Coral colonies grown at the state’s Coral Restoration Nursery have been planted at Hanauma Bay to repair coral that was damaged years before, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources said.
The DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources planted six, pyramid-shaped coral colonies that were grown at the nursery on Sand Island. The 17-inch colonies were taken from the nursery and placed on the southern side of the bay on April 4, the department said in a news release Wednesday.
The restoration project was initiated after a log damaged some of the coral in 2020.
“This is the first large-scale restoration project in the bay. We’re planting an endemic coral, called brown lobe coral. These are corals that grow faster and larger than they would in the ocean, so this helps with damage recovery,” said Christina Jayne, DAR’s coral nursery curator, in a statement.
The DLNR said that a team of six staff from DAR took the coral structures to Hanauma Bay and placed them in the water after identifying suitable sites. They used special adhesive to attach them to a rock at the bay.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the DAR staff conducted a pilot project to find out how the nursery-raised colonies would do in the bay.
“We saw really good results with those corals. They’re still out in the bay and doing well,” Jayne said.
The team will monitor the health of the newly placed coral colonies.
Lisa Bishop, president of the Friends of Hanauma Bay, said that the condition of Hanauma Bay has changed following the pandemic, which led to changes in the hours and number of visitors at the bay.
“The COVID closure taught all of us that there are some adverse impacts of over-visitation in places like Hanauma Bay,” she said in a statement.
If the restoration project is successful, Bishop said the group could consider more projects.
“We have to be very careful about what comes into a Marine Life Conservation District and depending on how these coral colonies do and if they thrive and reproduce well in the wild, I think we can open the door to other kinds of projects like this. Not just in Hanauma Bay, but all over the state,” she said.
