Tag: Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

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High-tech transmitters giving up secret lives of Hawaiian seals

Press Watch, Honolulu Advertiser, April 11, 2010

Navy pays for devices that also gauge how sonar affects species

Up to 15 monk seals in Hawai’i will be doing their part over the coming year to help scientists understand them better.

The critically endangered animals will wear small transmitters that reveal their movements, including how deep they dive, when they haul out on land and how far they roam.

Accumulating normal habits of the seals also will be used to gauge the effect Navy training exercises, including use of sonar, may have on the animals.

The Navy is footing the bill for the $4,500-each transmitters, NOAA scientists’ travel and veterinary costs associated with the project. The project is slated to last several years.

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Monachus Guardian published

Just published: the November 2009 issue of The Monachus Guardian, the biannual electronic journal focusing on the Mediterranean, Hawaiian and Caribbean monk seals. The site can be accessed at http://www.monachus-guardian.org.

This issue features news and articles by some 30 authors from 13 countries from across the range of the genus, from Hawaii to Mauritania, Turkey to Spain, Madeira to Greece.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CURRENT ISSUE:

Guest Editorial: Monk seals and fisheries need attention, education and cooperation, by Trisha Kehaulani Watson.
International News: Quebec workshop builds Med-Pacific links, but will action ever follow?…

Hawaiian News: Short-lived freedom for KP2…

Mediterranean News: Greece: Orphaned, newborn monk seal rescued at Kefalonia… Madeira: Young seal chooses busy Funchal as home… Mauritania: Reaching the 50-pup mark at Cabo Blanco… Turkey: Monk seals monitored at Karaburun Peninsula…

Cover Story: Tracking Artemis: Making sense out of a young seal’s death, by Panagiotis Dendrinos & Emily Joseph.

In Focus I: Progressive re-colonization of monk seal resting and reproduction habitats as the result of strict protection, by Pablo Fernández de Larrinoa, Hamdi M’Barek, Moulaye Haye, Miguel Ángel Cedenilla, Mercedes Muñoz, Ana Maroto & Luis Mariano González.

In Focus II: Monk seal sightings in Italy move to the central Tyrrhenian sea, by Giulia Mo.

Perspectives I: Tackling the conflict between seals and fisheries in Greece: an end or a beginning? by Stella Adamantopoulou and Vangelis Paravas.

Perspectives II: Mallorca’s lone seal: the 2009 follow-up, by Antoni Font and Joan Mayol.

Letters to the Editor: Seals of Coincidence, by Professor Keith Ronald… and Mediterranean monk seal encounters – Dos and Don’ts, by Marianna Psaradellis…

Recent Publications.

The current and back issues of The Monachus Guardian are also available from the Monk Seal Library http://www.monachus-guardian.org/library.htm.

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From pristine reefs to coral wastelands

News Watch, Honolulu Advertiser, July 26, 2009

The scientific projections are ominous.

If substantial steps aren’t taken globally to counter the effects of climate change, reefs in Hawai’i and around the world eventually could become coral wastelands, decimated by increasingly acidic and warming ocean waters.

Some scientists say such a scenario, which would wreak havoc with Hawai’i’s fisheries and the state economy, could come by the end of the century, perhaps even a few decades sooner. […]

One wild card is whether corals, resilient organisms that can rebound from some major stresses, will be able to adapt to climate change-related chemical alterations in the environment that are occurring at rates not seen for millions of years.

Scientists also are uncertain whether the predicted effects will happen as quickly or as severely as the models indicate.

“The thing to worry about is not that it will be as bad as we think,” said Paul Jokiel, researcher at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology. “It’s that it will be much worse than we think.”

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