Fishpond | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 20, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Loko Nui o Wailupe

In ancient Hawai‘i, fishponds were an integral part of the ahupua‘a. Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters, to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

The ancient Hawaiian fishpond is a sophisticated land and ocean resource management technique. Utilizing raw materials such as rocks, corals, vines and woods, the Hawaiians created great walls (kuapā) and gates (mākāhā) for these fishponds.

It is reported that there were 488 fishponds statewide, however only about 60 fishponds remain recognizable today.

Thirteen fishponds have been restored statewide, with six ponds currently in use: three on Molokai, one on the island of Hawai‘i and two on O‘ahu.

Reportedly, O‘ahu alone had 97 fishponds, but only six accessible ponds remain today and all are located on the windward side.

In 1848, when King Kamehameha III pronounced the Great Māhele, or land distribution, Hawaiian fishponds were considered private property by landowners and by the Hawaiian government.

This was confirmed in subsequent Court cases that noted “titles to fishponds are recognized to the same extent and in the same manner as rights recognized in fast land.”

Some coastal fishponds are privately owned. Over the years, many of them have been filled and, typically, developed with houses.

Loko Nui o Wailupe, the large fishpond at Wailupe, was simply called “Wailupe fishpond” or “big pond” in Boundary Commission records (it was also referenced as Punakou Pond).

The pond covered an overall area of approximately 41-acres. Its perimeter wall was approximately 2,500 feet long; it had four mākāhā (sluice gates.) The typical section of the wall was approximately 2-feet thick.

It was claimed as Crown land together with the Punakou spring (Punakou spring was formerly on the mauka side of Wailupe fishpond.)

Wailupe Pond is an example of an ancient fishpond that was subsequently filled and developed. It was one of a few historic fishponds that were built on the shore of Maunalua Bay.

Some of the others include Niu, now Niu Peninsula and Kuapā at Hawaii Kai, now Hawaii Kai Marina.

The pond lay within the Wailupe ahupua‘a owned by the Hind family. Apparently, the tsunami of 1946 severely damaged the seaward walls of the pond.

The Hinds then sold the property to Lowell Dillingham (owner of Hawaiian Dredging Company) who lived nearby.

In 1947, Robert Hind, Ltd began developing Wailupe Valley as the residential community of ‘Āina Haina. In 1948, in conjunction with the development of the valley, the Hawaiian Dredging Company, owner of the historic fishpond, converted it into a residential subdivision.

A deep channel (depth of approximately 12 to 20 feet) was dredged around the pond, as well as a channel through the reef to the open ocean) and dredge material filled in the pond, creating what is now Wailupe Peninsula (commonly referred to Wailupe Circle.)

The fishpond was filled with more than half a million cubic yards of coral (the at-grade elevation of the Peninsula is approximately five feet above mean sea level (msl.))

When the boat channel was dredged, a narrow margin of shallow reef (approximately 10 to 20-feet wide) was left to remain between the perimeter seawall and the boat channel.

Times and land uses have changed. What once was a fishpond is now a residential community; Wailupe Pond is an illustration of that.

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Maunalua-(Wailupe)-Aerial-(2448)-1952-portion

Wailupe_Pond-Hind-Clarke_Dairy-(BishopMuseum-CulturalSurveys)-1933

MaunaluaBayCirca1935

Oahu-Population_Centers-Map-1853-(note_relative_population_at_Wailupe)

Diamond_Head_to_Koko_Head-Jackson-Reg1293 (1883)-portion

South_Shore-Barbers_Pt-Diamond_Head-Hawaii_Kai-Kailua-Heeia-Reg1834 (1892)-portion

Wailupe_Pond-Reg2167-tracing-(1903)

Wailupe_Pond-USGS_Map-1934

Map of the island of Maunalua, O’ahu from 1938

April 11, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nuʻupia Pond

Mōkapu Peninsula was divided into three ahupua‘a – Kailua, Kāne‘ohe and He‘eia – these were extensions of the ahupua‘a across the large basin of Kāne‘ohe Bay.

