Saving Seafood

Surfrider Foundation launches project to reduce plastic pollution and protect Hawaiian monk seals

August 31, 2021 — The Surfrider Foundation’s Hawaii chapters are launching the North Pacific Hagfish Trap Project to reduce the number of hagfish traps washing up on the coastlines of Hawaii.

Hagfish traps are used to catch a primitive, eel-like animal known as “slime eels” or “hagfish.” The animals are sold almost exclusively to Korean markets for food or use in “eel skin” products such as wallets and boots.

Lost and discarded fishing gear is a primary contributor to plastic pollution on Hawaii beaches and poses a major threat to marine and coastal ecosystems. Yet given its international scope, large geographical range, and difficulties in tracing the source of gear, derelict fishing gear remains a challenging problem. Hagfish traps represent one of the many types of commercial fishing gear that pollute Hawaii coastlines.

In the last twenty years, 13 seal pups and one yearling have been found entangled by hagfish traps in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Read the full story at KITV

A How-To Guide for Reporting Potential Marine Wildlife Harassment in Hawai‘i

August 13, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Imagine you’re scrolling through social media and a video pops up of a Hawaiian monk seal resting on the beach. The first few seconds of video capture the natural beauty of the wild seal, peacefully slumbering on the sand. But suddenly, someone appears from the side of the frame and starts to mischievously tiptoe toward the sleeping seal. You shout through the screen and try to stop this person from what is inevitably going to happen. But despite your efforts, another one of our Hawaiian monk seals is touched and disturbed.

Reports of people disturbing protected marine wildlife have significantly increased over the last decade. And over the past few years, multiple incidents involving potentially illegal encounters with protected marine species have gone viral on social media, including two recent videos of people touching and disturbing monk seals. These concerning and disrespectful images and videos have, understandably, upset many people in Hawaiʻi and across the country. Incidents like these should be reported to NOAA Fisheries or the Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Here’s what you need to know about reporting potentially illegal marine wildlife interactions, how NOAA responds to reports, and what the laws are regarding protected marine wildlife.

Read the full release here

Education, conservation, key for Hawaiian monk seal

August 12, 2021 — With fewer than 1,400 Hawaiian monk seals left on earth, and an estimated 10 to 15 that frequent Maui, education and conservation efforts for these endangered animals is all the more important.

Hawaii’s monk seals, or at least one monk seal, garnered lots of attention recently when a tourist was seen on social media touching an endangered Hawaiian monk seal on Kauai.

Touching, harassing, capturing, injuring or killing monk seals is considered a class C felony with the penalty of imprisonment or fines.

“These animals are among the most endangered seals on earth,” said Anne Rillero, communications manager for the Maui Nui Marine Resource Council which hosted a virtual presentation last week called “Saving a Species: Rehabilitation as a Conservation Tool for Hawaiian Monk Seals.”

Rillero in a news release about the presentation added that “public education is needed to help protect our Hawaiian monk seals from harassment or injury.”

Human interaction and harassment are some of the top threats for the species, said Lauren Van Heukelem, the response and operations coordinator at the Marine Mammal Center-Ke Ka Ola rehabilitation hospital on Hawaii island.

During the virtual presentation, Van Heukelem added that other top threats include fishery interaction, entanglement in trash and intentional killings.

Read the full story at The Maui News

Study seeks origins of ghost nets that haunt Hawaii’s shores

May 27, 2021 — Ghost nets” from unknown origins drift among the Pacific’s currents, threatening sea creatures and littering shorelines with the entangled remains of what they kill.

Lost or discarded at sea, sometimes decades ago, this fishing gear continues to wreak havoc on marine life and coral reefs in Hawaii.

Now, researchers are doing detective work to trace this harmful debris back to fisheries and manufacturers — and that takes extensive, in-depth analysis on tons of ghost nets.

