The science of tracking endangered Hawaiian monk seals has gone up a notch.
Thorough “Crittercam” technology, small cameras will be mounted on the backs of juvenile seals, whose survivability in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has suffered, possibly due to limited food, scientists said.
The technology will provide scientists and the public with “a full-blown sensory experience, revealing new, unexpected behaviors of the seals,” said Wende Goo, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Islands regional office on O‘ahu.
The cameras will allow researchers to see where the juvenile seals “swim, forage and inhabit,” said Shawn Farry, monk seal coordinator with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Aquatic Resources on Kaua‘i.
“It (the technology) helps fill the gap. We know where they are, can see the bottom substrate, chasing down on the reef, digging in the sand, probing in the sand and flipping under rocks,” Farry said.
The survival of juvenile seals is important because they represent the next generation of seals, Farry said.
“Juveniles are a problem area (in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where the bulk of them live, along with older seals),” Farry said. “Their survival (rate) has dropped, and obviously, as the older seals die, if younger cohorts aren’t replacing them, we are going to have a decline.”
Only about 1,000 seals remain, including a core group of 20 seals on Kaua‘i.
Representatives of NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center have scheduled a news conference on the new technology at the center’s office on O‘ahu today, Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 10:30 a.m.
The technology will be put on display, and principal researchers will answer questions and conduct interviews, Goo said.
The project started in 1995, using larger cameras put on the backs of larger seals, Goo said.
Since that time, 44 cameras have been used, and some have been recovered so they can be reused, Goo said.
The information that could be gleaned from the latest phase of the project is “critical for understanding important ecosystem relationships and designing management plans necessary for the recovery of this endangered species,” Goo said.
The technology will augment a satellite-tracking project that will be implemented in the main Hawaiian Islands to find ways to help with the recovery of the species.
A program on the camera project is scheduled to be aired in Hawai‘i on the National Geographic Channel, channel 73 on Oceanic Time Warner Cable, at 7 p.m. this Saturday, Feb. 21.
The monk-seal segment is one in a series using the Crittercam technology on marine and land animals, Goo said.
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