The original name of the peninsula “Moku-Kapu” was derived from two Hawaiian words: “moku” (island) and “kapu” (sacred or restricted.) “Mokapu” is the contraction of “Moku Kapu” which means “Sacred or Forbidden Island.”

In ancient times, three ponds separated Mōkapu Peninsula from the rest of Kaneohe: Nuʻupia, Halekou and Kalupuhi Fishponds, they date to between 1300-1600 AD.

Prior to Polynesian settlement, the ponds were thought to be either a shallow open channel between Kāneʻohe and Kailua Bays, making Mōkapu an island, or an embayment off Kāneʻohe Bay with Mōkapu connected to Oʻahu by a thin coastal barrier dune.

In either case, the Hawaiian settlers used this shallow open water area by subdividing it into several fishponds and a salt-making area, separated by hand-built coral and rock walls.

The ponds were later subdivided by Chinese fishermen who leased the ponds to raise mullet and milkfish; over the years there were up to 18 ponds.

Some of the old dividing walls still remain their shape, but now there are eight ponds: Nuʻupia Ekahi, Nuʻupia Elua, Nuʻupia Ekolu, Nuʻupia Eha, Halekou, Heleloa, Paʻakai and Kaluapuhi.

Late-19th and early 20th-century cattle grazing over most of the Mōkapu Peninsula contributed to erosion and sedimentation, and creation of extensive mudflats.

The ponds are generally referred as Nuʻupia Ponds and are an important site for native and migratory waterfowl, shorebirds and seabirds.

Night heron, koloa, coots, stilts, moorhen, pacific golden plovers, black noddies, great frigatebirds and a large variety of migratory shorebirds, waterbirds and seabirds all utilize the wetland area. Wedge-tailed Shearwaters use the dune areas adjacent to the wetland.

Under military use since World War II, Nuʻupia Ponds became critical stilt habitat that aided their recovery from near extinction. Habitat loss and hunting throughout Hawai’i reduced stilt numbers to about 200 birds statewide by the early-1940s.

A ban on hunting prior to World War II permitted the partial recovery of the population and a high of 128 stilts was recorded in 1948 at Nuʻupia Ponds. There was also a period in late-1957 and early-1958 when, for unknown reasons, no birds were found.

Stilt populations on Oʻahu, including those at Nuʻupia Ponds, have shown a steady increase coincident with active habitat management since the 1980s. About 10 percent of the approximately 1,500 Hawaiian stilts native to the state are found here.

Red mangrove seeds first entered in the area in the early-1970s through culverts connecting the pond complex to adjoining bays. By 1974, the mangrove trees had become a pest species. Mangroves cover intertidal soft substrate in most of the tropics, but are not native to Hawaiʻi.

Red mangroves were first introduced to Hawaiʻi from Florida in 1902 to mitigate erosion after the destruction of coastal vegetation on the island of Molokai by humans and livestock.

In response to that, the Marines turned a nuisance into a training operation.

The 30-year-long Mud Ops exercise has Marine vehicles plowing a checkerboard mosaic of mud mounds surrounded by protective moats of water, providing cover from predators, controlling invasive plant growth and providing birds better access to nesting and feeding grounds.

Today, the ponds are part of the 482-acre Nuʻupia Ponds Wildlife Management Area within the Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi.

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This circa 1940 shows Nuupia Ponds and the Naval Air Station at the bottom left. USMC photo.

Mokapu_USGS_Quadrangle-Mokapu-Kailua-1928-(portion)

Mokapu-(Kailua_Side)-UH-Manoa-2444-1952

Mokapu_Peninsula_and_Kaneohe_Bay

Marine-Mud_Ops

Marine_Mud_Ops

March 3, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kāne‘ohe Bay Dredging

The earliest modifications to the natural marine environment of Kāne‘ohe Bay were those made by the ancient Hawaiians.

The construction of walled fishponds along the shore was perhaps the most obvious innovation.

