U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Neighbor Islands-rural O‘ahu, yesterday returned from a five-day trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands He reviewed current Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge conditions with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials before returning to O‘ahu from an educational
U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Neighbor Islands-rural O‘ahu, yesterday returned from a five-day trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
He reviewed current Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge conditions with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials before returning to O‘ahu from an educational and research expedition aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel Hi‘ialakai.
Case flew to Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals to review the existing Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge with officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There he joined an educational expedition in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that included teachers from O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Maui and the Big Island, aboard the Hi‘ialakai.
That expedition, the first Educator-At-Sea expedition organized by leaders with NOAA’s Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, began last Friday, with a return to Honolulu Harbor yesterday, Sunday, Aug. 21, after traveling to and from Tern Island, Nihoa and Mokumanamana.
Case took the trip three months after introducing legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would create the largest marine protected area in the world in the waters of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
“This expedition will provide me with a firsthand look at the most remote part of my district, which deserves the highest possible level of federal and international protection,” said Case. “Protecting this area would create an ‘Ocean Yellowstone,’ and preserve a place that is home to 70 percent of our nation’s coral reefs and 7,000 species.”
