July 4, 2019
THIRTIETH TURTLE INDEPENDENCE DAY MAUNA LANI The Thirtieth Annual Mauna Lani Bay Turtle Release. The Mauna Lani Bay Hotel has been under new ownership and undergoing renovation since last years 29th Turtle Independence Day Celebration. The hotel is still undergoing renovation and, as a result, there was no "official" turtle release planned for this year. In an effort to make sure the program goes on without interruption, Pi'i Laeha, the long time turtle program curator, decided to release two turtles with no official public involvement (it was just too hard to do anything large with the construction going on). As part of the independence day release, HPA's Sea Turtle Research Program personnel assist by doing the final weighing and measuring of the turtles to be released. This year, Laura Jim brought her HPA Summer School SCUBA students down to assist in the process. We did all of the weighing and measuring at 1000 h on July 4th and the official