Winter 2025 Season Wrap-Up
After more than a year living and working on Hōlanikū (Kure Atoll), our Field Crew Leader, Nick Minnich, shares reflections on the accomplishments, challenges, wildlife, and friendships that defined the Winter 2025 field season.
Through their shared dedication to this special place, the Winter 2025 field team grew in their conservation skills and as ʻohana while helping protect one of the world’s most ecologically significant and remote wildlife sanctuaries. From habitat restoration and marine debris removal to seabird monitoring and rare wildlife observations, the season was marked by hard work, meaningful discoveries, and a deep commitment to mālama ʻāina.
In the reflection below, Nick shares memories from daily life on Hōlanikū, highlights from the season, and the experiences that made this remarkable place feel like home.
Mahalo, Nick, for your leadership, dedication, and stewardship of Hōlanikū.
Aloha readers,
As the M/V Imua slowly makes its way to Hōlanikū (Kure Atoll), I figure now is the proper time to share our Winter 2025 (W25) accomplishments, some fond memories, and overall reflections on the last 390 or so days that I’ve spent here. Let’s jump back all the way to May 2025, which might not seem too long ago for some folks—but feels like forever ago to me!
I arrived with the summer crew in May ’25 with two other members from the W25 crew—Jordan, who left just over a month ago, and Kayla, who is still on the island with me. Delia would arrive later in October, completing our W25 crew.
As we arrived, Black-footed Albatross / Kaʻupu and Laysan Albatross / Mōlī chicks were continuing to grow and journeying further from their nest bowls in search of their returning parents and a fresh meal of squid and stomach oil. Bonin Petrel / Nunulu chicks were growing rapidly and Wedge-tailed Shearwater / ʻUaʻu kani were setting up their nests. Christmas Shearwater / ʻAoʻū were incubating their eggs, and shrub-nesting Great Frigatebird / ʻIwa and Red-footed Booby / ʻĀ eggs were hatching. Ground-nesting Brown and Masked Booby / ʻĀ also tended to their newly hatched young. It’s easy to remember what was going on a year ago because it’s the same thing that was going on three weeks ago!
We were spending hours transecting Greater Restoration Areas (GRAs) in search of Verbesina encelioides and were making progress. Though I’d been to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands before, learning the terrain and nuanced treatment approach here was difficult. Kure’s robust naupaka stands are great for shading seabirds, but not so easy to traverse through, over, or under.
Jordan and Kayla were learning new plants, birds, and fieldwork strategies. Looking back, I know I could’ve been a better teacher, but I’m thankful that they were able to learn fast and become the well-rounded biological science technicians that they are today. When Delia arrived in October, she too had to adapt quickly to the novel landscape, and she did so with composure and grace. I wish I knew better how to sing their praises, but I’m not the greatest writer. I will simply say that they rock and are exactly who I needed to be with during my time here.
There’s nothing that I enjoy more than sharing accomplishments, so here we go:
1. Habitat Restoration: Our crew has transected the entire island 11 times since the official start of our W25 season in October. We covered roughly 2,000 acres in that time period, removed over 2,300 individual Verbesina plants, and implemented a new staking program to better track active Verbesina locations.
2. Seabird Monitoring: Our crew implemented weekly ground-nesting booby monitoring and monitored 53 Masked Booby nests and 141 Brown Booby nests. We also successfully made population estimates for Tristram’s Storm-Petrel / ʻAkihikeʻehiʻale, Gray-backed Tern / Pākalakala, Red-tailed Tropicbird / Koaʻe ʻula, Great Frigatebird / ʻIwa, Christmas Shearwater / ʻAoʻū, Blue-billed White Tern / Manu-o-Kū, Sooty Tern / ʻEwaʻewa, and Black Noddy / Noio. We also counted all Laysan and Black-footed Albatross nests in December and fledglings this June. Population and reproductive success studies like these allow our organization to better manage habitat and inform other management decisions that support our robust seabird colony.
