The Hawai‘i Island Resort Mauna Lani released four Hawaiian green sea turtles on Thursday into the ocean to celebrate the 36th Turtle Independence Day.
The event is part of the Mālama Honua program that started in 1989. It adopts baby sea turtles from O‘ahu’s Sea Life Park and raises them for about three years before releasing them back into the wild.
The program aims to preserve Hawai‘i’s sea turtles through education, conservation and community.
“Almost every culture on Earth has the turtles as some kind of important symbolic figure, icon, (or) religion,” said Piʻi Laeha, a natural resource manager, who cares for the turtles. “For the Hawaiians, we believe that the back shell of the turtles contain the map of our oceanic world on it.”
“The turtles are part of our ʻaumakua, our spiritual ancestors returning to not only protect us but to guide us,” he continued. “So they have many significant symbols in Hawai‘i.”
The turtles are cared for until they’re about 40 centimeters long.
