parts of north west Maui it is difficult to walk along pavements without treading on one; they can also be seen crossing roads amongst busy traffic. The problem is, anoles will eat anything lively they can swallow and that’s bad news for small, mobile creature of Hawaiian origin.

Brown Anoles are a recent introduction and have quickly become a serious pest
Brown Anoles are a recent introduction and have quickly become a serious pest

A young man selling fruit in a local market told me that he had recently lost a pregnant Jackson’s chameleon and it was now living in a tree close by his town house; the creature probably wasn’t going to do a lot of harm there because very little native fauna has survived in the local area. On the up side, he had captured and removed the creature from a nature reserve where a large pregnant female was bound to cause problems. A chameleon is an impressive find in its native Africa, but released into the wilds of a tropical Pacific island it is just another pest – despite their visual appeal all introduced reptiles and amphibians are detrimental to Hawaiian ecosystems.

Out of town, beautiful natural areas are still be found, although many have become so degraded that native diversity is far lower than it should be, but without an intimate understanding of local wildlife, most of us wouldn’t notice.

Over the years many lowland areas have been cleared for agriculture, in some cases providing only short term financial benefits to local people. The return is hardly worth the natural wonders that have been lost, with so much replaced by attractive looking weeds and vermin, but weeds and vermin nevertheless.

Red ginger Alpinia purpurata, originally from Malaysia, is the national flower of Samoa. Confused yet? - well, there's more, the flowers of the plant are not red, they are small, white and cunningly concealed by red bracts. Most important of all, this is an invasive species of Hawaiian forests and a beautiful nuisance.
Red ginger Alpinia purpurata, originally from Malaysia, is the national flower of Samoa. Confused yet? – well, there’s more, the flowers of the plant are not red, they are white, quite small and cunningly concealed by red bracts. Most importantly, this species is invasive of Hawaiian forests. At best, it is a beautiful nuisance.

The attack on island resources started from the moment Europeans set foot on Hawaiian soil, although generations earlier Polynesian settlers also brought their fair share of devastation.

From the time of Captain Cook’s first landing on the Islands in January 1778 it was common practice for seafarers to dump goats, pigs and other livestock on remote islands considered suitable for their survival, to provide fresh meat for any future visit. Livestock, along with seeds were commonly given to native people as a gesture of good will at a time when there was no understanding of the problems caused by introduced species. Today we know better, but oddly, non-native introductions continue to plague the islands.

A recent picture of chicken wandering along delightful forest beach on Maui; eating their way through any native invertebrate they can grub up. Domestic birds have also brought alien forms of avian malaria to the islands pushing some Hawaiian birds to extinction.
A recent picture of chicken wandering along a delightful forest beach on Maui; eating their way through any native invertebrate they can grub up. Domestic birds have also brought alien forms of avian malaria,  pushing some Hawaiian birds to extinction.

The scope of discovery during Cook’s three major voyages to the Pacific region was incredible; and included not only the charting of many previously unrecorded areas, but also a huge contribution to scientific knowledge, in particular the classification of a great many plant and animal species. However, the romantic idea that explorers, particularly those following in the wake of Cook, were traveling to distant places simply to observe and then move on without interfering, is a fiction.

As much as we might admire the skills and endurance of Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, it is difficult to ignore that between 1768 and 1779, his diligent and obsessive recording of unchartered regions of the Pacific area, would be the starting point for a wave of European plunder. 

Beyond all the record taking, early exploration of the Pacific region was largely a mixture of pillage and punch up and during one such encounter with natives on the Big Island Hawai’i, Cook lost his life. After a successful visit to Kealakekua Bay, he had been forced to return when a mast on his ship broke during a gale and relations with the local natives quickly became strained. Captain Cook met his end on February 14th 1779 during a skirmish on the beach – the incident was perhaps as a direct result of an illness, which caused Cook to exhibit increasingly erratic behaviour, compounding his intransigent dealings with an unfamiliar culture.

