Vol. 9 (2): November 2006

Marine Mammal Commission report

The Marine Mammal Commission’s Annual Report to Congress for 2005 was published during the summer. For those interested in current Hawaiian monk seal population trends, human and natural threats to the species, the status of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, and efforts to encourage Monachus schauinslandi’s repopulation of the Main Hawaiian Islands, the MMC report is an indispensable guide.

The report is available for download directly from the MMC:

Marine Mammal Commission. 2006. Hawaiian monk seal. Pages 70-81 in Chapter V, Other Species of Special Concern, Annual Report to Congress, 2005. Marine Mammal Commission, Bethesda, Maryland: 1-204. [PDF  5MB]

Crittercam reveals foraging behaviour

A one-hour film on Hawaiian monk seals was due to premiere on PBS starting Wednesday, November 1, 2006 in most areas, writes Kyler Abernathy of the National Geographic Society’s Remote Imaging team.

Those interested in seeing the National Geographic Special are advised to check their local PBS listings for broadcast dates.

This natural history film, explains Abernathy, documents efforts to understand monk seal foraging ecology in hope of finding remedies for the decline of the Hawaiian monk seal in recent decades. It shows how the use of innovative technology such as Crittercam, 'electric rocks' and research submarines have allowed scientists to discover critical aspects of foraging and habitat use that have in turn informed the process of establishing protections for the Hawaiian monk seal and their unique habitat, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

To find out more about this film please visit the National Geographic press room.

Hawaiian Press Watch

On Faraway Shoals, Researchers Struggle to Save the Seals. 31 October 2006

The Hawaiian monk seal is having a bad year. In 2006, the seals set a record for the lowest number of pups born since monitoring began in 1983. On French Frigate Shoals, almost 600 miles northwest of Honolulu, where the species’ largest subpopulation lives, almost a quarter of the pups died or disappeared, perhaps lost to predation by sharks.

The outlook for juveniles past the pup stage is not any better. Young seals throughout the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands archipelago are starving, and scientists have not been able to figure out why.

This is not the first difficult year for the seal, which has declined an estimated 60 percent since the late 1950s to a population of approximately 1,200.

Bud Antonelis, head of the monk seal protected species division of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the species “is now in a crisis situation.”

“The population may fall below 1,000 in the next five years,” Dr. Antonelis said… (Joe Spring, New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/science/31seal.html?ex=1163480400&en=e624119833d944b5&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Seal pups pack up for trip home: Twins fly back to Midway for transition back to the wild. 17 October, 2006

Rare twin Hawaiian monk seal pups that were rescued on Midway Atoll five months ago and brought to Oahu for fattening are heading back to Midway today. A Coast Guard C-130 Hercules aircraft was to have transported the juvenile seals on a five-hour flight to Midway this morning. The twin females, designated PO22 and PO26, weighed just 65 pounds and 79 pounds, respectively, when they were brought to Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center at Kewalo Basin on May 30. Yesterday, they weighed 113 pounds and 131 pounds, still below the 150-170 pounds deemed ideal for weaned Hawaiian monk seal pups… (Nelson Daranciang, Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/17/news/story15.html

Monk seal Penelope drowns in gillnet. 18 October 2006

A Hawaiian monk seal that was born earlier this year at Turtle Bay on Oahu was found drowned in a gillnet Monday. Conservation enforcement officers for the Department of Land and Natural Resources were called to a location near Rabbit Island, the islet east of Makapuu Point, said DLNR Director Peter Young.

"To say it is a disappointment is an extreme understatement," Young said. "This is why we want to further manage lay gillnets, because of the indiscriminate killing -- not only of fish, but endangered species like the monk seal."

The seal was positively identified as the same animal that was born in early June on the North Shore, Young said. The animal was nicknamed Penelope by volunteers who had assisted with keeping curious onlookers away from it while it was nursing from its mother, he said… (Diana Leone, Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/18/news/story10.html

Endangered monk seals star in National Geo special
A National Geographic special follows animals fitted with videocameras into their ocean habitat. 31 October 2006.

Critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals will star in their own National Geographic special tomorrow night on public television.

"Hawaiian Monk Seals: Surviving Paradise" is a chance for the charismatic marine mammals to take viewers with them into the ocean depths of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as they forage for food, evade predators and have some fun.

Much of the hour-long show will be footage gleaned from a cooperative project that outfitted 42 of the animals with Crittercams® – compact video cameras designed to be worn by wild animals… (Diana Leone, Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/31/news/story04.html

Race on to stem decline of seals
Scientists struggle to determine why animals are dying. 3 September 2006

Between the 1950s and early 1970s the monk seal population dropped unexpectedly by 50 percent. Now numbering somewhere around 1,200, the Hawaiian monk seal has failed to rebound despite efforts to protect its main habitat in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the waters around which recently became a national monument…

The seals also have a developing but smaller outpost on the main Hawaiian Islands, where they are occasionally spotted by residents and tourists.

