Inside Editorial Board

In the last issue, John Clark wrote about the anae holo, or the annual migration of mullet around the island of Oahu. People remember the fantastic sight of huge travelling schools of mullet from the days of their youth or heard of it in stories like John’s and today ask “where have the mullet gone?”. But maybe the question should really be “where can they go?”. Sadly, too many blame their disappearance on overfishing in spite of the fact that every year, for hundreds of years, the Hawaiian people waited in locations all around the island and caught them in astounding numbers and amounts enough to feed villages. Every year the mullet ran this gauntlet around the island and every year, they returned in the same numbers. Towards the end of John’s article, however, one of the most significant but yet way too overlooked causes of the mullet’s decline is mentioned - the loss of the mullet’s habitat.

In 1900, the island of Oahu had a total of 100 documented, working fishponds, providing thousands of pounds of fish for the community throughout the year. One of the main harvests was mullet because the combination of freshwater and shallow sand or mud flats that the ponds created were ideal for growing the limu eleele and other algae that mullet fed off of.  Data from that same time indicates thousands of pounds of various fish, in addition to mullet, were harvested from these ponds. However, in addition to the actual loss of the areas, the concept of interconnection between all of the fishponds and estuaries has also been lost.  Each pond or area around the island, especially the large expanses, had a role in sustaining the life cycle of the natural fish population. Also in some cases there were said to be underground connections between the ponds. Fish warden Kanae noted in the 30’s that there was an underground lava tube connecting Kaelepulu Pond and Kuapa. When the mullet would disappear from one pond, the pond keepers noticed that the awa or milkfish would reappear and vice versa.

If you take a drive around the island today, starting on the east end, you will pass by countless former fishpond sites, starting with what was once one of Hawaii’s largest, Kuapa Pond. The original name of this pond was Keahupua-o-Maunalua, for the heiau or shrine that was dedicated to the baby mullet.  At one time 523 acres, most of what was the shallow but expansive pond is filled in today and a marina was dredged to make up the community now known as Hawaii Kai. Continuing west, you will find the subdivisions of Niu Peninsula and Wailupe Peninsula, both former fish ponds filled in with coral dredged to create boat channels around each. Along Oahu’s south shore, immensely large expanses of man-made ponds and naturally formed estuaries stretching from Waikiki to Pearl Harbor were all filled in to accommodate the attraction of seaside living for residents, the tourist industry and military interests.  The same fate occurred with ancient fishponds and natural springs that once dotted the shoreline from the Leeward Coast (Ted Makalena Golf Course, spring fed sinkholes in the Ewa Plain) to the North Shore (Waialua, Haleiwa) and around to the Windward side (Laie, Kahana, Kualoa). Most notable of all were the series of large individual fishponds within the protected waters of Kaneohe Bay, which made up 30% of all Oahu’s ponds in 1901. Most of them and many other smaller ponds were filled in for homes, their names remembered only in Windward streets such as Ka Hanahou and Mahalani Circles and Miomio Loop. And finally, the area formerly known as Kaelepulu was also dredged deeper and reconfigured to create the communities of Enchanted Lake and Kailua.

With few exceptions, all of these areas which were once working fishponds or natural estuaries that provided spawning and nursery grounds for fish like the mullet have been permanently removed or altered. Today they are places where people call home and conduct their business or play. They have all been filled in and built on. Of the few that do remain, most were left untended for years, overgrowing with mangrove and producing far below their potential. Fortunately, two in Kaneohe Bay are being restored.

Less known is that many of the fishpond locations were selected for their natural freshwater spring and stream outlet features. There is no question that these freshwater outlets provided the basis of the unique Hawaiian ecosystem, starting with elemental water chemistry that sustained various types of limu and fish that people remember in abundance not so long ago. Yet, not only were these pond and estuary sites filled in but the springs and outlets, the very lifelines of our Hawaiian ocean, were also carelessly cut off without any understanding of their role. The native green limu started to disappear and so did the fish. Today, high nutrients flowing from runoff and siltation go directly to the ocean through channelized streams that all developments used for drainage. This has given various species of alien algae a foothold and the ecosystem is very different from what it once was during the days of the anae holo.

In this issue, we hope to bring a better understanding of just how important the connection of fresh water and the ancient Hawaiian fishpond system was to the island ecosystem. John Clark brings you another compelling article on the subject of the loss of our lifeline, the freshwater springs and outlets that once existed in Waikiki. Chris Cramer of the Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center is also featured and writes about a more recent loss of the spring which once fed 200,000 gallons of freshwater a day into Maunalua Bay. The natural underground river that fed Kalauhaehae Fish Pond in Niu, Oahu was damaged during widening of Kalanianaole Highway to a 6 lane highway in the early 1990s. Chris also explains that while they are working to ensure the pond stays in the public trust for future generations to enjoy, their ultimate goal is to restore the spring flow to help bring back some of the habitat and, in turn, some of the life that once was. With the Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center’s efforts, we have a chance in our lifetime to reverse some of what was destroyed. Without question we think it is absolutely necessary to give them our full support and ask that our readers do too.