In Honolulu locals race canoes that have changed very little since Captain Cook's arrival on the Islands two hundred and one years before this picture was taken.
In Honolulu locals race traditional outrigger canoes that haven’t changed since Captain Cook’s death on Hawai’i two hundred and one years before this picture was taken.

Early European colonisation of Pacific Islands was centred around grabbing anything useful that nature had to offer.

The process usually started with the felling of trees; in the first instance to replace  masts and  refurbish vessels – which were justifiable activities, but it didn’t stop there. Log entries – and I’m talking books not trees – reveal that forests were regarded as resources that could be felled and  taken for profit to the other side of the world with little or no benefit to local people.

There was often such an enthusiasm to clear a location of its trees in order to plant crops, that whole forests were simply burned. Every day, somewhere in the world this is still happening – a waste that seems almost unimaginable – in the process species are disappearing before there has been a chance to record them. A situation that makes the methodical recording during Cook’s travels more than two centuries ago, all the more impressive.

An open fruit of the autograph tree Clusia rosea - very beautiful and extremely invasive, this is now a serious pest, its sticky seeds spread by birds.
An open fruit of the autograph tree Clusia rosea – very beautiful and extremely invasive, this is now a serious pest, its sticky seeds spread by birds.

On these early voyages of discovery cameras weren’t an optional means of recording landscapes, which instead had to be painted. Plants and animals were collected and preserved but they were also rendered in watercolours by ships naturalists and artists, often with such beauty, they still have resonance today.

Although botanists were recording native plants by making beautiful pictures, they were also looking for plants that might in future become commercial crops – understandably, there was always more going on than the recording of beauty and science.

Stop overs for the collection of specimens were often selected because of a sheltered harbour, such locations were often inhabited, and the ships crew would require that ship repairs were balanced with leisure time, which usually meant fraternising with local women wherever possible. Adding to a native gene pool is one thing, but the pestilence and disease that Europeans unwittingly brought to the region was quite another. The problem extended beyond the devastation of human populations to the destruction of native cultures, in particular by missionaries who believed they had a God given mandate to change behaviours that they didn’t  like or understand. And while the Pacific Islanders were getting their cultures re-calibrated, their natural resources were also being depleted and destroyed over a very short period of time.

On the Hawaiian Islands, there has been considerable forest clearance as well as destruction of coastal wetlands to produce crops of sugar cane, pineapple, macadamia nuts, coffee and tropical fruits. What followed was the heavy use of fertilisers and the subsequent contamination of ground water and the surrounding ocean – for the most part such problems have been downplayed.

Invasive species, are then, only part of the problem… it’s nice to have something else to blame, rather than allowing the burden of guild to fall entirely on ourselves. Some might say that our species has been insensitive, even a little greedy in our dealings with the natural world… but surely, that can’t be us, can it?

The red-crested cardinal is beautiful, but it is not a native bird.
The red-crested cardinal is beautiful, but as a native of South America it does not belong here.

For a while during the 20th Century the pineapple industry flourished – at one time Hawaii supplied 70% of the world’s pineapple juice, but that didn’t last; lower labour costs elsewhere (in the Philippines for example), caused the industry to move away. The creation of jobs when a big agricultural concern  takes up residence is a short term illusion, because in the end most enterprises will gravitate towards the lowest labour costs, although in fairness the wages paid to farm-workers now in Hawaii are now more likely to be above minimum wage.

Today, only about 2% of the pineapples produced worldwide are grown in Hawaii – this reality is something of a surprise. According to an economic research group at the University of Hawaii, agriculture no longer plays a major role in the economy; a report (in 2005) stated that only 1% of Hawaii’s income and 2% of employment were derived from agriculture. 

The real Hawaii - the exceptional beauty of waterfalls and forests.
The real Hawaii – the exceptional beauty of waterfalls and forests.

About one third of the economy now relies upon tourism and with the rapid worldwide expansion of ecotourism, it would make sense to allow some lowland agricultural areas to revert to their former natural state. This might seem rather fanciful, but Hawaii could command an increasing share of the ecotourism market if it were more closely aligned to the uniqueness of its ecosystems.

