Author: Editor

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Reflections on closed access journals

Media Watch, The Lairds of Learning, by George Monbiot, The Guardian, 29 August 2011

Editor’s Note: Despite oft-reapeated calls for monk seal conservation and science to find a wider public audience — thereby spurring efforts to save the species and its habitat — most research continues to be published in closed access “subscription-only” scientific journals with a limited circulation. In view of this issue’s importance to the survival of the Mediterranean and Hawaiian monk seal, we take this opportunity of drawing our readers’ attention to the following article, “The Lairds of Learning”.

[…] Reading a single article published by one of Elsevier’s journals will cost you $31.50(1). Springer charges Eur34.95(2), Wiley-Blackwell, $42(3). Read ten and you pay ten times. And the journals retain perpetual copyright. You want to read a letter printed in 1981? That’ll be $31.50(4).

Of course, you could go into the library (if it still exists). But they too have been hit by cosmic fees. The average cost of an annual subscription to a chemistry journal is $3,792(5). Some journals cost $10,000 a year or more to stock. The most expensive I’ve seen, Elsevier’s Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, is $20,930(6). Though academic libraries have been frantically cutting subscriptions to make ends meet, journals now consume 65% of their budgets(7), which means they have had to reduce the number of books they buy. Journal fees account for a significant component of universities’ costs, which are being passed to their students. […]

Source: The Lairds of Learning, by George Monbiot, The Guardian, 29 August 2011.

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Native to Hawaii

Media Watch, The Molokai Dispatch, 24 August 2011

The Hawaiian Monk Seals are endangered species that need to be restored because they are native, and it is out kuleana as Hawaiians to help save them. The Hawaiian Monk Seal is pre-historic and have been swimming these oceans for about 10,000,000 years. Even King Alexander LihoLiho hunted seals at Nihoa in 1857 during the time of the Hawaiian Monarchy, so that proves that the Hawaiian Monk Seals are native.

On Aug. 8 there was a Critical Habitat Meeting. At that meeting I listened to all na kupuna mana’o about the seals, some good and some bad. I heard some aunties and uncles say that the seals are no good and they eat all the fish, but we forget that the seals were here before us. [Continues]

Source: Hawaiian Monk Seals, by Danielle Mersberg, The Molokai Dispatch, 24 August 2011

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Hawaiian monk seal recovery actions update

Recent Publications

NOAA. 2011. Hawaiian monk seal recovery actions. Programmatic environmental impact statement. NOAA Fisheries, Pacific Islands Region. August 2011, Newsletter # 2: 1-6. [PDF 336 KB]

“This newsletter is the second in a series of newsletters regarding the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Actions Programmatic Environmental Impact State- ment (PEIS). Since distribution of the first newsletter in October 2010, the Draft PEIS was completed and is currently available for public review and comment. Newsletters and the Draft PEIS can be found on the project website at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/eis/hawaiianmonkseal.htm. The purpose of this newsletter is to announce the availability of the Draft PEIS and to invite you to participate in the formal public hearings and open house to provide feedback on the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Actions PEIS. This newsletter also provides a summary of alternatives considered in the document and guidance for providing comments.”

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Why NOAA considered euthanizing aggressive monk seal

Media Watch, Hawaii News Now, 24 August 2011

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Teams from NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — have wrapped up this year’s Hawaiian monk seal field research in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands.

Controversy surrounded their efforts this season because of their decision to try to euthanize an aggressive monk seal that, they observed, attacking seal pups. Today, NOAA defended its decision by showing us some very graphic pictures of injured pups after an attack. […]

Source: Why NOAA considered euthanizing aggressive monk seal, Hawaii News Now, 24 August 2011

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Researchers face difficulties with monk seals

Media Watch, KITV, 23 August 2011

KURE ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — Untangling seals, applying stealth treatments, and searching for a killer. Scientists have had an exhausting season trying to manage our monk seal population. “The animal is entangled around the neck,” explained Dr. Charles Littnan at a news conference on Tuesday, pointing to a monk seal tangled in debris. Dr. Littnan and a team of 15 just returned from Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. They’ve spent the past two weeks detangling seals from the constant waves of debris, counting and tagging newborns, reuniting some with their families, and trying to stop overly aggressive attacks — especially by one called KE18. […]

Video: Hawaii Teams Rescue Monk Seals

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MPA and monk seal conservation workshop in Martinique

— Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara

Within the framework of the Second International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas, which is being organised in Fort-de-France, Martinique, from 7-11 November 2011 by the French National MPA Agency, a workshop is being planned on the role of MPAs in the conservation of monk seals.

Building on the results of a previous meeting, which took place during the First international Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas (Maui, March 2009), the aim of this workshop will be to further explore ways in which the MPA tool can be used to protect the two extant critically endangered representatives of Monachus which still survive in their respective Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Hawaiian habitats. Emphasis of this workshop will be to emphasize the differences of the challenges posed to conserving the two species, and on such basis to explore the pros and cons of MPA establishment, as opposed to the implementation of “conventional” conservation measures.

In order to make plans for the monk seal workshop and to allow a structuring of its programme, it would greatly help me to have an idea of who is likely to attend. If you intend participating to the ICMMPA in Martinique next November, and if you are interested in attending the monk seal workshop, I would appreciate it if you could kindly let me know. It would be also great to know if you have any direct experience in the field of monk seal MPAs and conservation (in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic or Hawaii) that you would be willing to share during the workshop.

Feedback will be particularly appreciated if sent to the email address below before the end of August, thank you.

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara — giuseppe@disciara.net