By ODA Advisory Board Member Marjorie Zensen

Finally! Twenty ODA volunteers reached the top of Pololū Valley after finishing up our months-long project of extracting huge amounts of ghost netting and ropes!

Including today March 9th, our amazing ODA volunteers extracted just under FOUR TONS of abandoned fishing gear!

You should click the photo to the right to enlarge it and see how magnifent this place is.

I’m starting with the end of the story here…After hoofing up and down the steep path for several hours, we were all gathering our breath, throwing heavy packs of debris onto a pile, when a visitor walked by and informed us that a monk seal just beached!  This is just one of many reasons we need to keep the oceans and beaches debris free! A monk seal!

According to NOAA, the Hawaiian monk seal is one of the most endangered seal species in the world and has the highest documented entanglement rate of any pinniped species. There are roughly 1500 monk seals found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago which ranges from Hawai’i Island to Kure Atoll, a distance of 1,500 miles. Monk seals haul-out to rest, molt, give birth, and nurse. 

One of the rangers at Pololū said there had been a haul-out just days before but could not find an ID tag on the seal.  So, Mark and I decided to hike back down, walk to the far end of the beach to take a look and get some photos to report. We also could see no tags, scars or any other strong identifying marks. The monk seal was beautiful and perfect!

The cool thing was that the area of beach it hauled out of was the same area where we had previously spent a lot of time removing a large pile of ghost net and rope. I was very glad that we had cleaned up the beach for our friend. And don’t worry – it’s common for these animals to beach themselves to rest. Mr. Monk Seal surely went back to the water after his reprieve!

But back to the day’s haul! 

Today, our energetic volunteers were: Robert Baikie, Ryan Barr, Josh and Carl Cooper, Scott and Heidi Culbertson, Kate Elliott, Mark England, Jack Mead, Jeff and Sarah Milisen, Tony Sepanski, Brian Sward, Charles Watson, Tony White, Sheila and Jerry Wroblowski, Pamela Zagar, and me (Marjorie Zensen).

Since this was our 6^th trip to this debris site, we knew full well what to expect, so we were able to brief everyone on exactly what we were about to confront.

We told the volunteers that the last time we were here at the valley, we carried up the trail a huge quantity of waterlogged ghost netting and rope. In fact, it was 4,200 pounds worth of it! Here's a photo documenting our "take" that day:

This was our January 2025 cleanup here at Pololu Valley.

Waterlogged it weighs almost twice as much. Quite the effort! We finished that day in January by pulling out the last mounds of debris from the river onto the bank and leaving it to dry. The plan was to go back another day and haul the debris up when it had thoroughly dried. It is so, so much easier to carry dry debris up a steep trail!

I’m happy to report that on this March day, we finished removing that massive bundle of ghost net! The last dry 350 pounds.

On our final day of removing 7,300 pounds of debris. Here's our ODA Conservation Crew with their Catch of the Day!

Some of our volunteers scoured the rocky beach for more debris and trash which they collected and hauled up to the parking lot for removal. Plastic baskets, squid jigs, toothbrushes, and lots of random pieces of plastic were thrown into bags to be disposed of properly. And for now, at least, the beach is safe for our monk seal friend to rest.

Mahalo to our 20 ODA volunteers, new and old! Many hands make light work!

If you'd like to help make light work of removing more debris, either join us if you can OR you can help from home by making a donation to keep our operations going!