An Hawaiian Honey Creeper - The Iiwi.
Startling…. This was my first impression of an I’iwi. A honeycreeper that is not yet in danger but certainly in decline. Eight others have become extinct in recent time.

For less impressionistic pictures  – Google: Images for I’iwi bird.

There is however a problem for ecotourism on the Islands.

Many people will travel to specific locations to see unusual birdlife, but sadly, of the 140 species of native birds that existed before the arrival of man, 70 are now extinct and 30 are endangered and increasingly it is difficult to find native birds in Hawaiian forests.

For details of Hawaii’s extinct birds, see: http://www.birdinghawaii.co.uk/extinctbirdarticle2.htm

There were once five species of honeyeater to be found on the Islands although recent research suggests that the birds are not, as was first thought, related to Australasian honey eaters, instead they make up a new songbird family, the Mohoidae, which is more closely related to waxwings. These are exactly the sort of birds that people would travel to see, but unfortunately the last representative of this family native to Hawaii went extinct probably sometime in the early 1980s and that really is a tragedy.

For Hawaiian Honeyeaters see: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/picture-of-the-weekhawaiian-honeyeaters-180945790/?no-ist

The way it all began - with larva flows and colonisation by plant life.
The way it all began – with larva flows and colonisation by plant life.

The decrease in Hawaii’s native diversity has worldwide consequences, because although the Islands still appear very beautiful, there are problems in the fine detail – it is rather like having a contract and ignoring the essentials in the small print – as many unique little creatures have gone missing across the Islands. It is necessary to notice this and react, because if we choose not to do so on a chain of small islands under the control of a wealthy country, where else will people be bothered enough to act.

We are morally obliged to tune in and push for a sea change in attitudes, because without it, the world will pretty soon be inhabited by little more than rats, cockroaches, starlings and us. Natural diversity is a measure of the health of our world and it needs to be maintained. 

It may not be possible to bring back natural Hawaii to the way it once was, but everybody should be aware that there is a problem because human induced extinction is unacceptable. There is a certain dignity in showing at least a little disappointment that we are increasingly the cause of species destruction and to demonstrate this, we need to move beyond the trivial. Just because the grass gets watered and is manicured well enough for a picnic, or to play golf… doesn’t mean that everything is fine – it is necessary to work towards a different level of awareness based upon the facts.

Hawaii is so beguiling - sometimes we don't notice when things are going wrong.
Hawaii is so beguiling – sometimes we don’t notice when things are going wrong.

I was fortunate to film many small plants and animals during the early part of my career, recording some for the first time in moving pictures. Today, many of these have moved a little closer to extinction, and some species may have disappeared altogether, which is disconcerting, because although the vital existence of a species shows incremental change over time, many have existed without discernible modification for millions of years and we have no right to end their tenure on Earth so abruptly.

Despite all the declines and losses, taking a photograph of an unusual plant or animals is never a waste of time, because information is the key to making necessary changes in thinking. So, if you see an unusual plant or animal, then why not take a picture, it might lead to the conservation of a natural environment and in some small way help save the Planet… or at least some of the stuff that lives upon it.

 

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HAWAII: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. PART 1 – IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT.

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On a recent visit to Hawaii, I hardly saw any native wildlife, a stark reminder that things haven’t improved since I first came to film for the B.B.C. back in the early 1980s.

Aloha!
Aloha!

Thirty five years ago I made my first visit to Hawaii at a time when travelling to distant tropical islands from the U.K. was considered exotic. In those days, you’d emerge from a plane into the shimmering light and once down the gangway steps walk to the terminal building with the heat of the sun bouncing beneath your feet like a playful pet; and just as you were beginning to appreciate that life was all the better for being here, smiling girls in traditional dress would come out to greet you and place flower leis around your neck.

But things have changed… the sun still shines, but on more recent visits I couldn’t fail to notice that the girls were no longer present – the Honolulu Airport terminal is bigger now, reflecting that there are many more travellers coming to Hawaii and if every visitor was still receiving a traditional floral  greeting, the islands would pretty soon be clean out of flowers.

