Big Isle park
expansion creates
new challenges
HILO >> Hawaii Volcanoes National Park Superintendent Jim Martin has to do a "mind shift" when he thinks about his park nowadays.
Since June, with the addition of the 116,000-acre Kahuku Ranch to the park, it has grown more than 50 percent, to 333,000 acres.
Aug. 25 will mark the 87th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service in 1916. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was created just three weeks earlier, on Aug. 1, 1916.
In ceremonies at Hawaii Volcanoes on Aug. 25, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who pushed for $22 million to buy Kahuku Ranch, will be the featured speaker. Admission is free that day.
Other benefits Inouye obtained in the past are federal funding for the park's Jaggar Museum and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's Okamura Building, both completed in 1987, Martin said.
The Kahuku land, stretching from 2,000 to 12,600 feet elevation, is the park's biggest challenge. Resource management specialist Tim Tunison said as many as 20 months will be needed to write a management plan for the area.
Park personnel toured the huge area this week, assessing places such as a patch of endangered silversword plants that former landowner Damon Estate fenced off.
"There are just hundreds of silverswords all over the place," Martin said.
Tunison found other rare plants such as a native geranium, which grows more like a shrub than a house flower.
An area where illegal koa logging was done under Damon will benefit from $254,000 in cash and fencing material that came with a settlement of the violation.
The logging was selective, Martin said. Many large, old koa trees were not logged because they were not good enough for lumber.
Fencing will control wild mouflon sheep, which eat plants such as silverswords and young koa, Martin said.
Thousands of goats in the park and thousands of sheep on Mauna Kea were eradicated in the past, but those were in open areas. Getting sheep out of forests will be more difficult, Martin said.
Visitor access to Kahuku has not been worked out. The main road is five miles of four-wheel-drive trail, and then the road gets even worse, Tunison said.
All-terrain-vehicle riders from neighboring Ocean View subdivision were trespassing on the ranch and tearing up scenic volcanic cones, but the park has mostly stopped that, Martin said.
Damon will continue to graze cattle at Kahuku Ranch for at least two years, Martin said. The park will benefit because Damon will maintain the water system for the cattle.