The development of terraces and a complex irrigation network for the cultivation of taro no doubt had an effect on stream flow, reducing total runoff into the Bay.

In general, however, it can be stated that these early changes did not greatly modify the marine environment that existed when man first arrived in the area.

However, dredging in the Bay did.

Records of dredging permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers began in 1915.

Almost all of the early permits were for boat landings, piers and wharves, including the 1,200-foot wharf at Kokokahi and the 500-ft wharf at Moku-o-Loe (Coconut Island) for Hawaiian Tuna Packers (in 1934.)

Although some dredging was involved in the construction of piers and small boat basins, probably the first extensive dredging was done in 1937 when 56,000 cubic yards were dredged “from the coral reef in Kāne‘ohe Bay” by the Mokapu Land Co., Ltd.

The great bulk of all reef material dredged in Kāne‘ohe Bay was removed in connection with the construction at Mokapu of the Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station (now Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i) between 1939 and 1945.

Dredging for the base began on September 27, 1939, and continued throughout World War II. A bulkhead was constructed on the west side of Mokapu Peninsula, and initial dredged material from the adjacent reef flat was used as fill behind it.

In November 1939, the patch reefs in the seaplane take-off area in the main Bay basin were dredged to 10-feet (later most were taken down to 30-feet.)

Other early dredging was just off the northwest tip of the peninsula, near the site of the “landing mat” (runway.) The runway was about half complete at the time of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.

It appears that a fairly reliable total of dredged material is 15,193,000 cubic yards.

(Do the Math … Let’s say the common dump truck load is 10 cubic yards … that’s a million and an half truckloads of dredge material.)

During the war there had been some modifications of the ponds on Mokapu Peninsula, but the shore ponds around the perimeter of the Bay were spared.

However, from 1946 to 1948 (mostly in 1947) nine fishponds with a total area of nearly 60 acres, were filled, eight of them located in Kāne‘ohe ahupua‘a in the southern portion of the Bay.

In the Great Māhele, Hawaiian fishponds were considered private property by landowners and by the Hawaiian government.

This was confirmed in subsequent Court cases that noted “titles to fishponds are recognized to the same extent and in the same manner as rights recognized in fast land.”

Many of the filled fishponds were developed into residential uses (I’ll have more on fishponds in general and some specific ones in future posts.)

There are now only 12 walled fishponds remaining of the 30 known to have once existed in Kāne‘ohe Bay and a number of these have only partial remains and are not immediately recognizable as fishponds.

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Kaneohe_Bay_Dredging-1941

Mokapu-Peninsula-before-MCAS-dredging-1938.

Dredging Kaneohe Bay-1942

Kaneohe_Bay-Aerial-(2277)-1968

Kaneohe_Bay-Kailua-Aerial-(2096)-1976 – areas with partial dredging

kaneohe-Bay-Aerial-3

March 24, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Loko

The beginning date for the construction of fishponds in ancient Hawaii is unknown. The builder of the first pond is traditionally reputed to be Ku’ula-kai, “who lived in an undated period of heroes and gods”.

Since fishponds were commonplace in legendary literature attributed to the 14th through the 19th centuries, it is conjectured that they were developed sometime prior to AD 1400.

The Hawaiian fishpond was primarily a grazing area in which the fishpond keeper cultivated algae for his fish; much in the way a cattle rancher cultivates grass for his cattle.

A natural food chain can be expected to produce a ratio of 10:1 in terms of the conversion of one link by another. 10,000-kg of algae make 1,000-kg of tiny crustaceans, which in turn make 100-kg of small fish. These 100-kg of small fish then produce 10-kg of large fish, which when eaten by humans make 1-kg of human flesh.

Hawaiian ponds “are closer to the following: 10,000 pounds of algae and detritus make 1,000 pounds of herbivorous fish; 1,000 pounds of herbivorous fish make about 100 pounds of carnivorous fish, or man”. (Hiatt; Kelly)

Thus, herbivorous fish produced in Hawaiian fishponds provided man with protein 100-times more efficiently than the natural food chain.