Among the seals' most prominent problems are skinny pups that have trouble surviving through their first years.

With the seals' numbers projected to potentially plummet below 1,000 in the next five years, scientists are in a race to figure out why the shy, up to nearly 600-pound animals are disappearing from the islands. (Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/09/03/news/story06.html

Navy, enviro groups settle sonar lawsuit
Ruling: 'Considerable scientific evidence' that it can harm marine mammals. 10 July 2006

LOS ANGELES - The Navy can use high-intensity sonar in some circumstances for Pacific warfare exercises under an agreement reached Friday with environmental groups, four days after a judge banned the sonar over concerns it could harm marine mammals.

The settlement prevents the Navy from using the sonar within 25 miles of the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument during its Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercises, and also imposes a variety of methods to watch for and report the presence of marine mammals… (MSNBC)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13689800/

Most back new U.S. marine monument. 7 August 2006

President Bush's creation of a vast marine monument out of the remote, biologically rich waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands meets with the approval of most of the American public, according to a survey commissioned by the Ocean Conservancy.

Before answering the question of whether they approved of Bush's decision, the 2,014 people around the nation polled last month first were given a description of the new marine area, which encompasses 140,000 square miles of protected waters teeming with marine life.

Seventy percent said they supported, and only 6 percent said they opposed, the president's action… (Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/08/07/news/story06.html

Seal's alleged beheader says he did it for science. 14 June 2006

LIHUE - The Kauai man accused of beheading a dead Hawaiian monk seal told federal and state officials that he did it for "scientific interest and to preserve it," according to court documents.

Justin Freemon, 24, who was in Lihue District Court yesterday to request a jury trial, will appear in court again Monday to learn his trial date.

He would not comment but in court documents an enforcement officer from the National Marine Fisheries Service said Freemon admitted to the beheading. Freemon also led investigators to his campsite near Pilaa Beach where he dug up the head that was buried in a plastic bag, according to the documents.

He told investigators that he was waiting for the flesh to fall off so that he could study it, the documents said. He also told investigators that he thought the skull would be worth money in the future… (Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/06/14/news/briefs.html

Officials try to insulate a rare nursing scene. 10 June 2006

A Hawaiian monk seal who gave birth to a pup on Kauai last year is now mother to the first pup born on Oahu in eight years.

R5AY, an adult female Hawaiian monk seal that frequents Hauula, gave birth on a remote North Shore beach, probably on June 1, said David Schofield, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries marine mammal response coordinator. A passer-by discovered and reported the pup, he said.

Officials know the identity of the mother from a bleach mark they put on her shoulder last December... (Nelson Daranciang, Honolulu Star Bulletin)

http://starbulletin.com/2006/06/10/news/story04.html

Environmentalists Praise Bush's Action to Create the World’s Largest Marine Protected Area: Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Sanctuary. 15 June 2006

Washington, DC – President George W. Bush will announce today his intention to establish the world’s largest marine protected area – over 84 million acres - to safeguard a remote, biologically rich string of islands and submerged lands known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). These are the most intact tropical marine ecosystems under US jurisdiction.  There have been endeavors to protect the area since the days of President Teddy Roosevelt, including the designation of the area as an ecosystem reserve by President Bill Clinton, Hawai'i Governor Linda Lingle’s action last year to protect all state waters in the region from commercial activities and efforts by Hawai’i’s Congressional delegation. The Bush-proposed NWHI national marine sanctuary is the lynchpin to giving the federal area more permanent and stronger protections.  Environmental Defense, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, KAHEA: the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance and the `Ilio`ulaokalani Coalition praise President Bush’s bold actions. The groups will closely examine specific proposed measures to ensure that they are consistent with the visionary purpose of the sanctuary.  It is essential that destructive practices are not allowed under the guise of "research".

“This an unprecedented win for endangered Hawaiian monk seals, green sea turtles, black-footed albatrosses, tiger sharks, the incredible reef corals in these waters, the people of Hawai'i and all Americans, now and in generations to come,” said Marine Conservation Biology Institute President Dr. Elliott Norse.  “It’s the start of a new era of protecting places in the sea before they’re degraded beyond recognition.  In my opinion, this is the best thing President Bush has done for the environment." … (Press release [PDF  62KB], Environmental Defense, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, KAHEA: the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance and the `Ilio`ulaokalani Coalition.)

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