Tag: direct killing

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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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Reward is offered in shooting of seals

Press Watch – Honolulu Star Bulletin, June 8, 2009

The Surfrider Foundation’s Kauai chapter is offering a reward — as yet unspecified — for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the shooting death of two Hawaiian monk seals on Kauai.

The reward will come from donations to the organization, which so far total $8,000 in the aftermath of the deaths, officials said.

“The Surfrider Foundation was outraged that somebody would willfully kill these animals, who posed no real harm to people here on Kauai,” said Surfrider Foundation volunteer Carl Berg. “We felt there was a tremendous amount of disrespect for the ocean and the ocean creatures.” […]

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‘Foul play’ blamed for Kauai monk seal death

Press Watch –  The Honolulu Advertiser, May 23, 2009

Pregnant female called ‘important part of the breeding community’

A Hawaiian monk seal killed Thursday on Kaua’i’s north shore was a pregnant female who had previously given birth to four pups, according to NOAA Fisheries.

Witness accounts suggest the 600-pound monk seal, known to NOAA researchers as RK06, was shot to death, but federal officials would say only that the endangered marine mammal died as a result of “foul play.”

A necropsy on the monk seal was conducted yesterday, and NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Wende Goo said no further details were being released because the killing is under investigation.

“Foul play” by humans also is blamed for the death of a 4-year-old male monk seal found dead on a Kaua’i beach April 19, according to Goo.

“We don’t have enough information to link the two,” she said. […]

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Feds investigate death of monk seal on Kauai

Press Watch –  The Honolulu Advertiser, May 22, 2009

Witnesses report hearing apparent gunshots, seeing mammal wash up on shore

Federal authorities are investigating the death of an endangered Hawaiian monk seal that witnesses said they believed was shot as it lounged on a beach on the North Shore of Kaua’i yesterday.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service confirmed last night that it retrieved the carcass of a monk seal yesterday. But spokeswoman Wende Goo said the cause of death won’t be determined until a necropsy is performed.

Goo said the dead seal was a female, but declined further comment.

This is the second monk seal found dead on a Kaua’i beach in the past month. On April 19, a 4-year-old male seal was discovered dead, and Goo said that case remains under investigation. […]

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