Patient observation by Hawaiian fishermen of the habits of herbivorous fish (what and where they ate) was undoubtedly part of the great fund of knowledge held by Hawaiians about the sea and the plants and animals, which inhabit it.

‘Ama‘ama (grey mullet) was the most popular fish raised in Hawaiian walled seashore fishponds (awa (milk fish) was another).

Certainly, the Hawaiians recognized the value of walled fishponds and built them wherever conditions permitted. (Kelly) Pond types include:

Loko kuapa whose main characteristic is a seawall as its artificial enclosing feature and which usually contains one or more sluice gates.

Loko puʻuone (sometimes called loko hakuʻone), an isolated shore pond usually formed by a barrier beach building a single elongated sand ridge parallel to the coast.

Loko wai, a freshwater fishpond located inland from the shore.

Loko i’a kalo, another inland fishpond which utilized an irrigated taro plot (fish were grown in the waters flowing among the earth mounds planted with taro corms).

Loko ʻume ʻiki is similar in shape and construction to loko kuapa, however, it is a fishtrap characterized by numerous stone flanked lanes which led fish into netting areas with the ebb and flow of the tide. This last type is also the only pond where women were permitted to net.

The first three types were royal fishponds in the sense they were owned exclusively by the ruling chiefs and managed by a caretaker, or kiaʻi loko, or in some cases by a lesser chief, the konohiki, who served as a managerial overseer of both the pond and the adjacent agricultural lands.

The latter two types of ponds, while technically owned by the ruling chiefs, were the domain of families with makaʻāinana (commoner) access. Commoners’ rights to the harvest, however, were never independent of the chief’s.

The most important of the shore ponds was the loko kuapa which consisted of an arc-shaped wall extending out from the shore onto a reef flat and back again; these ranged in area from one acre to over 500 acres.

The mortar less walls were constructed of basalt cobbles and blocks, and coral fragments. These were usually several yards thick and projected about one yard above the highest tide level. Only a high chief could command the labor necessary to construct such monumental structures.

The spaces in the mortarless masonry walls made them permeable and served to reduce stress from tidal, wave, and current energy. The construction of seaward versus interior pond wall flanks was equally sophisticated.

Seaward flanks were inclined slopes which further permitted the seawall to withstand wave energy and to absorb, per square inch, more energy than a more vertical alignment.

In 1848, when King Kamehameha III pronounced the Great Māhele, or land distribution, Hawaiian fishponds were considered private property by landowners and by the Hawaiian government.

This was confirmed in subsequent Court cases that noted “titles to fishponds are recognized to the same extent and in the same manner as rights recognized in fast land.”

Because of their location in the coastal zone, Hawaiian fishponds are controlled by a regulatory framework where County, State and Federal agencies each exercise some degree of control over activities associated with the pond.

There is a separate chapter in the State laws (Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes – HRS §183B) that deal with fishponds. Under certain circumstances, reconstruction, restoration, repair or use of any Hawaiian fishpond are exempt from the requirements of chapter §343 (environmental review laws.) (Information her is primarily from Kelly and NPS.)

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Fish_Ponds_at_Honoruru,_Oahu,_by_John_Murray,_after_Robert_Dampier-(WC)-1836

Punaluu Fishpond bulging in the center-1930s-600

Molii Fishpond-in-background-over pineapple rice-1890-600

Kupapa_(Niu)_Fishpond-StateArchives-1925

Fishpond_in_east_Molokai-(WC)

Fishpond Kailua side of Libbyville-1924

Loko Wai-Alekoko Fishpond-(malamahuleia)-1912

Alekoko Fishpond Wall-(Baker)

Alekoko Fishpond – still in use-KHS-1934

December 17, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Aina Momona

Talk to any rancher and he’ll typically say he’s growing grass, not cattle. The more grass he can grow, the more cattle he can have to harvest it.

So, too, with Hawaiian fishponds; but instead of grass, the pond grows algae. The more algae grown, the more shrimp to eat it, and small animals to eat the shrimp, and small and then larger fish to feed on the pondlife.

