HUMAN IMPACTS

Monk seals are extremely vulnerable to human presence. When left alone, these seals bear their pups on beaches with gentle inclines into the sea. But when humans move into or even just visit their birthing areas, they may abandon them the next year, and have their pups in areas where they jump into deep water and are eaten by sharks. Human activity is believed to be the direct cause in the decline of monk seals. The Caribbean monk seals have not been seen since 1952 and are thought to be extinct. The Mediterranean monk seals are now hiding out in isolated caves away from heavily populated areas. In all likelihood, the populations of monk seals were never large to begin with; making them particularly susceptible to outside impacts. Even in the best of times, these seals exist precariously in balance with nature. These, unfortunately, are not the best of times.

The pacific monk seal declines are believed to have begun during the 1800’s and early 1900’s with the arrival of sealers, feather hunters, guano diggers and shipwrecked crews. So many seals were killed or so disturbed that their numbers were greatly reduced. The population was pretty much left alone between 1912 until the beginning of World War II. But a steady decline began with the advent of military activity during and after the war. Population counts in the mid-1970’s indicated that populations had declined by more than half since they were counted in 1957-58, and they have not recovered substantially to this day.

More recently, their populations have suffered extreme impacts from marine debris and washed-up nets which have taken a huge toll of baby seals. Their remote island beaches are literally strewn with the detritus of mankind: nets, plastic strapping, bags, floats, etc.

A more direct threat has been the intentional killing of adult monk seals by longline and other fishing vessels which stray in too close to their breeding islands, primarily the remote atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Longline vessels have been reported shooting and clubbing hooked monk seals. For that reason, this organization and others have worked to keep longline boats farther offshore. This has ameliorated the problem somewhat, but there is seldom an enforcement presence on site. Moreover, some of the longline vessel captains and crews have reportedly been utter jerks, shooting seabirds with skeet guns for fun; so this remains an uneasy situation. There has also been a conflict with human lobster fishermen who attempt to compete directly with Monk Seals for a common food supply. Anecdotal accounts indicate that when such conflicts occur, humans are more likely to be carrying guns than seals are, and the seals lose.

But some of the most insidious pressure has come simply from a human presence on the seals’ ancestral breeding islands. Seals will often leave an area if humans are seen; but there are few places they can go to reproduce. Possibly due to the females being more likely to leave when intruded upon – and thus subjected to greater pressure from sharks, active nets, and underwater marine debris – there are now skewed sex ratios on several of the key islands. This means there are a lot more male seals than females. This is a bigger problem than even it might seem. Obviously, only female seals can have pups; and their low reproductive rate and high infant mortality contribute to a difficulty in rebuilding population size. But the sex drive of some male monk seals is so strong that a few go virtually berserk with too few females to mate with; gang-raping females and newborn pups to death . It isn’t pretty, and it’s important to remember that this aberrant behavior is apparently in response to a human-caused unnatural decline in female seals. NMFS has adopted a program – which we support – of relocating identified sex-offender seals to places like Johnston Atoll, where no females exist. This seems to be helping; and is a commentary on just how many things can go wrong when humans impact natural systems which were already in delicate balance.

In an encouraging sign, monk seals are now being sporadically spotted on the main Hawaiian islands, and the hope is that they will return to these islands where they once lived in much greater numbers. However, human harassment and killing of these seals, when they do show up, could keep this from happening. A female monk seal was killed and eaten by a Kauai resident and in March ’99 Greenpeace Foundation obtained tape shot by independent videographer David Jordan of an individual on Maui hitting a resting seal with coconuts and rocks.

Thus, Greenpeace Foundation started a public outreach and reward program to encourage people to respect the monk seals, and document the actions of harassers for prosecution. These seals have lived for 15 million years virtually unchanged; let’s make sure they survive into the future.