The biggest concern is that derelict gear keeps killing fish and other wildlife such as endangered Hawaiian monk seals, seabirds and turtles long after it’s gone adrift, said Drew McWhirter, a graduate student at Hawaii Pacific University and one of the study’s lead researchers.

“These nets bulldoze over our reefs before they hit shore,” McWhirter added. “They leave a path of destruction, pulling coral heads out, and can cause a lot of ecological damage.”

Ghost nets foul oceans throughout the world, but the Hawaiian Islands — with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the east and another gyre of floating trash to the west — are an epicenter for marine waste.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Hawaiian Monk Seals Join the Animal Telemetry Network

May 6, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For more than two decades, NOAA has been tracking monk seals throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago as part of their larger effort to study and protect this endangered seal. And now you can see all of those tracks online! We have shared our entire archive of satellite telemetry locations through the Animal Telemetry Network. The public can view maps of seal travels and access data using this web portal. NOAA’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program is looking forward to the collaborative research opportunities this opens up.

Hawaiian Monk Seals Tracked for Many Purposes

  • Research projects include learning about seal space use, travel distances, energy expenditure, habitat use, and foraging behaviors
  • Monitoring efforts include tracking seal survival and movement patterns after an intervention such as a veterinary surgery or rehabilitation
  • Management concerns include seals that may be translocated to avoid human-seal interactions or moved out of dangerous habitats

Studying how these animals use their environment is a crucial part of NOAA’s larger effort to understand the ecology of Hawaiian monk seals, identify and mitigate threats to survival, and work toward the recovery of this endangered species.

Read the full release here

Citizen Scientists Help Reveal Undetected Hawaiian Monk Seal Reproduction

April 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A group of NOAA scientists has published a new paper in Marine Mammal Science that improves their estimations of reproductive rates in Hawaiian monk seals. Sighting patterns reveal unobserved pupping events, which revises reproductive rate estimates for Hawaiian monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. They couldn’t have done it without the help of citizen scientists reporting monk seal sightings. NOAA relies on public reports to collect data on seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. It would be impossible to consistently survey all of the beaches along 750 miles of inhabited shoreline.

Hawaiian monk seals are among the world’s most endangered marine mammals, with only around 1,400 remaining. Most of the population (about 1,100 seals) inhabit the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The remainder (about 300 seals) live in the heavily populated main Hawaiian Islands. The monk seal has recently shown positive population trends in these islands. At the core of these encouraging data is the number of pups born each year.

Counting Pups

Hawaiian monk seals have pups throughout the year. NOAA sends teams of biologists to the Papahānaumokuākeakea Marine National Monument every year to count the monk seal population. And while the main Hawaiian Islands are densely populated with humans, monk seals often select secluded beaches for pupping. This makes it hard to know when and where to look, so it’s easy to miss some. And since we don’t always witness their birth, we don’t see or identify many of those seals until they are adults. That makes it difficult to estimate their age when they have pups of their own.

If we can improve how we measure maternal age and pup production, we can improve our estimate of the population’s reproductive rates. That enhances our ability to track population trends.

Citizen Scientists Make it Possible 

Unlike our work conducted from remote camps in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, it is not possible to routinely survey all beaches along more than 700 miles of coastline in the inhabited (main) Hawaiian Islands.  NOAA relies on public reports and volunteer citizen scientists to collect data on seals in the main Hawaiian Islands. Public reports and the contribution of volunteer citizen scientists allow our researchers to record many more pupping events on the main Hawaiian Islands. Our researchers were able to use these data in their study.

Public participation in monk seal monitoring vastly extends the coverage that agency biologists can accomplish alone. It also engages the community in stewardship of natural resources in Hawaiʻi. For example, with so many things shut down in 2020, NOAA biologists weren’t able to survey monk seals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. However, our information flow in the main Hawaiian Islands remained strong thanks to citizen scientists.

You can add to our data set by reporting your own monk seals sightings to the state-wide hotline at (888) 256-9840! Keep in mind, there is no need to approach a monk seal to make a report—always keep a safe distance from wildlife.

