MANGILAO, Guam-Nov. 22, 2017 – Although the sea turtle has been around for more than 100 million years, their survival remains under threat. It is estimated that one in every 100 sea turtle hatchlings will make it to sexual maturity. For the green sea turtle, and the hawksbill sea turtle we commonly see on Guam, that is around 20 to 30 years old.

A local organization, Haggan Watch, is on a mission to change this.

This non-profit organization is a sea turtle monitoring volunteer organization operated by the Government of Guam’s Department of Agriculture.

Hagan Watch is led by Cee Jay Cayanan, a biologist at the Department of Agriculture Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, the low success rate of sea turtle hatchlings making it to sexual maturity is a result of natural predators, but also human activity, Cayanan explains.

According to Cayanan, predators such as as monitor lizards, pigs, deer and birds will disturb the sea turtle’s nests, or prey on the hatchlings as they make their way to the water.

Human factors such as poaching, artificial lights that can direct sea turtles away from the water, and trash or man-made structures can block access of hatchlings.

According to its mission statement, Hagan Watch… “to monitor, protect, and minimize impacts to sea turtles and to enhance successful nesting events, to determine the population size of Guam’s nesting turtles, to determine where Guam’s nesting turtles reside, and to create awareness and to educate the public about sea turtles.”

Cayanan explains that Haggan Watch has been around for several years.

“It started out in order to just basically get the community involved and also to help with learning and seeing if there’s any sea turtle activity on different beaches on Guam,” Cayanan said. “Because we have so many different beaches and it’s hard for the staff at Department of Agriculture to check these beaches regularly.”

Volunteers

Cayanan adds that volunteers play an important role in monitoring the beaches, and collecting data that are crucial to the studying and protecting Guam’s sea turtles.

Biologist Stacy Gilmore volunteered for a handful of Haggan Watch events where she and members of her family monitored and collected data.

“The first time I saw an actual nest it was kind of amazing, they’re huge,” Gilmore said. “Being able to have my son with me and experiencing this, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but to be able to have him along with me, that was pretty great.”

Internships

Marie Auyong, a UOG Sea Grant extension educator, oversees the internships for the programs, one of which is the UOG Sea Grant turtle education outreach internship.  In this program, interns can take part in occupational shadowing, and educational presentations.

Auyong stated that interns in the outreach program take the training that Cayanan gives to Haggan Watch volunteers.

Auyong referred to this type of training as citizen science, which involves taking people who do not necessarily have to be students or scientist and teaching them to do certain aspects of science.

If you would like to know more about Haggan Watch or wish to become a volunteer, you can contact CJ Cayanan by phone at her office: 735-3995, or at DAWR phone number  at: 735-0294, or by email at: cjcayanan671@gmail.com.  If you wish to find out more information on the UOG Sea Grant internship, you can contact Marie Auyoung at: 685-4355, by email at: auyongm@triton.uog.edu or at the UOG Sea Grant Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/UOGSeaGrant/

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Carla Dizon, president of the Biological Science Club, explained that the funds raised from this event will go to helping with costs for future events. “Charter Day, our Thanksgiving, but also our secretary wanted to do a bio cleanup of the science building, and upgrading our lobby.”

Dizon also said the club is looking at doing some charity fundraiser and the funds will go to off-setting those costs.

Epoch Shin, the current president of the UOG Chemistry Club, said what some of the funds will go to, “One annual event that we always do, which is a titration competition and typically the funds are used to minimize the cost. Also we are starting to do an outreach program for high schoolers to do a chemistry demonstration.”

Admission into the haunted house was $7, and it ran for two days.

In the past, the Biological Science Club would hold this annual haunted house event, but this year marks the first time the UOG Chemistry Club joined in for the Halloween event, to improve the UOG science community.

Both presidents gave details into the scares of the haunted house. They included a clown, a graveyard, an investigation room, torture rooms, hospital rooms and a haunted lab.

“We tried our best to avoid [the rooms] being to similar to each other and provide more variety of experiences for the audience,” Shin explained.

More than 50 people stood in line an hour before the haunted house doors opened with more filing in. University of Guam communications student, Sophia Madlambayan, attended the haunted house event for the third time. She said all three haunted house events were consistently good and this years event was more interactive.

Madlambayan compared her past haunted house experiences to this year’s saying, this haunted house event made she and her group crawl around and that there was even a Pennywise, the clown from the recent horror remake of the movie, “It,” following them around.

More information about the Biological Science Club can be found on their Instagram page at uguambioclub or on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/UOGBiologicalSciencesClub/.

For more information about the Guam Chemistry Club, you can contact the group by email at uogchemclub671@gmail.com.

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Shinohara served 11 years in the U.S. Marines. He was deployed eight times, and he felt each deployment took away from the time he could’ve spent with his family. As such, he made the choice to leave the military.

Shinohara said it was a struggle adjusting to civilian life. He proceeded to seek out the services of the Department of Veterans Affairs office located in Tiyan. There, he found direction in work that aims to helping veterans at building structure through farming, which led him to decide on pursuing a degree in agriculture at UOG.

Shinohara’s experiences with the VA gave him a good understanding of what other vets need to be aware of when using its services.

Shinohara explains that he recently changed majors to one more fitting to his passion of helping people.

“I’m doing social work now,” he said. “It’s worked out to my benefit because I can use what I learned from the agriculture area to help affect other people with this concept of horticulture therapy.”

The move to UOG’s social work degree program allowed for Shinohara to find more opportunities to help vets.

Shinohara is not only the president of the UOGSVO, but that he is a critical member to other organizations that seek to help out veterans.

Green Valor is another organization that Shinohara is a part of that teaches vets farming and horticulture skills as a method of coping for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Shinohara explains that as long as one served a single day in the military, one will be considered a vet to the UOGSVO and that you can join.

If you wish to find out more information on either the UOGSVO, or Green Valor you can contact Raymond Shinohara at 486-1264

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On the first day of the event, attendees can enjoy the Tumon Street Festival from 6-11p.m.

The street festival will give access to food vendors and live art for everyone before they head to the GAX pop-up gallery located on the second floor of the DNA building.

Throughout the week of the event, world-renowned artists – Adante, Naturel, Ecoca1, Triston Eaton and Andrew Hem, along with a handful of local artists, will be painting murals at various locations around the island.

This is the first time the POWWOW! organization will have an event on Guam.

POWWOW! is based out of Hawaii and has left their mark in hundreds of murals all over the world. This will be the 10th installment of GAX and there are no signs of the art exhibit slowing down.

For any information on submitting art or seeking to be a part of this or future GAX events contact them at guamartexhibit@gmail.com.

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