by Kayla Rabey
Introduction
This summer I had the amazing opportunity to intern with Hawaii Marine Animal Response on the island of Oahu, Hawaii! Working with the organization’s Operations Support Program (OSP) and Field Support & Rescue Program (FSRP), I learned so much about Hawaii’s native and endemic species, specifically the Hawaiian monk seal, green sea turtle, hawksbill turtle, and shearwater seabird. Connecting with many of HMAR’s staff and departmental partnerships also gave me useful insights into the environmental industry and the variety of positions within marine biology that I could pursue as a career.
Key Experiences
My first day of training gave me a unique and unusually special experience for new interns – I accompanied field staff to Oahu’s Marine Corps Base (MCBH), only accessible with a military pass, where we surveyed a relocated monk seal (Pa’aki) and collected a hawksbill turtle carcass to be dropped off at the Department of Fish and Wildlife freezer. Since hawksbills are rarer around the Hawaiian Islands, it was an incredibly lucky opportunity to see one, and my field staff let me know that a lot of organizations were chatting about this pickup because it was a hawksbill in such pristine condition! The rest of the turtle rescues and carcass collections I did during my internship were for green sea turtles, the more common species in Hawaii. I helped collected a huge 98 cm deceased green sea turtle with a team of 3 volunteers and one field staff. The other turtles I was dispatched to help rescue, but retrieval was unfortunately unsuccessful because access to the turtle was too difficult.
The bulk of my role in Field Support and Rescue was seal dispatch with outreach and education. When a seal hauled out on a beach with a significant amount of people, we would be sent to that beach to set up a Seal Resting Area (SRA) perimeter with our signs and rope to prevent people from accidentally disturbing the seal or aggravating them. While it was sometimes tricky to build and maneuver these perimeters on some of the smaller beaches, for the most part I spent my shifts talking with curious tourists and educating about our endemic monk seals! On days that I wasn’t called to a seal haul-out, I was often assigned to pup watch on Sand Island for mother seal Rocky and her pup, PO10 (‘Ili ‘Ili). This would be the most predictable type of day, where I’d arrive, find where the mom and pup were resting on the beach or swimming in the water, take photos for identification/records, and spend my shift standing watch and interacting with people who came by (including Oahu’s famed seal ladies). Pup watch was one of the most gratifying parts of the internship since I began when ‘Ili ‘Ili was only a couple weeks old, and just by the last week of my time in Hawaii, Rocky left him as he became a weaner so he could learn to live on his own! He was then relocated just a couple days before I left, and I got to see him on my last pup watch shift right before his relocation!
Shearwater surveys was also a cool project that I got to participate in by chance of my internship’s time of the year. Twice a year, HMAR goes to two of Oahu’s shearwater colonies to take a population count and monitor the progress of the birds. The second survey of the year took place while I was interning, so I got to accompany the team to both colonies and interact with the birds! To determine if a shearwater bury was occupied, we got close to the ground (careful not to step on the top of a burrow where it might collapse) and used a stick or our hand to reach into the entrance of a burrow and feel for the tug of a bird inside. It took us only an hour or so to complete the first colony, but almost a half-day to do the second since it was so large! It was amazing to meet all the volunteers and representatives of different government departments (like Fish and Wildlife or City Water Management) who came out to participate.
Skills and Knowledge Gained
This summer truly jumpstarted me into the realm of field work for environmental science. Not only did I learn so much about these endemic species that I had no previous experience working with, but I also got to know a lot more about how careers in the conservation industry can be made and pursued. It was fascinating to meet so many people on such different paths within this singular field, and even learning about the lives of visitors on the beach was very intriguing! The best soft skills I developed with HMAR were maintaining patience and a calm demeanor when working with the public and conservation as whole, because more often than not positivity and encouragement will get you farther in convincing people of the importance of what you are working for than retribution and anger. It was also nice to continue building my public speaking skills as I became less timid to approach strangers on the job to engage them in conversation and education on the animal I was watching. Being curious about others and asking questions has been one of my favorite things to do – even without realizing it was helping me gain a better understanding of Oahu’s monk seal realm – and has allowed me to build greater maps of information about my work, coworkers, and others I encounter along the way!
Impact of OKRs
My internship-related OKR was a great subconscious aid in my work interactions as I looked for opportunities to get the most experience out of my short time on the island. Intentionally working to advance myself and my participation throughout my time allowed me to gain the most information about Hawaii’s marine animals, the island’s politics/culture, and the environmental organizations that work there as I could. While I unfortunately couldn’t fully completely some of my key results due to circumstances being a bit bigger than my control over them, the intentions that drove me are what ended up making my experience so worthwhile and well-rounded! One of my OKRs – “Create a routine that I can settle into (with some flexibility) while optimizing my health and sleep, which will in turn increase my attentiveness and efficiency at work” – ended up being such a revelation for my productivity habits that I now hope to permanently maintain it in the school year and my life. I hadn’t had a consistent or early sleep schedule since sophomore year of high school, and returning to that for this internship felt so rewarding and refreshing to me as a whole other way of living. I felt that my days were so much longer, and I could get so much more done as opposed to speed-running my nights on my phone or computer. Stemming from this, I was able to pick up favorite hobbies of mine that I had lost at the hands of social media, such as reading and surfing!
Lessons Learned
While I earned so much tangible knowledge and understand of these islands and their culture, systems, and animals during my internship, the most impactful thing that I know will stick with me for my future to come is that there are so many different career paths and ways that people find themselves in the positions they’re in. Taking time to explore different avenues and pursue a variety of options within your field of interest is truly the surest way to figure out what sparks your interest and passion in something. I came into my internship without any expectations for how it was going to go or how it would affect my academic planning, and yet I left wholeheartedly enthralled to be studying environmental science. Finally, for once I was no longer scared of a directionless, indecisive future and instead excited of all the options I could explore pursuing a field I love and find genuine fascination with.
Future Applications
What this internship revealed to me in just these five weeks was that I had made the right choice in dropping a track I was only interested in for the monetary gains (surprise surprise… pre-med) and instead taking the risk to pursue something I was strongly passionate about learning and working in. The change over a course of a summer is astounding – as I came back home from sophomore year I was plagued by worries and anxieties of what I was doing in life and where I was heading, because I couldn’t decide what mattered more to me: what I truly wanted to pursue or pleasing the idea of what others thought I should accomplish in my life ($). It took an internship all on my own out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to show me what really mattered in terms of how I want to live my life and how I want to make a difference in the world. And in the end I found that living through my passion was more important and intriguing to me than working unhappily to only sometimes experience that passion.