People still smile though, and the pace of life is slower than many of us are used to; pretty soon you feel relaxed because it’s difficult to find these islands anything other than enchanting, but my first couple of visits were not the magical encounters with paradise that I had imagined – mostly I was filming ten hours a day in a laboratory at the University of Hawaii.  I’d been sent by the B.B.C. to film a variety of tiny creatures and two oddities in particular – both spectacularly unusual carnivorous moth caterpillars.

Anything that has a sensory rear end that alerts to an approaching fly and then flips its front end over backwards to grab the unwitting insect in its jaws in a mere fraction of a second is a real attention grabber, but the little critters are just so small and well camouflaged, that if you didn’t know they were there, they’d might just as easily be  another twig on the tree.

Where else but in Hawaii could you find an insect so clearly associated with feeding on leaves that has switched to eating insects? And not just any insects, in this case Hawaiian fruit flies that have evolved to become spectacularly large, but nevertheless will go down twitching as they are eaten alive.

It doesn't seem likely, but there is is... a moth caterpillar Eupithecia streurophragma feeding on an Hawaiian fruit fly.
It doesn’t seem likely, but there it is… the moth caterpillar Eupithecia streurophragma feeding on an Hawaiian fruit fly.

 Hawaii is an extended chain of islands which has formed over a mid-Pacific hot spot of volcanic activity,  roughly equidistant between Eurasia and the Americas; and to get to either requires an approximate two and a half thousand mile journey either east or west across the Pacific Ocean. It was this creation of land by fire combined with a perfect storm of circumstances that allowed for the evolution of so many unique and unusual lifeforms.

These Islands might be regarded as a natural laboratory for the study of evolution, and if Charles Darwin had landed here rather than on the Galapagos Islands he would have come to similar conclusions about how species evolve when  separated from their relatives on distant mainlands, and even from those isolated on different islands… but Darwin would have needed to be paying attention (clearly one of his strengths), because many of the animals concerned are small invertebrates, such as spiders, insects, crustaceans and molluscs.

Certainly limited numbers of creatures would have made it to the islands to start the evolutionary ball rolling and no large animals were amongst them – other than those that could  swim here – turtles for example, and they never get further than the beach. Consequently no native reptiles, amphibians or mammals ever made it to the islands until their arrival alongside man, either as stowaways or transported intentionally, with frequently disastrous consequences to the native flora and fauna.

Small arthropods such as insects, spiders and crustaceans will most likely have arrived on floating vegetation, the lucky winners hitting this narrow window of opportunity, whilst the majority missed the jackpot and drifted on across the world’s largest ocean to become lost at sea.

The initial arrivals had the advantage of making landfall on uninhabited islands which provided a variety of empty niches ready to move into – and those that managed to adapt to their new circumstances would have radiated out into different habitats to eventually form species that were unique.

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The Hawaiian Islands were at one time or other no more than volcanic larva flows and it is no surprise that the wolf spider Lycosa has evolved adaptive colouration to live in what might elsewhere be considered unusual surroundings, in particular larva cinders in desert areas.

The habitats available for life in Hawaii were varied, and included not only forest, grass and wetlands, but also larvae flows, deserts, beaches and caves – all of these would become populated by invertebrates; there is even an small creature (the wekiu bug) that lives at altitude, sucking the juices of insects that have been caught up and preserved in snow and ice to be released many years later as frozen dinners along the thaw line of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano and the highest point in Hawaii.

A cricket that appears so well camouflaged on larva flow I could just as easily have photographed only the larva flow and then tell you it was there.
A cricket that appears so well camouflaged on larva flow that I could just as easily have photographed only the larva flow and just pretended it was there.

One species peculiar to the Islands is the happy-face spider, which derives its name from an apparently smiling face on the upper side of its abdomen; this tiny spider mostly lives and hunts on the underside of leaves and despite its size is visuality impressive.

The morph shown below is the one most commonly seen, but there are a variety of others that have extraordinary clown faces on their rear ends and you might want to Google  ‘ happy face spider images’ to see more impressive examples. The spiders have made it onto four Hawaiian islands but are not yet on Lanai, nor have they managed to get as far west as Kauai.

