Question: There has been a lot of monk seal news lately, but how about an update on KP2? Is he still in California?
Answer: Ho‘ailona (“sign from the ocean”), more familiarly known by his scientific ID KP2, will be coming home!
The 3-year-old Hawaiian monk seal is expected to return in late October to the Waikiki Aquarium, said Wende Goo, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Hawaii.
Details are still being worked on and an announcement will be made when they are finalized, she said.
Ho‘ailona was only a few days old when he was found abandoned on Kauai in 2008.
After being rescued and rehabilitated by NOAA scientists, he was released into the waters off Molokai in December of that year.
However, NOAA took him back from the wild in 2009 because he was interacting with humans instead of other seals; he also had developed cataracts in both eyes.
In November 2009, he was sent to the Marine Mammal Physiology Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
According to a UC Santa Cruz website on “The Journey Home” — www. monkseal.ucsc.edu/KP2/Journey_Home.html — Ho‘ailona “has undergone a series of extensive eye tests, been a valuable contributor to monk seal research and served as an ambassador for his species on the mainland U.S. That is a lot for one little endangered seal to accomplish in such a short lifetime, and we feel that it is time for him to go home.”
The website says a nonprofit group, Hawaiian Monk Seal Response Team Oahu, was trying to raise $100,000 for Ho‘ailona’s trip home and subsequent care and housing, as well as for research to aid in the conservation of Hawaiian monk seals.
When we contacted the group, we were referred to Goo, who said the fundraiser was for a marine mammal hospital in Kona and not specifically for Ho‘ailona.
Hawaiian monk seals are an endangered species, with only about 1,100 found in the Northwestern and main Hawaiian Islands.
Question: What are the plans for the fountain in front of the Board of Water Supply building at 630 S. Beretania St., which has not had water for a long time? Will it ever be restored and operate again?
Answer: Not anytime soon.
The fountain, once the symbol of Oahu’s fresh, clean water supply, now is there to remind passersby of the need to conserve and efficiently use water.
The BWS began shutting off the fountain temporarily during the summer in 2001 to conserve water and to serve as an example of water conservation.
An August 2001 news release noted that the fountain used nonpotable water from a cap rock source in the area.
“More recently, the BWS made a conscious decision to keep its fountain off throughout the year in a continued effort to encourage customers to conserve water,” said spokeswoman Tracy Burgo.
There are no immediate plans to restart the fountain, she said.
In the meantime, the BWS is evaluating needed repairs to the pump system “in the future event that the fountain is put back into operation,” she said.
Auwe
To whoever took my son’s oboe as he was coming home from school at 3:05 p.m. Aug. 31, on the Route 85 bus from Manoa to Kailua. He was ready to get off the bus when he discovered the oboe he plays in the school band was gone. It is a Yamaha model 410 in a black case. Please show kokua for a 13-year-old boy responsible for the cost of his missing oboe. If anyone has information, please contact us at shoocat2012@gmail.com. — Looking for Missing Oboe
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Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