Practically every culture in the world has practiced aquaculture (cultivation of aquatic life forms to serve the food needs of man) in some degree.

Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Assyrians stocked artificial ponds with fish; Greeks and Romans raised oysters, and Romans raised eels. Early Germans bred freshwater fish in ponds. Carp culture spread from Asia Minor and by A.D. 700 was established in Europe. (Apple & Kikuchi)

Hawai‘i had intense true aquaculture. As far as is known, fishponds existed nowhere else in the Pacific in types and numbers as in prehistoric Hawai‘i.

Only in the Hawaiian Islands was there an intensive effort to utilize practically every body of water, from the seashore to the upland forests, as a source of food, either agriculturally or aquaculturally. (Apple & Kikuchi)

There were three main technological advances resulting in food production intensification in pre-contact Hawai‘i: (a) walled fishponds, (b) terraced pondfields with their irrigation systems and (c) systematic dry-land field cultivation organized by vegetation zones. (Kelly)

Hawaiian fishponds are more productive than the natural habitat of coastal reef. The primary fish selected for the ponds were herbivores, usually mullet (‘ama‘ama) and milkfish (awa.)

A fishpond is essentially a pasture, in which algae (limu) is raised as food for the selected herbivores. Cultivation of algae depends on managing the environment of the pond, including fresh water/salt water balance, adequate sunshine for algae growth and seasonal cleaning to allow a fresh growth of algae. (Hiatt; Kelly)

Since the types of algae that mullet consume grow best in brackish water. Hawaiian walled fishponds were often located (a) on the shoreline near the mouth of a stream, (b) where fresh water escapes in springs along the shore, or frequently (c) in the sea. (Kelly)

The general term for a fishpond is loko (pond), or more specifically, loko iʻa (fishpond). Loko iʻa were used for the fattening and storing of fish for food and also as a source for kapu (forbidden) fish.

Loko kuapā, what we consider the typical coastal fishpond, are artificially enclosed by an arc-shaped seawall and containing at least one sluice gate (mākāhā.)

Loko pu‘uone are formed by development of a barrier beach paralleling the coast, and connected to the ocean by a channel or ditch; it’s a shore fishpond containing either brackish or a mixture of brackish and fresh water.

“The large salt or brackish water ponds, entirely enclosed, have one, two or four gates called mākāhā. These are of straight sticks tied on to two or three cross beams the sticks in the upright standing as closely as possible, so that no fish half an inch in thickness can pass them, while the water and young fry can pass freely in and out.” (McDonald)

“After five or six months fish would begin to be seen in the loko kuapā. During the high tides of ʻOle (ʻOle kai nui) the people who took care of the pond would rejoice to see the fish moving toward the kuapa walls, like waves of a rough sea, until the sluice, makaha, was filled with fish.”

“If the depth of the water at the sluice were a yard or more, the width of the mākāhā an anana, and the thickness of the kuapā walls an anana, this area would be filled with fish, piled one over the other until the fish at the top were dry; if a stone were placed on them it would not sink.” (Kamakau)

Fishponds, loko i‘a, were things that beautified the land, and a land with many fishponds was called a ‘fat’ land (‘āina momona.) They date from ancient times. (Kamakau)

It is not known when Hawaiian fishponds began to be constructed, but some fishpond walls have been carbon-dated to the 1400s. An estimate of 340–360 Hawaiian fishponds was noted for the period before the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.

An inventory in the early 1900s found 360 loko i‘a in the islands and identified 99 active ponds with an estimated annual production total of about 680,000 pounds, including 486,000 pounds of ‘ama‘ama and 194,000 pounds of ‘awa.

Loko i‘a were extensive operating systems that produced an average of 400–600 pounds per acre per year, a significant amount considering the minimal amount of fishpond ‘input’ and maintenance effort apparent by that time. (Keala)

‘Āina Momona performed by Kawika Kahiapo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH5Jg9l79OM

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