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[…] Since the early 1990s, when sightings of the rare creatures became a regular appearance throughout the inhabited Hawaiian Islands, tourists have flocked to take their pictures. Monk seal images now adorn magazines, postcards, T-shirts and caps. Diligent volunteers erect barrier ropes around sun-bathing seals, track their movements and guard their pups.<\/p>\n
Still, not everyone has warm, fuzzy feelings toward the state\u2019s official mammal. In meetings held recently around the state, commercial, recreational and subsistence fishers and other ocean users made it clear they\u2019re running short of aloha for the rapidly dwindling species, primarily because they\u2019re worried about how federal plans to save it may impact them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people get upset over here, they\u2019re gonna kill \u2018em, and that\u2019s a fact, bottom line,\u201d testified Kauai resident Kalani Kapuniai at a Sept. 17 hearing on a draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) that calls for temporarily moving young seals from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) to undisclosed sites in the main Islands. Two monk seals were shot on Kauai in 2009, \u201cand we were told that there were others that were never reported,\u201d said Carl Berg, a member of Surfrider Foundation\u2019s Kauai chapter. [Continues<\/a>]<\/p>\n