Most people are not fond of snails. Snails are known as serious garden and agricultural pests. Some like to eat them, but most of us think of them as slimy critters. The native Hawaiian snails however deserve a second look. While one type of native Hawaiian snail is affectionately called “Snot with a Hat” by malacologists like Lisa Hadway, othe...
This summer the Pope and I came to an understanding. If you account for a Supreme Being, he said, the Vatican doesn’t have a problem with evolutionary theory. He went further to suggest that to view “life in terms of an ‘ongoing creation’ is a scenario that makes increasing sense, scientifically and theologically.” Rea...
Let’s take a quick ride over the Saddle Road. It is a stunning and scenic fifty miles that crosses over the island between the great volcanic mountains Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Though it passes through a large expanse of Parker Ranch, Saddle Road is not named for our paniolo heritage....
Hualalai is my favorite volcano. Kohala is so eroded and covered in green it lacks that volcanic bite. Mauna Kea is too cluttered with cows and cinder cones. Mauna Loa is so smooth, broad, and immense as to be overwhelming. And Kilauea is too accessible. Hualalai on the other hand has great well balanced features: wonderfully diverse native forest,...
Last month a bunch of bird people were in Hilo. They attended the 67th Annual Meeting of the Coopers Society. The Coopers Society publishes The Condor, one of the prestigious journals for ornithological research. Professional researchers, government officials, land managers, and conservationists all came to network, hear presentations on new resear...
In 1993 nearly five hundred hikers hit the trail and walked the entire length of the Ala Kahakai in one day. This “trail by the sea” runs two hundred miles from Upolu Point in Kohala to the Hilo side of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The event that brought these hikers together was National Trails Day, an annual nation-wide celebration...
Speleological, stalactites, stalagmites, troglobites, chemoautotropic the glossary of the underworld is intimidating. So is a descent thirty feet down on a six-inch-wide cable ladder into a dark, unknown hole in the forest....
Let your imagination run wild. Visualize a subterranean world, literally underfoot. Tiny cracks in rock a millimeter wide, empty pockets once filled with volcanic gases, wider crack passages which may fit your thumb and even a hand, and also picture large caves that run for miles....
