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SOMETIMES a bad thing can end up doing some good. Like when an ancient coral reef was paved for a runway at the now-closed Barbers Point Naval Air Station.
Native plants and habitats
Tours, and how to help
make slow comeback at Kalaeloa
By Cynthia Oi
Star-BulletinNative plants and habitats were destroyed, but because of the danger, people didn't venture through the land around the runway. And because they didn't, pockets of native plants and their dormant seeds survived.
Now that the Navy's gone, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has acquired 37 acres in the area and those seeds and endangered plants are growing again. This time the humans are helping.
Saturday morning, 65 volunteers from Leeward Community College, the Nature Conservancy, the Navy and other individuals will clear invasive and non-native plants from the Kalaeloa Unit of the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge.
The effort is part of the 7th National Public Lands Day when about 50,000 volunteers across the country will fix, refurbish and clean natural areas.The person in charge of this on Oahu is Margo Stahl, an optimistic and enthusiastic woman who carries the weighty title of assistant refuge manager, Oahu National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
"This will be a real celebration, a special day," said Stahl.
Although it is called a refuge, the Kalaeloa Unit is hardly an isolated, pristine wilderness. Coast Guard and other military aircraft grumble overhead. Across a wide ditch, oil refineries hiss and hum, and barbed-wire-topped fences rust around its perimeter.
But it harbors naio, maiapilo and the "last remaining population of native ewa hinahina," said Stahl, who held her hat against the stiff breeze that rushed across the ancient limestone coral exposed when the ocean subsided.
The wildlife service and its volunteers have been cleansing Kalaeloa of non-native plants since last year and replanting it with natives, which are thriving. Even more encouraging is that dormant seeds, given light and space, are beginning to sprout on their own."Who knows how old those seeds are," Stahl said, marveling at the resilience of nature. "Sinkholes in the coral protected seeds and even some bones from extinct birds from another era."
The plants aren't coddled. "This is not a nursery; it's not a botanical garden. We give these plants the best start we can, but we want them to make it on their own," said Stahl.
For this to happen, people have to be kept out. The gates, signs and the chain-link fence -- sagging to the ground in some places -- defend against human intrusion, but not completely.
As Stahl drove her white government-issue Jeep along the refuge's perimeter road last week, she encountered a group of unauthorized visitors fishing where the mouth of the ditch meets the ocean and where green sea turtles often congregate. Their lines in the water, they were relaxing with beach chairs and coolers next to their SUVs and pickups.
"Uh-oh, they're not supposed to be here," said Stahl, dismayed. "How did they get in?"Upon investigation, she discovered that a security guard assigned to adjacent state property had allowed the fishers into the refuge. After Stahl calmly talked with them, they packed up and drove away.
She will report the incident, she said, explaining that things like this seldom happen.
As she left the refuge about a hour later, however, she chanced by another truck. It was driven by the owner of a plant research business who told her he was just curious about the area. They exchanged business cards, Stahl hoping the fellow would be interested in helping the refuge in some way.
"A lot of traffic for one day," she said.
Although an administrator, Stahl does a lot of sweat work, too. While inspecting Kalaeloa, she hopped from her Jeep to pick up a dead seabird, gingerly wrapping its battered wings in a plastic bag that littered the refuge.
She'll send it to a lab, suspecting the bird was eaten by mongooses, which aren't as big a problem at Kalaeloa as they are at the wildlife service's bird refuge in Kahuku.Unlike Kalaeloa, the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge has scheduled public openings, closing only during the breeding season for the endangered ae'o (Hawaiian stilt).
Like Kalaeloa, plants also are a concern in Kahuku, but in a different way. There, California grass and other weeds choke the ponds populated by the endangered 'alae 'ula (Hawaiian moorhen), koloa maoli (Hawaiian duck) and 'alae ke'oke'o (Hawaiian coot), as well as the ae'o.
The refuge also attracts migratory birds from as far away as Alaska, New Zealand and Asia. Winged visitors include black-crowned herons, bristle-thighed curlews, hunakai (sanderlings), ulili, ruddy turnstones, Pacific golden plovers, mallards, pintails, American wigeons and the occasional Canada geese.
The birds in turn attract hungry dogs, cats and, of course, mongooses, so predator control is a vital part of managing the refuge, Stahl said.The wildlife service has only four people working all four refuges on Oahu, she said. So the agency depends on the kindness and hard work of volunteers.
Last weekend, they cleared away weeds and brush from the Kahuku ponds and litter and debris from the sand dunes along the shoreline. This Saturday, the focus will be at Kalaeloa.
"These volunteers are extraordinary citizens," Stahl said. "They pull weeds and haul it all out. It's through their sweat that we can do this."
The Campbell refuge sits on 164 acres, right next to a sewage treatment plant. The 38-acre Punamano Unit is a natural spring-fed wetland, but the Kii Unit is made up of man-made ponds that were settling basins when sugar cane was produced on the land.Sometimes, with the shift of the winds, odors from the treatment plant disturb the human visitors at Kahuku, Stahl said. But that's a small price to pay for the beautiful sight of hundreds of birds feeding and flying through the habitat.
"Wetlands are historically considered dangerous places or they tend to be in outlying areas next to undesirable things, like sewage plants and runways," Stahl said. But if not for the runway, if not for the sugar silt ponds, refuge lands may have been lost to other uses.
Sometimes good things come from bad.
Helping hands
What: Volunteers will clear invasive plants at Kalaeloa wildlife refuge in recognition of National Public Lands Day
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