Maui Conclave

For our report on the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s 13th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, turn to Perspectives: Surf’s up, Live! Maui on less than $500 a day.


NMFS policy on trial

Acting on behalf of the Greenpeace Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Honolulu on 26 January against two government agencies. The action was prompted by growing concern over overfishing pressures in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and starving monk seals on French Frigate Shoals (see The Old Woman Who Swallowed the Fly and Native Hawaiians Speak Out).

The three conservation groups are suing representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Department of Commerce for violating the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The lawsuit alleges that, in failing to properly manage Hawaii’s lobster and bottomfish fishery, the agencies are jeopardising the survival of the monk seal.

The US Marine Mammal Commission has repeatedly urged NMFS to ban lobster fishing around the monk seal’s breeding colonies.

On 24 February Earthjustice lawyers introduced a motion to court seeking a preliminary injunction preventing the commercial lobster fishery in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from opening this year. The motion cited new scientific evidence linking the lobster fishery to the monk seals’ decline. The plaintiff’s case has been bolstered recently by the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team — a group of scientists selected by NMFS to further the study and conservation of Monachus schauinslandi — which in January also called for the fishery to be closed.

'At the beginning of the 1994 season, NMFS announced a quota of 200,000 lobsters for the Crustacean Fishery. After the season was underway, NMFS concluded that its quota had been far too high, that a properly protective quota was only 20,900, and that the season should therefore immediately be aborted. The fishery had already harvested 131,000 lobsters, however…’

‘As NMFS acknowledged in its 1999 Program Review: "Recent studies have also identified a different potential interaction between the commercial bottomfish fisheries in the NWHI and the monk seal… [M]onk seals commonly dive to depths of 10-200m and forage on commercially valuable fish. It is possible that bottomfish (snapper, grouper, and jacks) are more important in the monk seal’s diet than originally thought…"’

Extracts from: Complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief; summons. Greenpeace Foundation, Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network (Plaintiffs) versus William M. Daley, Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and Penelope D. Dalton, Assistant Administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The full text of the legal complaint is available in the Monachus Library: Earthjustice. 2000b.

Contacted by The Monachus Guardian, NMFS declined to comment on the lawsuit until such time that it can fully determine its strategy towards the legal offensive.

The full text of the Earthjustice legal complaint, and press releases, can be accessed in the Monachus Library: Earthjustice 2000a / Earthjustice 2000b / Earthjustice 2000c.


Marine Mammal Commission sees overfishing as culprit

The Marine Mammal Commission’s recently-released Annual Report to Congress for the year 1999 supports the contention that the monk seal colony at French Frigate Shoals has been plummeting due to overfishing pressures. Over the past decade, the Commission states, almost no pups have survived to breeding age at French Frigate Shoals. Evidence to implicate decreased prey availability includes starving and emaciated pups, nursing females smaller and thinner than at other colonies, and a delay in the average age of first reproduction to 11-12 years of age.

"The monk seal decline at French Frigate Shoals," the report declares, "started shortly after commercial lobster fishing began in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands early in the 1980s. Most fishing was concentrated at three banks in the eastern end of the chain (Necker Island, Maro Reef, and Gardner Pinnacles) east and west of French Frigate Shoals. Based on analyses of monk seal scat and spew samples, monk seals are known to eat lobsters as well as small reef fish, octopuses, and crabs. The relative importance of different prey items is difficult to assess from scat samples and, although lobsters were a small proportion of prey items identified in scats, the Commission became concerned that lobsters could be important prey items, especially for young seals. Studies of other pinnipeds have found that, as young seals mature, their diets shift from crustaceans to fish, and it seemed possible that young monk seals learning to feed could depend more on lobsters for food than adult seals (e.g., slow-moving lobsters may be somewhat easier to catch than fish for young seals with poorly developed foraging skills)."

