While the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration eagerly await the birth of a Hawaiian monk seal in the Po‘ipu area, conservationists received some disturbing news last week. “A young fisherman reported
While the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration eagerly await the birth of a Hawaiian monk seal in the Po‘ipu area, conservationists received some disturbing news last week.
“A young fisherman reported seeing a medium-sized seal in the Anahola area over a week ago with a large circle ulua hook in the right side of the mouth,” said Mimi Olry, DLNR marine conservation coordinator. “If this hook is not removed and is caught on the lower jaw, it prevents the seal from being able to successfully eat and causes infection, leading to a slow death due to starvation and infection.”
Because the endangered monk seal population is so fragile, and still on the decline, even one injured seal is a potentially devastating loss.
“Already we had five deaths on Kaua‘i this year,” Olry said. The causes are still being investigated.
“It is mostly the young juvenile seals that get hooked, as they are still learning to hunt and they do not distinguish food from live baited hooks,” she said.
Studying the contents of seals’ stomachs and scat reveals a diet of bottom fish, crustaceans, squid and octopus, though their most common meal throughout the main Hawaiian islands is eel. (Despite what some may think, Olry says, the seals’ diet of eels, lizard fish and bottom fish does not compete with fishermen for game fish.)
Olry said she has already removed hooks from the mouths of three young seals this year.
“I can find the seal and remove the hook, they do fine,” she said.
Olry and a team of volunteers check the beaches from Kapa‘a to Kilauea regularly to monitor seals as they come on land, but they need help locating this particular seal.
Seals haul out of the water different times of the day, and by now the hooked seal may have moved to other beaches, she said.
Therefore she’s looking for anyone in the community to respond if they spot a wounded or hooked seal, as well as the mom and soon-to-be-born pup on the South Shore.
The Monk Seal hotline can be reached at 651-7668.
