Marine base celebrates new hatchlings
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Marines at Kane'ohe are crowing over the hatching of two Hawaiian stilts on a small island habitat created on the base golf course for the endangered birds.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The chicks are part of the base's flocks that live in the protected Nu'upia Ponds Wildlife Management Area. Although the numbers have grown from 60 birds in 1984 to about 124 today, each new chick is a cause for celebration.
A Hawaiian stilt chick, one of two that recently hatched, joined two older birds near the water's edge yesterday at the Kane'ohe Klipper Golf Course. The birds, which are on the endangered species list, live on a small island habitat at the Kane'ohe Marine base.
Gordon Olayvar, a biological and wildlife technician for Marine Corps Base Hawai'i, said the small island was part of an effort to improve the habitat around the management area.
The island, which is about 10 feet in diameter, sits in a pond between the 11th and 12th fairways of Kane'ohe Klipper Golf Course. Work on the habitat was only recently finished.
"They are well out of the way of any golfing," Olayvar said. "The golf course people put up a screen barrier part way around the pond."
Olayvar said the chicks hatched on two different days, but he's not exactly sure when. The second one hatched between Saturday afternoon and Monday, he said.
The flocks of Hawaiian stilts on the base constitute 10 percent of the species' total in the state and are the largest group on O'ahu.
Olayvar also discovered that the pond had attracted endangered koloa ducks, and he counted nine more ducklings at the water's edge.
"It's a real surprise," he said. "It's pretty neat."
The Marines have won praise for their efforts to safeguard Hawaiian stilts. Every year, their "Mud Ops" training exercise creates nesting material when the Marines churn through the management area with 27-ton amphibious vehicles.
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
