Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center

I spent 2 hours this morning helping out with food prep and feeding; I was working with intern Jayce. I mainly helped with food preparation for 2 Nene and 5 boobies. I helped feed a Manu o Ku chick that was still covered with down and got to watch a procedure to patch up a wound on an injured booby. Part way through the time, we were visited by a very large Manu o Ku!

Food styling for Nene!

This is the finished dish of food.

Weighed out fish for the boobies.

The Manu-o-Ku came by to use the facilities!

As usual, my morning started with watching the color of the sky change as the sun was rising. Then, before I left the house, I checked to see if the pigs had gotten in to the bin again. They had not!

At sunrise.

Five minutes after sunrise.

Fifty-one minutes after sunrise.

No sign of pigs getting in to the compost bin.

On the way back to the house I stopped at Minnie's Ohana Lim Style Restaurant. I picked up two Catch of the Day Plates; today's fish was ahi. They have removed all the outside seating and blocked off access to the inside seating. When you pay by credit card they hold the credit card reader while you insert & remove your card. They and their families are doing well.

They really are open.

I also stopped at the post office to mail packages off. One is going to Tomiko in Wisconsin; the other is going to the Cedars in Washington. It is the usual package I send to them from Kohala. Next year though, I may add some dehydrated tangerine slices!

On the way up the hill, as well as when I stepped out of the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center building, I was struck by how peaceful & serene it was around me, while many parts of the world are not so peaceful & serene.

Driving up Kynnersley.

The view from Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center.

As I pulled in I saw one of the cows in the pasture behind us walking along the fence line. She was grazing on her favorite plants along the fence; she ate her way up to the end of the pasture, then sauntered back down to the rest of the herd which was probably a 1/4 of a mile away.


I saw Mom Cat today! She was walking across Jessie's back yard towards the house. I saw her cross the driveway and head under the house. I briefly saw her sitting at the end of the ramp; I waited for her to get to the food bowl. If I put my phone up on the edge of the window opening I can see the bowl in the phone screen but she can't see me. I waited for about 15 minutes, then peeked out; she was gone. Later in the evening the food was also gone and I didn't get to see her up close. Aue!

She waited under the mock orange for a few minutes to make sure it was safe.

She was so fast when she did cross all I got was a glimpse of her back!

This is the best photo I got of her at the food bowl.

I had enough time to finish lunch and have a short rest before this week's ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi Papa started; it is streamed live on the KTUH Facebook page on Wednesdays from 3 to 4 pm HST. They are going faster since there are no students sitting there practicing with each other before they move on. All previous videos from the first class at the end of January through the present are still available through the KTUH Facebook; the slides are also available on-line so you can join me in learning how to speak Hawaiian!

Class always starts with a Hawaiian saying; this one basically says you should not have needed to hoard, you should have been ready already!

This is some homework.

They said this could take a long time to learn.

When, in general, you should use kino "o" and kino "a"

Stay safe, until we all meet again!

While I was doing my 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi Papa, Grey was diligently working on pig-proofing the fence. He cut pieces of fencing for the breaks in the fence and wired them together with baling wire. Then he hammered the pallet in to place by the gate and set stakes to hold it upright. I took photos but for some reason they did not turn out. Aue!

For more on Grey and his journey around the world, visit the Arka Kinari website. He anticipates they will sail in to Hilo on Friday evening; he will meet them with the provisions & equipment and get on board with them. If they sail around to this side of the island I will get to see Arka Kinari as well as meet some of his fellow sailors. They hope to be able to get under way by April 13th so they can be across the Pacific before hurricane season; they anticipate it will take them 42 days to reach Bali. Although they started this most recent leg from Barcelona, they left well before the coronavirus made the interspecies jump last year in China so they are more at risk of becoming infected than in bringing anything here. Sailing across the ocean automatically puts you in quarantine for at least 14 days!


There are now 258 confirmed cases, 34 are new. I have posted the Latest Cases information from the Health Department as well as the epidemiological graph which is based on the date of onset of symptoms. The numbers given by the Lt. Governor regarding whether the curve is being flattened or not was based on the available data which was tabulated on the date the test results were announced, which is generally the daily "confirmed cases" count given by the media. It is not an accurate picture of whether the curve is being flattened or not. For example, if the curve was not flattened, today's number would be 224 based on the "confirmed cases" date; in actuality it is quite a bit higher. Since not everyone is tested every day we don't really know what the incidence is within the population; we can only look at it after-the-fact via the epidemiological graph. Looking at the graph on the 30th, the date of the press conference, there were 2 people who became symptomatic for a total of 186 cases that had the data available. But there were a whole lot more we did not know about in the big gray box on the right side of the graph; they are still incubating, only time will tell.

An additional piece of data here is number of people released from isolation.

This graph will really let us know if the curve is flattening, but only about 2 weeks after the fact.

These maps are also from the Health Department; they show the zip code area where the person lives (or was housed at for visitors) when they received their positive test result. The Health Department is quick to point out that at this time they do not think this is the area where most people actually contracted the COVID-19 since about 80% of the cases can be traced to out-of-state travel. To me that ability to have expendable cash and free time to travel shows up in the location of the residence of the positive cases. This map is updated once a week so that is how often I will be posting it.


Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Chad, Stef, & Maya!