State and federal wildlife management officials recently invited the artists participating in this year’s Pow Wow Hawaii festival to tour Kaena Point, a wildlife preserve on Oahu’s west coast. The idea was to educate them on various environmental aspects of Hawaii that they may not be familiar with.

Each of the artists spent time with a group of officials to learn about the wildlife they were seeing, including Laysan albatross and their newborn chics, Hawaiian monk seals, sea turtles and humpback whales and to learn more about the preserve’s plant life.

Artist Kai’ili Kaulukukui, born on the Big Island, is one of many artists who went along on the field trip. He typically paints sea life, an interest he developed whiile working with Pangeaseed, an ocean conservation organization. The mural he painted for Pow Wow is his first mural of a Hawaiian monk seal, an effort to raise awareness of the endangered species.

Watch a video of Kaulukukui painting the mural: