Mapping a Marine Menace

Armed with GPS units, yardsticks and clipboards, Molokai volunteers and Oahu scientists spent three days last week peering into the island’s shallow south shore waters, looking for an invasive alien algae known as gorilla ogo.
The migrating algae, subject to wind and tides, has settled into Molokai waters and is threatening reef life.
“It can just take over an entire area and become the dominant species,” said Brian Neilson, aquatic invasive species biologist for the state’s Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR). “It overcrowds native limu, and it can grow over coral colonies and smother and kill coral.”
Before any removal efforts can begin, however, residents needed to identify the areas of the shoreline most under siege.…











