Why are NOAA and the DLNR Lying about Laniakea Sea Turtle Harassment in the News?

From:  Terry Lilley
Date: August 22, 2021
To:      respectwildlife@noaa.gov
Cc:      Martina Sagapolu - NOAA
Thomas Kearns - NOAA
Irene Kelly – NOAA
Suzanne Case – DLNR
Kai Kahele – U.S. Congressman
Sean Quinlan - Hawaii State Representative

If I were a news outlet, I would be a little bit upset with the false stories they published two days ago about the sea turtle harassment and Endangered Species Act violations happening daily at Laniakea Beach by large groups of tourists. 

In the news stories, the DLNR and NOAA said that they would enforce the laws on the tourists at Laniakea and that they would have patrols on the beach to protect the sea turtle resting sites.  Not one bit of that turned out to be true.

An average of 800 tourists a day are bombarding the small, very unsafe beach trying to take selfies with the sea turtles. Yesterday there was a line of over 250 tourists at one time standing in the waves and on the rocks "changing the behavior" of the sea turtles that were trying to come up onto the beach to rest, as they have done for tens of thousands of years. The massive wall of unmasked tourists chased the turtles back out into the sea and as normal I caught it all on video. At one time there were 60 tourists that completely surrounded a single sea turtle in the shallow water, so the turtle had no direction to escape!

Being surrounded by 60 large predators will "change your behavior" and the whole reason the ESA was written was to keep this from happening to our Endangered Species. 

The DLNR and NOAA told the news that when the tourists "change the behavior" of the sea turtles, they are violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and should be prosecuted. The government asked the public (myself) to send in pictures and videos of the ESA violations, of which I have done with ZERO response from NOAA or the DLNR.

Tour vans dropped hundreds of people off at Laniakea Beach yesterday and they all climbed down the rocks and went directly out onto the reef to scare away the turtles by trying to take selfies! DOT said in the TV news broadcast that the tour vans cannot stop at Laniakea.

This is just the Wild West out here on the North Shore and the tens of thousands of tourists do not have to wear masks and they can violate our wildlife laws at will with no consequences. Then our government tells the public in the news that this is all illegal and they will take care of the problem, but that is just a lie as they never even show up at the beach. 

Why even have COVID mask laws and wildlife harassment laws when they are not enforced on the tourist? 

Here are more pics out of my videos from yesterday showing hundreds of tourists "changing the behavior" of our protected sea turtles. By the way the cops just drove by Laniakea and did not even stop although they could see hundreds of unmasked tourists all together on the beach but when we had a peaceful demonstration at Laniakea two weeks ago to save the turtles, over 12 cop cars showed up!

Aloha,

Terry Lilley
Marine Biologist