I had a couple of happy face spiders to film, but since I photographed them many more extraordinary faces have been captured by by photographers. Just Google Happy Face Spider to see some extraordinary morphs.
In 1980 I had only a couple of happy-face spiders to film – the disappointment was their small size, which made filming their behaviour a challenge.

It appears that almost everything that arrived in Hawaii evolved into  something special… but then man arrived and the party was over, which is a sad but familiar story!

The islands by dint of their remoteness have undergone extraordinary speciation in the absence of too many predators or competitors, but once these were brought in from elsewhere, many native species were immediately threatened. Indigenous plants and animals have become well adapted to their circumstances but they have not evolved appropriate defences against the onslaught of the new invaders. And so it was, that species in existence for millions of years, were snuffed out by the newcomers like candles in the wind.

Many of the new arrivals were so closely associated with man and his agriculture that with the additional advantage of a perfect climate they thrived in their own little paradises within paradise – and from there ventured out to invade other places on the Islands.

The first aliens will have come in with the Polynesians between 300 and 500 A.D. Then the Europeans showed up; it is possible that the Spanish arrived a couple of hundred years before Captain Cook made landfall in 1778, but it is Cook that we remember because he claimed the Islands as British territory, which now counts for little more than the hoisting of an interesting union flag colonial combo.

Flags are not traditionally Polynesian; these two flutter beneath an Hawaiian sky as a reminder of the transient nature of colonialism.
Flags are not traditionally Polynesian; these two flutter beneath an Hawaiian sky – a reminder of the transient nature of colonialism.

The islands were named after Cook’s sponsor, the 4th Earl of Sandwich – the very same Earl who found himself disinclined to leave a gambling table and suggested to staff that they bring him food conveniently held between two pieces of bread… the rest of course is history… as is the case for the naming of the Sandwich Islands which later reverted to their more appropriate Polynesian name – or at least a close approximation to it.

Colonisation would be instrumental in the devastation of many indigenous species causing the rapid degradation and destruction of habitats; this combined with alien introductions became the driving force for many island extinctions.

It was decided that I would film snails to illustrate the troubles caused by introduced species and I was pleased to be filming at least some of them out of doors. There are many valid reasons for filming animals in their natural environments, but invertebrates are often the exception, usually their behaviour is not much affected as long as their living conditions are adequately simulated.

Prior to the early 1980s film stocks were limiting and a lot of light was required to capture the activity of any small creature in movies. This was just before cold light using fibre optics became widely available, and I had to devise my own water cooling system bolted to the front of lights which required a constant flow of cold water to substantially reduce temperatures. In the years to come I would replace my cumbersome system with cool fibre optic lights; this was really helpful because invertebrates can’t cope with excessive heat, but rarely are they bothered by extra light, and for the best results good lighting was essential.

Filming in the lab (way back when) with Steve Montgomery (right). We are checking that the carnivorous caterpillars are happy under my water cooled lighting system - a year later I had the benefit of fibre optic lights.
Filming in the lab (way back when) with Steve Montgomery (right). We are checking that the carnivorous caterpillars are happy under my water cooled lighting system – not long after, cool fibre optic lighting became available.

There is also a moral question as to whether this is truly wildlife photography, but imagine carting all of this gear into the big outdoors to capture perhaps fifty different creatures in various locations across the islands – setting up on steep slopes for example – because hardly any fertile natural environments have escaped cultivation on the flat – and then there are the cave habitats which are a nightmare to get equipment into. Time and budget constraints required everything to be done in a few weeks (and today these constraints are even tighter). There was then little option other than to bring many of the smaller creatures to one place in order to get the job done.

Taking a still flash photo on location is one thing, but filming the very tiny with plenty of light without any vibration has always been a wind up, and there is the additional problem that when visiting delicate environments trampling has to be avoided, along with the possibility of losing invasive species to the wild. Back then, despite all the disadvantages that the real world presented to macro-photography, I still had to establish some environments on wider lenses and in the process was determined to film at least some of the native snails in the big outdoors.

