A female monk seal was found lying beside her dead pup on the beach fronting the Poipu Sheraton hotel on 25 March, according to reports from Kauai. Although apparently a still birth, the death has again raised questions regarding harassment of monk seals on the Main Hawaiian Islands.

As noted in previous issues, there have been at least two known monk seal births on this popular beach in the last two years, despite the proximity of holiday crowds [Rare birth on Kauai, TMG 3(2): November 2000; Pups on target, TMG 4(2): November 2001].

Although historically rare around the main Hawaiian Islands, as many as 70 monk seals may be scattered along the coasts of Hawaii, Oahu, Maui and Kauai, according to sources at the National Marine Fisheries Service [see Monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands, TMG 3(1): May 2000].

The fact that some Hawaiian monk seals have been unwilling to slink away and disappear beneath the waves whenever humans appear on the scene has led to increasing instances of disturbance and, in some cases, deliberate harassment [‘He didn’t eat the seal, did he?’ TMG 2(1): May 1999; High levels of human interaction with a Hawaiian monk seal on the island of Maui and Fourth of July pup probably killed by boat, TMG 3(1): May 2000; Q39 returns to “Harassment Beach”, TMG 4(1): May 2001].

According to information received by TMG, residents of Kauai’s South Shore have voiced concern over “anti-seal” sentiment in the area, and have also reported death threats against the animals. Street rumour and lack of ecological awareness may be at least partly to blame. What appears to have been a tiger shark attack on a surfer a day prior to the Poipu female’s miscarriage was subsequently blamed on the seal.

As in the wake of previous harassment incidents, NOAA/NMFS, state and local authorities have all been blamed for not doing enough in terms of education and enforcement. Such criticism, however, may be somewhat unfair when government agencies are contending with potent economic interests. The Marine Mammal Commission notes that Poipu beach has been closed on occasion at the request of NMFS to protect seals. “This and similar actions at other beaches around Hawaii,” the MMC reports, “have adversely affected tourism and have strained relationships between the Service and state and local agencies.” While seals “do need to be monitored closely to ensure that people do not approach or molest them,” it continues, NMFS “does not have staff to monitor seals constantly, and therefore it has relied on volunteers to watch seals and educate the public about their endangered status and requirements for their protection.” [See Marine Mammal Commission warns of continuing decline, below.]

Kaua'i Monk Seal Watch, an all-volunteer group of local residents, continues to do what it can to guard seals in populated areas.

	Beach visitor, Ohau

Two of our readers, April and Spencer Moseley, are reporting regular sightings of a male monk seal from their beach-front home on the Main Hawaiian Island of Oahu. In contrast to recent troubling events on Kauai and Maui, local residents, police and NMFS officials appear to be taking concrete steps to guard the animal. Please turn to Beach visitor, Letters to the Editor, for further details.

The latest 90-day mission to retrieve lost and discarded fishing gear from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) returned to port in November, its three chartered vessels loaded down with 25 tons of potentially lethal nets, lines and other marine debris.

The ongoing effort has seen government agencies and private organisations join forces to combat the fisheries pollution scourge in the NWHI, an isolated area that has nevertheless been turned into a marine debris dumping ground by prevailing ocean currents [see Marine debris on the table, TMG 3(2): November 2000].

The clean-up partners include NOAA, Ocean Conservancy, the U.S. Coast Guard, Hawaii Sea Grant, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

While more than 60 tons of derelict fishing gear has so far been extracted from the area, experts warn that another 100 tons remains, entangling and drowning curious monk seal pups, marine turtles and seabirds, and damaging coral reefs.

A recently-published scientific study conducted during one of the clean-up phases (in 1999) reports that “Trawl netting was the most frequent debris type encountered (88%) and represented the greatest debris component recovered by weight (35%), followed by monofilament gillnet (34%), and maritime line (23%).” [see Donohue et. al in Recent Publications].

A related study, the results of which were published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin in July last year [see Henderson in Recent Publications] registered 173 entanglements of Hawaiian monk seals in the NWHI from 1987 to 1996. Henderson reports that “Pups and juvenile seals were more likely to become entangled than older seals, and became entangled primarily in nets, whereas entanglement of subadults and adults was more likely to involve line.”

Government officials and their NGO counterparts hope that scientific tests on the accumulated net debris will eventually yield a coherent picture of its origins, helping to convince other Pacific Rim nations to tackle seriously what has long been a major ecological problem.

Environmental campaigners continue to accuse George W. Bush of undermining the recently designated Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, established by outgoing President Bill Clinton in December 2000 [“Living rainbow” may benefit monk seals, TMG 4(1): May 2001; Under review, TMG 4(2): November 2001].

The Ecosystem Reserve, the single largest protected area ever created in the U.S., incorporates the NWHI chain of reefs and atolls. Also encompassing the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, it forms the principal habitat of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi), thought to be declining by about 5% a year.

The Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, which successfully sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over overfishing-related monk seal starvations at French Frigate Shoals in the NWHI, [Judge issues ruling in “monk seal starvation” case, TMG 4(1): May 2001] warned in January that fishing industry pressure on the Bush administration – most notably in the guise of the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council – was putting the Reserve in jeopardy. Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff charged that the Bush administration had "failed to do the Department of Commerce's duties under the executive order to put the reserve into operation... The administration has tried to stop the reserve from ever being established, and we fully expect the administration to now try to strip the reserve of its protections..."