Thanks to these efforts, the newly published research describes the reproductive cycle and estimates reproductive rates of female Hawaiian monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands.

Read the full release here

HAWAII: Two of three dead monk seals on Kauai likely died from drowning in lay nets

February 4, 2021 — Post-mortem exams have revealed that two of the three Hawaiian monk seals that were found dead on Kauai’s north shore last year likely drowned in lay nets, wildlife officials said today.

Three seals were found dead separately — in September, November and December — all in the Anahola area of Kauai.

The unusual succession of deaths prompted an investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Law Enforcement, which was offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the issuance of a civil penalty or criminal conviction in one or both of these endangered Hawaiian monk seals.

The first seal, a juvenile male identified as RL52, was found dead around Sept. 10 after having just been spotted a week earlier nearby in good condition. The second seal, an untagged, juvenile female, was found dead around Nov. 18.

NOAA now believes the first two seals found in September and November likely died after becoming entangled in lay gill nets, a news release from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources said, based on recent lab test results and information gathered by law enforcement officials.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

HAWAII: Paintballs to deter monk seals? NOAA seeks feedback on marine mammal deterring methods

September 17, 2020 — Should people be able to use rubber bullets and even paintballs to deter Hawaiian monk seals from coming too close to fishing gear and property?

Those are some of the tactics NOAA wants to hear your feedback on.

The National Marine Fisheries service is proposing a rule in the federal registry on “Guidelines for Safely Deterring Marine Mammals.”

The Hawaii Marine Animal Response has already expressed their concerns with the proposals, saying in a social media post, “These proposed deterrence methods could make the existing desired Hawaiian monk seal interaction guidelines confusing for people who live and fish in Hawaii.”

Read the full story at Hawaii News Now

Hawaiian Monk Seal Translocation Project Improves Survival

August 31, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In a recent study, we found that our Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program’s translocation efforts from 2012 to 2014 proved highly successful. Translocation is “the deliberate movement of organisms from one site for release in another.” It has been broadly applied to manage and conserve terrestrial wildlife since the 1800s. But it is far less common in the marine world, and is rarely applied to marine mammals. However, our team’s efforts buck that trend—about 400 monk seals have been translocated since the 1980s.

Most of these actions were taken to reduce immediate risks associated with the seals’ location:

Monk Seal Recovery Efforts

These translocations are part of many activities our researchers and staff conduct to improve the survival of seals:

  • Removing marine debris from entangled seals and from their habitat
  • Removing fishing hooks embedded in seals’ bodies
  • Re-uniting mothers and pups who become separated
  • Mitigating shark predation
  • Rehabilitating injured, sick or starving seals
  • Vaccinating seals to prevent disease (distemper) outbreaks
  • Conservation translocation

We estimate that up to one-third of the remaining monk seals are alive due to these and other interventions.

Read the full release here

Hawaiian Monk Seal Population Saw Signs of Recovery in 2019

March 19, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Hawaiian monk seal population has shown some signs of recovery over recent years. The size of the monk seal population in 2019 was about the same as in 2018, with slightly more than 1,400 seals. Most of the population (about 1,100 seals) reside in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Just about 300 seals call the main Hawaiian Islands home. While the population size hasn’t really changed since last year, the population trend remains positive in recent years. It has been growing at an average annual rate of 2 percent since 2013.  The potential for our continued conservation efforts to make such a positive impact is part of what makes Hawaiian monk seals one of NOAA’s Species in the Spotlight.

NOAA’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program closely tracks these year-to-year population trends, thanks to a robust, long-term dataset. During the 2019 field season, dedicated field biologists lived and worked on remote islands in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for 3 to 5 months (depending on the site). In the main Hawaiian Islands, we rely on volunteers, members of the public, and agency partners who contribute to citizen-based seal monitoring.

Read the full release here