MONK SEAL EVENT RAISES MONEY FOR GREAT CAUSE

Dolphin Quest and The Kahala Hotel & Resort hosted a benefit in October to support Hawaii Marine Animal Response

On Friday, October 20, 2017, Dolphin Quest Oahu and The Kahala Hotel & Resort hosted a benefit to support Hawaii Marine Animal Response (HMAR). It was a lively evening full of fun, food, music and marine mammals that supporting a great cause. The function raised much needed funds for the preservation, recovery and stewardship of Hawaii’s endangered, threatened and protected marine species.

The highlight of the evening was the auction of beautiful Hawaiian art, photos and crafts as well as symbolic adoptions of each of the four Hawaiian monk seal pups born on Oahu this year. The seals represented in the adoption included Wailea, the monk seal born off Ka‘ōhao (Lanikai) and Kaimana, the now-famed pup born in Waikīkī.

Proceeds from the event will go to much needed supplies and equipment for the organization.

Jon Gelman, founder of HMAR

“We are a small organization with some mighty big responsibilities on our hands, but we have a team of passionate volunteers and staff who dedicate thousands of hours of their time caring for the animals they love. This event is both an opportunity to thank them and to raise money for our nonprofit,” explains Jon Gelman, founder of HMAR.

HMAR also conducts public outreach and education for schools, the public and Hawai’i organizations. Earlier this year, Dolphin Quest was recognized by HMAR as a Hawaii Marine Animal Steward in partnership with Hawai’i Tourism Authority.

Dolphin Quest provides ongoing support and hands-on training for Hawai’i’s stranding network volunteers. In May of this year, Dolphin Quest hosted veterinarians from multiple Hawaiian Islands providing valuable experience with healthy dolphins to aid their wild stranding response efforts.

Guests also had the opportunity to see dolphins up close and learn about them from Dolphin Quest’s Marine Mammal Specialists.

Hawaiʻi Marine Animal Response (HMAR) is Hawaii’s largest non-profit marine species conservation and response organization. HMAR covers approximately 300 miles of coastline on the islands of Oʻahu and Molokaʻi with a support staff of volunteers, interns and employees. Members of this staff are deployed to the field in response to sightings and to perform surveys, outreach activity, and interventions nearly 9 times per day, on average. Their past annual activity includes over 2,400 protected marine species sightings, over 2,700 occasions of team members engaged in shoreline responses and surveys, and over 50 Hawaiian monk seal and sea turtle related escalations or emergency responses.