3. Laysan Duck / Koloa pōhaka Monitoring: Kure is one of only three locations in the world that hosts Laysan Ducks. Our population of Laysan Ducks is an important insurance population, and their well-being and success are key to the recovery of the species. It is imperative that our crew mitigates Avian Type-C Botulism outbreaks and other threats such as habitat loss, contaminants, and marine debris entanglement.
4. Marine Debris Removal: Since October, our crew has removed just under 10,000 pounds of marine debris, netting, and line. This also includes several active seabird entrapment hazards that we successfully mitigated. Nets and lines like these pose a serious threat to our resident Hawaiian Monk Seals / ʻĪlioholoikauaua, nesting seabirds, Spinner Dolphins / Naiʻa, and visiting honu.
5. Other Ecosystem Monitoring: Our crew conducted 13 shorebird surveys during the W25 season. Assessing shorebird presence is a great method for understanding the health of our beaches and the wealth of stopover and wintering habitat that our tiny island provides along one of the most heavily used migratory pathways in the world. We also conducted permitted Hawaiian Monk Seal surveys to estimate our resident population and the 2026 breeding cohort. Our team resighted just under 400 unique USGS bird bands, allowing us to better understand the demography of our seabirds. Most notably, we discovered that the oldest and third-oldest known Christmas Shearwaters in the world breed on Kure Atoll. Kure is also home to a number of 20+ year-old Brown and Masked Boobies, as well as several 30+ year-old Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses.
I’m happy that I can share some of our accomplishments with you. Another achievement worth highlighting is exactly that—the advancement and broadening of our community. I’m really pleased that our reels, blogs, and videos have reached you and that you’ve kept up with our work. Our kuleana (privilege and responsibility) is practicing aloha ʻāina (love of the land), and I’m happy to share that. Though we are one of the most remote field sites in the world, it’s important to share what we do and show that we are responsible caretakers and stewards of this place.
It’s easy to see that Hōlanikū is a magical place, and though I’ve tried to encompass its beauty in other posts, I just can’t quite do it justice. Every time I watch Mōlī soar down East Beach and coast alongside Kaʻupu, or when I look up to see kettling ʻIwa alongside ʻEwaʻewa enjoying thermals, or when Pākalakala, Noio, and Manu-o-Kū valiantly protect their young from nearby birds, or when Masked and Brown Boobies welcome their featherless chicks into the world, or when Koloa pōhaka hens brood their downy young, or when I listen to the ghoulish cacophony of ʻUaʻu kani and ʻAoʻū—I am reminded of both the wonder and sacredness of this place.
Wilderness like this demands reverence and respect. Hōlanikū, “Bringing Forth Heaven,” is a reminder of her divine essence and of the respect she is owed for her ecological marvels.
Finally, here is a list of all the birds we’ve seen over the last year:
Black-bellied Plover
Black-footed Albatross
Black Noddy
Blue-billed White Tern
Bonin Petrel
Bristle-thighed Curlew
Brown Booby
Brown Noddy
Bulwer’s Petrel
Christmas Shearwater
Cocos Booby
Dunlin
Eurasian Wigeon
Gray-backed Tern
Great Frigatebird
Kermadec Petrel
Laysan Albatross
Laysan Duck
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Least Tern
Lesser Yellowlegs
Little/Least Tern
Mallard
Masked Booby
Nazca Booby
Northern Pintail
Pacific Golden-Plover
Pectoral Sandpiper
Red Knot
Red-necked Stint
Red-footed Booby
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Ruddy Turnstone
Ruff
Sanderling
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Short-eared Owl
Short-tailed Albatross
Short-tailed Shearwater
Slaty-backed Gull
Small plover sp.
Sooty Tern
Tristram’s Storm-Petrel
Tufted Duck
Wandering Tattler
Western Cattle Egret
Western Sandpiper
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Wood Sandpiper
Media collected under Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Permit PMNM-2026-01. Hawaiian monk seal activities conducted under NMFS Permit 27552.
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