I was once embarrassed to lose a large tortoise whilst filming in Africa – it made off (across its natural habitat) when I left for a short while to fetch a lens – I had assumed that it wouldn’t get too far, but of course, tortoises run at breakneck speeds when you stop watching them.

I learnt a valuable lesson… but even at my most inattentive, I thought it unlikely that I could misplace a snail, not even a well camouflaged individual, but the truth is, it’s easy to lose sight of almost any snail by simply looking away… and given half a chance they’ll dash off and hide under a leaf when you do. Living in a small world – your perspective on life changes and when you’re not worrying about snails rushing off to hide, you’re worrying about the fact that some move so slowly they won’t register as moving at all in real time. But of course, things could have been worse… ants are always in such a rush, so it was great to discover that there are thought to be no native ants living on the Islands at all.

There are more than 40 species of endemic tree snails living on the Hawaiian Islands and all are endangered - this one seems hardly to have managed to have held on to a protective shell at all.
There was once around a hundred species of tree snails in Hawaii and now only about a quarter remain – most of which are endangered – and this one seems hardly to have held on to a protective shell at all.

Until recently Hawaii held the most diverse representation of land snails anywhere in the world, but since the arrival of humans it is likely that around 75% have become extinct. Habitat loss will have played a part, but many have been eaten out by introduced predators, in particular predatory snails.

After the African land snail Achatina fulica was introduced – it’s a monster and ends up elsewhere either as a food source or as a pet – it soon became clear that the newcomer was munching its way through the Hawaiian natives, and so another predator was introduced from Florida – the rosy wolfsnail (Euglandina rosea)  to control it – and there wouldn’t be much of a story unless the new arrival had set about the native snails even more ferociously than the problem snail it had been brought in to eliminate, which of course it did, reducing native species even further, and pushing some to extinction… This was without doubt a ‘doh!’ of Homer Simpson proportions.

It is clear that when humans get environmental issues wrong, they make a really great job of it, and often eliminate species that have evolved to become spectacularly different from anything else on the Planet. The problem is, that when this happens to invertebrates… hardly anybody notices.

A native Hawain tree Snail (below) does the dance of death with an introduced predatory species - Achatina fulica which predates upon unfortunate natives.
A native Hawain tree Snail (below) does the dance of death with an introduced species – the rosy wolfsnail Euglandina rosea which predates upon the unfortunate natives.

 It is the larger cuter animals that usually grab our attention, but when it comes to extinction we need to consider the smaller things in life, because if we include them, the losses that are presently occurring on a worldwide scale indicate that we may be entering a mass extinction event. Long term, this makes no difference to the Planet, but species diversity remains the best measure of the prevailing conditions for life on Earth and that is an important consideration for all of us.

Our own well being can be gauged by what is disappearing around us, and it is possible that any who travel might at one time or another hit the jackpot, and take a picture of some small creature that is unknown to science. Seeing the bigger picture means looking out for the small stuff, which is one of the best ways to save the Planet… or more precisely… the life upon it.

Next:  HAWAII: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. PART 2 –  INVASIVE SPECIES.

Roger Jones supporting Steve Montgomery (with the net) collecting specimens for filming in 1980.
Roger Jones supporting Steve Montgomery (with the net) collecting specimens for filming in Hawaii -1980.

With thanks to former BBC Natural history producers Richard Brock and Roger Jones who gave me my first opportunity to film the natural history of Hawaii, Ken Kaneshiro for fruit flies and lab space, Frank Howarth for his cave critters and Steve Montgomery who collected many of the specimens for filming; he has been foremost in discovering many new species on the Hawaiian Islands and continues to do great work bringing the uniqueness of island biodiversity to the rest of us.

For more on Hawaiian extinction see: 

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/features/story.aspx?id=129

For details on Hawaiian tree snail and other species see:

http://www.arkive.org/partulina-snail/partulina-proxima/

and for a more detailed description of Hawiian snail status from 1990  (please note that numbers have declined since this paper was published):

http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/pubs-online/pdf/op30p27.pdf

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