Maui meeting focuses on
marine mammalsAlso: Flooding focus of soil, water meeting
By Helen Altonn
Star-BulletinThe latest scientific findings on the biology and behavior of marine mammals will be presented at a conference attracting more than 1,600 scientists and their families to Hawaii Nov. 28-Dec. 3.
Ken Norris, a pioneering dolphin researcher who directed the Oceanic Institute at Makapuu from 1961-71, founded the Society of Marine Mammalogy .
Paul Nachtigall, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, was among about 100 scientists attending the society's first meeting in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1975.
When Norris left Oceanic Institute, he went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he established a marine laboratory. He retired there and died Aug. 16, 1998, at age 74.
Nachtigall, who has attended all the marine mammal meetings, said the one coming up at the Outrigger Wailea Resort on Maui will be the first without Norris, and the first in Hawaii.
"We will miss him, but the society he founded is thriving," Nachtigall said.
He said the meeting "should be an economic boost to Maui" and benefit the state in many ways. Besides bringing many people here for a week, he said, "it focuses on our great marine mammals, the humpback whales, that bring a large number of tourists here without us much thinking about."
Nachtigall, scientific program chairman for the meeting, said about 860 abstracts of scientific papers have been submitted and about 270 talks will be given.
Among the reports, Peter Tyack of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will discuss the effects on whales of the Navy's "low-frequency active" sonar tests off Kona last year and Adam Frankel of Cornell University will describe effects of the Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate experiment off Kauai.
Joe Mobley, University of Hawaii-West Oahu psychology professor, and John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research, Olympia, Wash., will discuss the increase in humpback whales in Hawaii and in the North Pacific. A number of papers also will be given on Hawaiian monk seals.
Workshops will be held before the meeting on marine mammal bioacoustics, geographic information systems and remote sensing, research and monitoring in U.S. sanctuaries and the "somewhat controversial" wild dolphin swim programs, Nachtigall said.
Key speakers include St. Louis High School graduate Whitlow Au, a famed marine mammal acoustician, who will talk about echolocation in dolphins; Bruce Mate of Oregon, who has tracked the paths of humpback whales when they leave Hawaii; Donald Bowen of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Nova Scotia, Canada, new editor of the society's journal, "Marine Mammal Sciences"; and Anne Pabst, University of North Carolina professor of biological sciences, who will talk about how fat and fiber combine in the mechanics of cetacean blubber.
"We are quite lucky to be able to bring such an important meeting to Hawaii," Nitta said. "It attracts distinguished scientists and students of marine mammals from around the world."
The UH, the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and the Pacific Islands Area Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service are hosting the meeting.
Flooding focus of Maui
By Gary T. Kubota
soil, water meeting
Star-BulletinLAHAINA -- West Maui residents have called upon government officials to take immediate action to control potential flooding that they fear will take place as a result of thousands of acres of land left unplanted by the shutdown of Pioneer Mill Co.
"As you look up the mountain, there's no sugar cane, nothing to hold the ground, red soil, if we get a devastating rain," said Alex Ross, a resident.
More than 50 people attended a public meeting last night held by the West Maui Soil and Water Conservation Districts at the Lahaina Civic Center.
Residents said even with the sugar cane fields, Lahaina has suffered substantial flooding in the past, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
Federal soil conservation officials estimate flooding causes about $625,000 annually in Lahaina.
Businesses warned that flooding could cause major damage and injury in Lahaina, especially in the southern section where the terrain is steep.
Federal officials told residents the measures taken to control water runoff from the former sugar cane fields were inadequate and they have been trying to get soil conservation measures implemented by the former sugar grower's parent company, Amfac/JMB.
Neal Fujiwara, the federal soil conservationist on Maui, said his agency has been talking with the land owners about replanting grass strips to control storm water runoff but hasn't seen much compliance with the request.
Fujiwara said the county has the responsibility to enforce soil conservation measures.
County Deputy Public Works director David Goode said he hasn't received any request from Fujiwara but plans to talk with him about the problem.
James "Kimo" Falconer, a manager working for Amfac, said the company has planted grass and bushes as windbreaks in Puukolii and is continuing to grow coffee on a portion of the land mauka of the Kaanapali resort.
