Ohiapilo Wetland, located four miles west of Kaunakakai Town on the Island of Molokai, is a mitigation wetland owned by the County of Maui. The wetland’s two large ponds and canal empty and fill depending on time of year, tides and rainfall. Ohiapilo is being maintained as a bird sanctuary, with the purpose of providing feeding and nesting grounds for a number of Hawaii’s native waterbirds, including the endangered Hawaiian Stilt and Hawaiian Coot.
Botulism outbreaks are the biggest fear. Sudden drops in water levels cause massive fish die-offs. Maggots in the decomposing fish contain the toxic bacteria, and are eaten by the endangered birds, causing death. In addition, rapid growing non-native invasive plants choke out available nesting areas. It is very important that we gain an understanding of the role of water (hydrology) and vegetation at the site.

Oceanit is taking an innovative approach to the monitoring and maintenance activities at the wetland:
Oceanit has installed sophisticated water level sensors in shallow wells at the site that sense water pressure and temperature. From these sensors, we can tell when pulses of water originating from heavy rainfall in the mountains, flowing below ground, arrive at Ohiapilo. This information will assist us the in the re-design of the ponds in efforts to control water levels so that further botulism outbreaks can be prevented.
Oceanit is using weatherproof hand-held PDA’s with GIS/GPS to track the areas cleared by mowing and spraying. Oceanit has gone Paperless in the field! All notes are taken in the PDA and automatically uploaded into reports at the office. Nesting activities and bird territories are also being tracked in the GIS. While each by itself provides valuable information for tracking progress of the work, what’s even more interesting is that when the information is combined it shows nesting activities increasing significantly in areas cleared of the invasive weeds!

Tobias (Toe BE us) Koehler joined Oceanit in 2005 as an Environmental Scientist and Botanist. Tobias completed his undergraduate degree in Biology at UC Berkeley, and his Masters Degree in Botany from UH Manoa. At Oceanit, Tobias oversees various environmental projects ranging from vegetation surveys to water quality monitoring, and specializes in wetland restoration.