Media Watch, The Garden Island, 27 July 2010
LIHU‘E — Federal authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of death of an endangered Hawaiian monk seal pup found over the weekend on Ni‘ihau.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Services reached out Monday to Bruce Robinson — one of the family members who owns the island — to retrieve the carcass so that a necropsy might be done.
By the time Ni‘ihau men reached the pup all that was left was the skull and skeleton, so NOAA was no longer interested in the retrieval, according to Wende Goo, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service spokesperson.
The Ni‘ihau men reported finding something else near the dead pup — fresh footprints leading right up to the animal from the beach, according to Bruce Robinson’s brother, Keith Robinson.
He suspects fishing and diving charter boats may be to blame, but this allegation could not be confirmed. Several scuba companies on Kaua‘i offer Ni‘ihau dive tours.
“There are commercial charter boats hanging right off shore there and the people are repeatedly intruding right in the middle of the main area where the monk seals are born,” Keith Robinson said of an area of Ni‘ihau’s northwestern shoreline known as Kawaiaina that has a wide reef with lots of protected, shallow pools inside. The dead pup was discovered in this vicinity.
“This kind of thing has got to stop at some point or else we’re going to lose all the monk seals. A decision’s going to have to be made whether we’re going to tolerate people intruding in all the areas where the monk seals are on Ni‘ihau,” he said. […]