Press Watch, Letters, Honolulu Weekly, October 28, 2009
Some of us from Molokaʻi visited Oahu (The Waikiki Aquarium) to demand that NOAA return our seal, KP2, to Molokaʻi. NOAA came to Molokaʻi early on the morning of Oct. 16 and stole our seal. NOAA promised us at a community meeting that we would have between two and four months to educate our community about dealing with KP2, as this seal pup spent the summer swimming with our kids and joining in our canoe races.
Lies and covert actions don’t go with us, so we will protest and demand that NOAA return our seal, who has become a special hoʻailona for Molokaʻi. KP2 is a living fossil, whose species is more than 10 million years old. They were here before our islands were formed. They are now in near-extinction. KP2 has come to represent us as Hawaiians, as we both struggle for survival in these Hawaiian Islands. How we treat the Hawaiian monk seal is how we can be expected to be treated as Hawaiians.
— Walter Ritte, Kaunakakai, Molokai