Monk seal Monachus schauinslandi

IUCN STATUS CATEGORY: Endangered in the 1994 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals.
The Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) is considered the most endangered seal in U.S. waters, with only about 1,200 left.(The most endangered seal in the world is another species of monk seal, the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus), of which there are only about 600 seals left in the Mediterranean. The Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), a third species of monk seal, is now extinct! )

GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD: Hawaiian monk seals are mainly found in the northwest (Leeward) part of the Hawaiian Islands. Other main populations occur at Kure Atoll, Pearl and Hermes Reef, Lisianski Islands, Laysan Island, and the French Frigate Shoals. The stocks at the Midway Islands have been reduced to a few individuals. Small breeding populations occur at the Necker and Nihoa Islands.

NORMAL DIET: They eat octopus, lobsters and many reef fish, including eels.

SIZE and WEIGHT: They can grow up to seven feet long, and weigh between 400 and 600 pounds.

AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY: They can live as long as 30 years.

HABITAT: They spend a lot of time at sea sometimes as long as a month. They are able to dive 600 feet deep, and can stay under water for up to 20 minutes.

The seals are born on land. Every year, usually in May or June, females find sandy beaches and give birth to a single pup. Adults have gray or brown fur, and babies are black.
Sharks are natural predators to the monk seals. The female seals avoid beaches where the water becomes deep very quickly because this lets sharks swim close to land and catch the seals. Mothers take care of their pups for six weeks. During that entire time, they do not leave the beach even to eat. Instead, they live off of fat that they have stored up over the previous year and feed their pups with a fat rich milk. After six weeks, the mother leaves her pup on the beach and the young seal must go out to sea and start to find food for itself. Usually seals can be found with their pups on very remote beaches. However, recent births have been reported in the main Hawaiian Islands including Kauai and Molokai.
A single individual was born on Oahu’s North Shore in 1991.

NORMAL LIFESTYLE: Hawaiian Monk Seals are solitary both in the water and on shore. Groups form on beaches because of favourable environmental conditions rather than a sense of gregariousness. The Hawaiian monk seal does not actively migrate, individuals usually remain at their natal beach. Inter-island migration occurs but is rare.

REASONS FOR DECLINE: The species was driven close to extinction through exploitation for oil, meat and pelts. The sealing brig "Aiona" was thought to have taken the last of the monk seals in 1824. Some seals escaped this kill and there was a report of the bark "Gambia" taking a further 1,500 skins in 1859.

CURRENT THREATS: Hawaiian Monk Seals are very sensitive to disturbance. The development of commercial fisheries in the inner reef and reef slope waters of the northwestern Hawaiian islands has been has been identified as the primary factor in the decline of the species. Lost fishing gear may pose a serious threat to the seals, as they often get tangled in the nets and other trash in the oceans. Also, It has been suggested that the fish that seals eat have been reduced by fishermen and by changes in weather patterns like the El Niño event.

If these threats were not enough, at present there also is an uneven sex ratio, with more males than females; and during the mating season, a number of aggressive males will attack and sometimes "gang-rape" females until they are badly injured or eventually killed. This behavior is known as mobbing, and was identified as a primary cause of high female mortality and the reduction in reproductive potential in some breeding populations of monk seals. and This is particularly evident at Laysan and Lisianski islands.

CONSERVATION PROJECTS: Several measures have been developed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the federal agency in charge of the management and protection of the Untied States' marine resources, to save the species from extinction. The majority of the Hawaiian Monk Seals breeding habitat is protected.

The Headstart Program has been devised to increase female pup survival. The NMFS brought several abandoned or partly weaned female pups to Oahu for rehabilitation. After 6 months of feeding and fattening under human care, seals were released to other sites where they had a better chance for survival. This programme has been very successful to date. In 1991, 14 out of 20 pups released at Kure Atoll reached maturity and several had pupped.

The IUCN/SSC Seal Specialist Group also recommended the following conservation measures: continuation recovery activities, reduction of mobbing behaviour of male monk seals (possibly by suppression of testosterone levels), research to determine monk seal foraging and movement patterns and monitoring and mitigating the impacts of fishing.