Category: Hawaiian Monk Seal

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The Too-Friendly Seal

Press Watch, Molokai Dispatch, June 29, 2009
Not all of the wharf swimmers in this picture are kids. KP2, a Hawaiian monk seal at the lower right, enjoys an afternoon with friends after swimming back from Kalaupapa, where NOAA officials had taken him just two days earlier.
Not all of the wharf swimmers in this picture are kids. KP2, a Hawaiian monk seal at the lower right, enjoys an afternoon with friends after swimming back from Kalaupapa, where NOAA officials had taken him just two days earlier.

Life is good for KP2, a young male Hawaiian monk seal who calls Kaunakakai Wharf his home. Wherever people are, KP2 is sure to be found, whether it’s diving with laughing children or grabbing onto an outrigger for a ride. Some find his behavior annoying, but most are endeared by this bright-eyed, playful creature who prefers human company to hanging out with fellow seals. […]

Abandoned by his mother on Kauai at 24 hours old, KP2, short for Kauai pup two, was found by NOAA biologists. He was raised in captivity for eight months before his release in Kalaupapa last November. A few months later, he appeared at the Kaunakakai Wharf, and a team of biologists and volunteers worked to educate the public about keeping their distance from KP2. [see Freedom at Last for KP2, TMG 12(1):June 2009.]

The team also tried repeatedly to discourage the seal from making the area his home, but with no luck. Finally, on Friday, June 12, NOAA transported him back to Kalaupapa hoping he would socialize with other young seals and “stay wild.” However, in just two days, KP2 had made his way back to the wharf in time to swim with the neighborhood kids before sunset. […]

On July 9, NOAA will make a decision about KP2’s future. Several options are on the table, according to Schofield, but they all involve removing KP2 from Molokai.

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Slain monk seals remembered

Press Watch — Honolulu Advertiser, June 19, 2009

Beach ceremony mourns Miloli’i Mom and playful young I-19

PO’IPU, Kaua’i — Holding a strand of limu kala, a seaweed signifying forgiveness, Sabra Kauka asked people at a ceremony yesterday for two slain Hawaiian monk seals to educate others about the endangered animals.

“They are the kama’aina to the kai,” Kauka said. “They come to land to rest, but the rest of the time their lives are in the sea. This is their home,” the teacher and kumu hula said as the ocean sparkled behind her at Po’ipu Beach Park.

About 100 people gathered to mourn the killings of two monk seals on Kaua’i in the past two months. Kauka took the ashes of the animals into the ocean on a canoe to close the event. […]

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Feds probing deaths of 2 monk seals

Press Watch — Honolulu Advertiser, June 18, 2009

Pregnant female shot in May; young male victim of ‘foul play’ in April

LIHU’E, Kaua’i — Federal officers are investigating the deliberate killings of two endangered Hawaiian monk seals on Kaua’i, and recently scoured a white pickup truck in search of a rifle believed to have been used to kill the monk seal known as RK06.

The officers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s law enforcement branch didn’t find a weapon in the June 9 search, documents in federal court in Honolulu indicate. But NOAA confirmed for the first time yesterday that RK06 was shot to death. […]

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Memorial scheduled for monk seals shot to death on Kauai

Press Watch — Honolulu Advertiser, June 17, 2009

A memorial ceremony for two Hawaiian monk seals who were shot to death earlier this year will be held tomorrow at Poipu Beach Park on Kauai.

The event — which starts at 9:30 a.m. — is being coordinated by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Fisheries Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Hawaiian Monk Seal Conservation Hui.

Kumu Sabra Kauka, a native practitioner from Kauai, will preside over the ceremony, in which the ashes of the seals will be released.

The seals — a 5-year-old male and a female estimated to be in her mid-teens — were shot and killed in April and May.

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Endangered monk seals to have Critical Habitat on Main Hawaiian Islands

Press Watch — Environment News Service, June 11, 2009

A Hawaiian monk seal pulls out of the ocean and flops down at one end of Sandy Beach, on Oahu’s southeast shore, far from the surfers at the other end. […]

The half-ton marine mammal is one of only about 1,200 individuals still alive today. But new habitat protections that the federal government will declare Friday could bring endangered Hawaiian monk seals back from the brink.

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service will designate critical habitat for endangered Hawaiian monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands and expand criticial habitat that already exists in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

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Ocean trash problem ‘far from being solved,’ U.N. says

Press Watch — CNN, June 8, 2009

The world’s oceans are full of trash, causing “tremendous” negative impacts on coastal life and ecology, according to a U.N. report released Monday.

The oceans will continue to fill up with junk discarded from cities and boats without urgent action to address this buildup of marine debris, the United Nations Environment Programme says in a report titled “Marine Litter: A Global Challenge.”

Current efforts to address the problem are not working, and the issue is “far from being solved,” the report says. […]

The ocean litter is a problem for coastal communities, which rely on clean beaches for tourism dollars and to boost quality of life for their residents, the report says. Ocean trash also affects marine life and degrades human health.

Sea turtles, for example, think plastic grocery bags are jellyfish when the bags are floating in the ocean. An untold number of the turtles and other creatures, such as Hawaii’s endangered monk seal, swallow the bags and suffocate, drown or starve, said Holly Bamford, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine debris program.

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