Source: Attorneys Allege Bush Fails as an Environmental Defender, Environment News Service, 8 January 2002.

Describing it as a “historic moment”, KAHEA – the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, has appealed to concerned citizens to make their voice heard during the last stages of the designation process that will establish detailed management regulations governing the NWHI Reserve. The alliance has issued a document in an effort to encourage wider public debate of the perceived threats to the Reserve.

Public comment, says KAHEA, must be submitted in writing to the NOAA by Friday, May 17, 2002 [see Talking Points document for contact details].

“At Sanctuary meetings on each island,” declares KAHEA in its public appeal, “NOAA representatives will ask for input on how the proposed NWHI Sanctuary should protect this fragile region. Please help to identify the wide range of threats to the NWHI ecosystem including the possibility of the expansion of commercial activities, planned cruise ship access, unsupervised and excessive ‘research’ activities, military activities, dumping and a wide range of other threats to the integrity of the NWHI ecosystem. The federally-funded Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has been leading an all-out attack against protections for the NWHI.”

Source: KAHEA. 2002. Talking points. Help protect the NWHI: 1-3. [Available in the Monachus Library]

Marine Mammal Commission warns of continuing decline

The Marine Mammal Commission’s Annual Report to Congress for 2001 paints a gloomy – if uneven – picture of the Hawaiian monk seal’s long-term survival hopes, noting a continuing population decline in key areas. Among the Report's findings:

• Mean beach counts at French Frigate Shoals have declined by nearly two-thirds since the late 1980s (although the rate of decline has slowed since the mid-1990s).
  
  
• Despite evidence that numbers were slowly but surely increasing at Pearl and Hermes Reef, Midway Atoll, and Kure Atoll, and stabilising at Laysan and Lisianski Islands, “Beach counts in 2001 suggested a marked decline at all major breeding colonies.”
  
  
• Survival of juvenile seals is also in jeopardy: “At all atolls except Pearl and Hermes Reef, there was a marked decline observed in 2001 in the survival rates of one-year-old seals (i.e., the 2000 cohort).”
  
  
• Multiple, unexplained seal deaths in the NWHI during 2001 obliged the National Marine Fisheries Service to declare an “unusual marine mammal mortality event” and to undertake an investigation under the provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act: “The mortality event designation was triggered by the discovery of four dead juvenile monk seals on Laysan Island over a nine-day period in early January 2001. A field team, including a veterinarian, was dispatched to examine dead seals on Laysan Island as well as at other atolls. During this and subsequent population monitoring work, one adult and 12 juvenile monk seal deaths were reported at several breeding colonies between early January and early July. Necropsy results revealed that the animals were emaciated, suggesting that an inability of weaned pups and seals between the ages of one and two to find food was the most likely explanation for the deaths. As of the end of 2001 analyses of tissue samples had revealed no signs of infectious diseases, natural or anthropogenic toxins, parasitism, or injuries although further testing remained to be done.” Lack of available food has also been implicated in the deaths of juvenile seals at French Frigate Shoals, with overfishing being held to blame in federal court [see Judge issues ruling in “monk seal starvation” case, TMG 4(1) May 2001].
  
  
• Shark predation continues to take a heavy toll on monk seal pups at French Frigate Shoals. In 1999, it was estimated that 25 percent of the pups born during that year had been killed by sharks. As a result, a contingency plan was formulated to reduce the threat by culling sharks patrolling along pupping beaches [see Marine Mammal Commission sees overfishing as culprit, TMG 3(1): May 2000]. With eleven pups thought to have been killed by sharks in 2001 (about 17 percent of the pups observed during the field season) and six others injured, the plan was implemented: “A large majority of the shark-related deaths, disappearances, and injuries has occurred at one of the atoll’s islands, Trig Island. In response, five sharks exhibiting predatory behavior were culled, and 18 weaned pups were moved from Trig Island and Round Island, where predatory sharks were also seen patrolling the beach, to other islands in the atoll.” [For a different perspective, see Killing sharks at FFS is unacceptable, Letters to the Editor, this issue.]
  
  
• Monk seals are “becoming more common in the main Hawaiian Islands. As a result, they have been hauling out on public beaches with increasing frequency to rest, molt, and give birth to their pups. Molting seals and mother-pup pairs may remain on a beach for several days to several weeks. On public beaches, this can lead to interactions between monk seals and beachgoers that are difficult to manage. In some cases, people have deliberately molested hauled-out seals, and seals have threatened and, on occasion, bitten people...”

The MMC’s Annual Report to Congress is recommended reading for anyone who wants to learn more about population trends and abundance of monk seals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, on perceived natural and human threats to the species, on management and political developments, and on the species’ natural recolonisation of the Main Hawaiian Islands. The relevant chapter is available in electronic form from the Monachus Library:

Marine Mammal Commission. 2002. Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi). Pages 63-76 in Chapter III, Species of Special Concern, Annual Report to Congress, 2001. Marine Mammal Commission, Bethesda, Maryland.