With Po’ipu Beach Park county lifeguards identifying no less than five different Hawaiian monk seals hauling out on the beach since the start of this year, the odds are great that human beach-goers bound for Po’ipu are going to be
With Po’ipu Beach Park county lifeguards identifying no less than five different Hawaiian monk seals hauling out on the beach since the start of this year, the odds are great that human beach-goers bound for Po’ipu are going to be inconvenienced this summer by the now-familiar yellow-roped-off areas.
The presence of the cones, ropes and warning signs, binoculars dangling from the signs, can only mean one thing: They’re ba-ack.
County lifeguard Kalani Vierra told The Garden Island recently that five or six different monk seals come ashore at the county’s Po’ipu Beach Park on nearly a daily basis, and he was looking at one on the beach when the newspaper called him recently for information about a busy weekend of rescues during the first early summer south swell.
And even with the knowledge that one mother seal hauled out on the beach fronting the Sheraton Kauai Resort further down Po’ipu Beach to deliver what turned out to be a stillborn pup, the odds still look pretty good that some other mother seal will decide Po’ipu Beach is the perfect place to practice continuation of an endangered species and have a pup on the beach.
That will mean that all or part of the beach will be closed to the public for the period of nursing, teaching and weaning – usually around five to six weeks after birth.
And while most visitors, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service biologists who come to the South Shore to study the animals’ mothering, nursing and weaning habits, and most residents, tolerate the inconveniences the beach closings cause, there is a growing undertone that feels the beach closings are more than mere inconvenience.
That undercurrent won’t get any satisfaction in learning that a promised, multi-pronged response plan involving governmental officials, lifeguards, volunteers and other folks, won’t be in place as promised for the summer of 2002.
For its part, representatives of the Kaua’i Visitors Bureau, county, state and federal government, the volunteer monk seal watchers, and others convened to formulate an action plan, to be implemented if and when a mother seal and pup take over Po’ipu Beach, or any public beach, said Delores Clark, National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman.
But since the monk seals are protected by federal law under the endangered species act, the not-so-endangered human species will take a back seat if monk seals appear at public beaches, she said.
“We will do what we have to do to protect the seal,” said Clark.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a mother seal with child appearing on Po’ipu Beach one morning will instantly mean the entire beach is closed down, she added.
Officials will look at alternative boundaries, possibly just closing off a section of a beach and not the entire beach, and other possible scenarios, to find a response that will satisfy both the law and the needs of two-footed mammals as well, she said.
During a May meeting at the Lihu’e Civic Center, planning groups focusing on communications, education and operations were formed, with the all-important operations group charged with coming up with policies, options and alternatives for the inevitable response to a mother-and-pup sighting on or near a popular public beach.
The group is expected to meet again sometime this month, to see what progress the various committees have made, Clark added.
And, since Po’ipu Beach Park has been the site of consecutive summer seal births, it would make sense to have a South-Shore-specific response plan ready to roll, and soon, since spring and summer are monk childbirth seasons.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
