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Every year about April the Wedgetail Shearwater returns to the coast of Maui to propagate the race. The birds dig a tunnel into the sandy hillside and lay a solitary egg.
After the requisite number of days the egg hatches to yield the solitary chick.
Unlike the birds in Kihei the birds of the Puu Olai will get no protection. In all likelihood they will be feasted on by the Feral cats that prowl Makena State Park.
The park supports at least four separate colonies. With ten to twenty-five cats each the number of wild cats in Makena is close to a hundred.
State park regulations prohibit the cats but state park administrators don't seem to care. Reports of dogs eating Shearwater's on Oahu results in the timely dispatchment of the dogs. On Maui the incident would probably go unreported.
View
of North face of Puu Olai a hillside with numerous burrows of the nesting
Shearwater.
A picture
of the remains of an adult. Photo taken June 3, 2008.
The work of the Feral cats that inhabit the park. Although contrary
to park regulations a half dozen or so feeding stations are maintained
by various individuals keeping the growing population ready and able to
take out the ground nesting birds they may come across.
Addresses and other information on the current stewards
of Makena.
Friends of Makena State Park was formally formed in 2003 to assist the Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources in the stewardship of Makena State Park.
Rather than beg one million people to donate a dollar each, I'd like one billionaire (or two or even three) to simply give me a million buck$. You know who you are.
Consider a contribution to Doctor Leisure's Friends of Makena State
Park if you want to help defray the cost of this site and the efforts
to save Makena State Park and the adjacent lands from unneeded and unwanted
development. Twenty dollars pays for the gasoline necessary to get
Dr. Leisure to the park for five days. Forty dollars pays for the ink cartridge
for the printer. Twenty five dollars covers the cost of the web site for
one month.
Membership is open to anyone interested in the stewardship of the unique natural resource that constitutes Makena State Park situated on the island of Maui in the Hawai'i 'i Islands. The world famous nude beach known as Little Beach is contiguous to Makena State Park.
To declare your membership and to receive the electronic newsletter
of
Dr. Leisure's Friends of Makena State Park click this link: LittleBeachMaui-subscribe@topica.com
and send a blank email.
Dr. Leisure's Friends of Makena State Park
PO Box 1137
Kihei, HI 96753
808-250-4160
--Dr. George R. Harker can be reached by email at drleisure1@aol.com.
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2008 Dr. Leisure. All rights reserved.
