Saving whales not just slogan
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer
Whenever a whale or dolphin gets stranded on Hawai'i's shores, a small group of dedicated people springs into action.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
The Hawaiian Islands Stranding and Response Group has become synonymous with the humane rescue of these animals, which are often ill or suffering and almost always are destined to die.
Becky Roten and other members of the Hawaiian Islands Stranding and Response Group work to save stranded animals.
But as well known as they are in professional circles — "I don't think I can say enough about how important they are," said one expert — few members of the public know who these people are and what lengths they go to to help these animals.
The nucleus of the group of about 75 people is made up of a handful of marine and ocean experts who have been colleagues for years and have responded together and individually. Some of the others are trained as animal handlers or researchers, but a good number are ordinary people who just want to help animals.
Though the group is the only one of its kind in Hawai'i and performs an important function, it operates on a shoestring. All the members are volunteers, and at times they have even paid for rescues out of their own pockets. After incorporating as a nonprofit last year, the group has qualified for some federal grants. But the group is longer on heart than it is money.
When the call comes, the group sets in motion an effort that goes far beyond the initial rescue — getting the animals from the point of beaching to a protected facility at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe.
More to their story
That's the part that gets the media attention, the part everyone sees.
But there's much more.
For as long as necessary, team members do everything from monitoring an animal's breathing patterns to walking in a chilly swimming pool during a six-hour shift in the middle of the night, supporting the animal so it doesn't drown.
They sacrifice their personal lives; their only reward is knowing that they have helped a creature in need.
"As a human, you feel like you have to do something," said volunteer Becky Roten. "And something was better than just letting them die on the beach."
Most recently, the group rescued two melon-headed whales off Hau'ula on Aug. 19 and tended them around the clock at the Marine base until they had to be euthanized.
Roten, a member of the response group since December, said she has learned much about marine mammals since joining.
While in the pool with the melon-headed whales, she noticed that one was edgy and struggled against restraints, while the other was more compliant.
Volunteers would move cautiously to avoid startling the animal and causing it stress, she said.
Roten said the experience energized her as she learned about whales from the professionals and through observation, and she was surprised that the whales wanted to be near each other and touching.
Both animals ultimately had to euthanized, the first five days after being rescued and the second after a month. Losing the second whale was difficult, because after watching over it for a month, Roten had become attached.
"It's sad because you feel you lost someone special in your life," she said.
No names
Because there is typically an inevitability to the outcome, the group never names the animals.
Volunteer Shannon LaVine, a 17-year-old Kalaheo High School student, recently joined the stranding group because she saw an opportunity to advance a childhood dream to be a marine mammal trainer.
While taking notes and counting breaths on a midnight shift for the melon-headed whales, she picked the brains of veterinarians and animal caregivers while huddled under a makeshift shelter.
LaVine said the work was light, and the people were great.
"I'm just so thankful I had the opportunity to volunteer," she said. "It opened my eyes toward what I want to do with my life."
The response group originated with several people who had been doing such rescue work on their own and together for decades.
Founding members are Dr. Bob Braun, a veterinarian specializing in marine mammals and the group's president; Marlee Breese, a research associate with the University of Hawai'i Marine Mammal Research Program at Coconut Island; and Paul Nachtigall, a UH professor at the Hawai'i Institute for Marine Biology.
Besides helping the animals, the response group provides data from necropsies, and tissue samples to researchers.
Broad response
In the event of a rescue, a network of agencies can respond ranging from police to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the federal Protected Resources Division.
The stranding group provides specialists to help decide about how to treat and transport the animals.
Recently, the group enlisted the Marine Corps to move the melon-headed whales to the base. DLNR also has boats and trucks that are used.
The stranding group has the experts and professionals the government isn't able to provide, said Margaret Akamine, federal stranding coordinator and manager of the U.S. Protected Resources Division, which is responsible for recovery and conservation of protected marine species.
The group collaborates with state and federal officials in the rescue, care and disposition of stranded marine mammals, Akamine said.
Always on call
The call for help can come at any time, and the group has never said no, said Akamine.
On Christmas Day last year, members left their families to aid a 4-month-old spotted dolphin, said Akamine, who is also a volunteer with the group.
"We were eating our Christmas dinners, which was sandwiches, at 11 at night while we're standing in the pool (with the dolphin)," she said.
"I have a lot of respect for their consistent professionalism and ... dedication," she said.
Akamine said she receives about $10,000 from the federal government every two years for medication and portable pools for stranded marine mammals, but it's not enough to provide facilities and personnel to care for any surviving animals.
Breese noted how important it is to have good volunteers.
The water at the Kane'ohe recovery facility is always cold and fatigue is a major problem, especially for the primary volunteers, said Breese.
"Because you are fatigued it's really important to have positive, competent, interested, upbeat — not whiney — volunteers, which we have been blessed with," said Breese, whose earliest memories of strandings go back 50 years, when she said her father responded to them as the Honolulu zookeeper.
Federal authorization
The response group received a boost last year after organizing as an official nonprofit and receiving federal authorization to handle and care for protected marine mammals.
It also qualified for $100,000 from the Prescott Grant Program through the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Fisheries, said Braun.
The money, their only source of income, will be used for transportation, training and to supply a mobile laboratory for medical care and diagnostic evaluation, said Braun, a world-wide consultant on marine mammals.
Nachtigall, who is researching how marine mammals hear, said the most important thing the group does is coordinate people and tap into the expertise of the numerous contacts that members have cultivated over the years.
"We come with experience as well as good hearts," Nachtigall said.
Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.