An added cause of concern is that octopuses, crabs and small reef fish are taken as a bycatch of the lobster fishery, reducing food supply still further.

As in previous years, the Commission reiterates its view that the NMFS should impose an immediate moratorium on commercial lobster fishing at all major atolls supporting monk seal colonies, including French Frigate Shoals (see The Old Woman Who Swallowed the Fly, TMG 2:1). It points out that NMFS was first advised to close the fishery in 1994, pending further research on the dietary needs of monk seals, but that no steps were ever taken to implement its recommendations.

In rejecting the Commission’s repeated appeals, NMFS continues to assert that there is insufficient evidence to implicate the lobster fishery in the monk seal’s decline.

This is in spite of new findings on the diet of the species, based on analysis of prey fatty acid signatures in monk seal blubber samples. Preliminary results (presented at the 7-8 December 1999 Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team meeting) have "revealed that lobsters probably constitute a significant percentage of the diet of most juvenile and adult female monk seals at French Frigate Shoals, but only a small proportion of the diet of adult male monk seals."


Sharks patrolling the shoreline along Trig Island, a Hawaiian monk seal pupping beach at French Frigate Shoals

On other issues, the Commission continues to express concern over entanglement in lost and discarded fishing gear, particularly ghost nets. Since the 1980s, the report reveals, NMFS field crews have observed more than 150 entangled monk seals. During 1999, 25 entangled monk seals were seen during expeditions to breeding sites. A limited NMFS diver survey during the winter of 1996-1997 estimated the presence of 94 net fragments per square kilometer, and more than 29,000 net fragments in waters less than 10 meters deep at French Frigate Shoals alone. During 1999, about 25 tons of debris were removed from Lisianski Island and Pearl and Hermes Reef. Through the Department of State, the MMC and NMFS are attempting to kickstart international cooperation among Pacific Rim nations to counter the growing threat of marine debris.

In a development intended to reduce juvenile monk seal mortality, both the MMC and the NMFS appear to be supporting a controversial plan to selectively cull Galapagos sharks patrolling waters off pupping beaches at French Frigate Shoals. The MMC believes that shark predation on monk seals could be significantly reduced by eliminating the few sharks responsible, and without inflicting any discernible damage upon the atoll’s ecosystem.

The MMC report is available in the Monachus Library: Marine Mammal Commission. 2000. Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi). Pages 44-55 in Chapter III, Species of Special Concern, Annual Report to Congress, 1999. Marine Mammal Commission, Bethesda, Maryland.


Fourth of July pup probably killed by boat

Illustrating the perils of being a monk seal pup on the main Hawaiian Islands, a seal born on 4 July 1999 was found dead two months later by a kayaking couple on Kauai. They reported that they had discovered the jet-black pup floating dead in the surf. Closer examination of the animal revealed bleeding from the nose and mouth, and a badly damaged eye.

According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the kayakers also reported seeing an inflatable speed boat circling nearby, as though the people aboard it were searching for something in the water. They later expressed their suspicion that the boat may have hit the seal.

Of late, monk seal pups have not fared well on Kauai. According to marine biologist Don Heacock of the State Aquatics Division, three out of four monk seals born on the island since 1989 have been found dead.

"Young seals have to learn survival skills," Heacock was quoted as saying. "An adult monk seal can outswim and outfight any tiger shark in the ocean but a young seal will just stop and look at it. Same thing with a boat. They don't know what it is."

The full Honolulu Star-Bulletin report can be found in the Monachus Library: Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 2000a.


EndQuote

"SeaWorld San Antonio guests can observe the [Hawaiian monk] seals in their new home at SeaWorld’s Seal and Sea Lion Community, adjacent to the Sea Lion, Walrus and Otter Stadium."

SeaWorld San Antonio. 2000. Highly endangered Hawaiian monk seals thriving at SeaWorld. SeaWorld San Antonio Press Release, January 10, 2000. [Available in the Monachus Library]




                                    

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