Gunshot to the head kills endangered monk seal on Hawaii beach, officials say
A gunshot to the head killed an endangered monk seal on a beach in Hawaii, officials said.
Hawaiian monk seals are one of the most endangered mammals across the globe, with roughly just 1,200 living in the sea currently.
One of these marine creatures, a young female, “suffered severe, lethal trauma” after being shot in the head on Moloka’i, on Sept. 19, according to a postmortem analysis, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said in a Dec. 21 news release.
The killing is the third confirmed intentional murder of a monk seal by a human on the state’s fifth-largest island in 2021, the DLNR noted.
“This is happening way too often,” Walter Ritte, who lives on the island and is a Native Hawaiian activist, told HawaiiNewsNow.
Several seal deaths on the island were investigated by state officials and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to the release.
The NOAA found a bullet fragment in connection with the most recent seal’s death, a statement from the organization said.
In April, two adult male seals died from “blunt force trauma,” according to the NOAA and DLNR.
“No one knows why they’re being killed,” Dan Dennison, a spokesperson for the DLNR, told McClatchy News via email.
Four other seal’s deaths in 2021 were listed as “inconclusive” but “may have also been intentionally killed” since there are “similarities to other cases,” DLNR explained.
Since 2009, eight seals have been intentionally killed on the island and seven seals have been killed on the island of Kaua’i, NOAA spokesperson Ingrid Biedron told McClatchy News via email.
“There are additional killings suspected, but not confirmed,” Biedron added.
“It is past time for anyone who has information on the killing of this seal and the others to step forward,” DLNR Chair Suzanne Case said in the release.
“Earlier this year many people were outraged when a visitor slapped a seal on the back, and we trust the level of indignation we saw associated with that incident will be exceeded by the despicable shooting of seal L11 and the others taken by human hands.”
Hawaiian monk seals are mostly found in the northwestern Hawaiian islands, while a small population can be found by the state’s main islands, according to the DLNR. They are solely native to the state’s seas.
“We are waiting on test results to see if L11 had any diseases, but we do not expect the results to change these conclusions,” the NOAA said.
Killing a monk seal is a state and a federal crime, according to the DLNR’s release.
Anyone with knowledge on the deaths of monk seals in the state is urged to call the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement hotline at 800-853-1964 or the DOCARE hotline at 808-643-DLNR (3567), according to the release.
The office is handling the investigation into the seal deaths, Biedron said.
“We can say that this kind of action is not broadly reflective of the Molokaʻi community and their deep rooted tradition of marine resource stewardship,” they added.
“I get really angry when the fishermen tell us that the seals are interfering in their fishing,” Ritte told HawaiiNewsNow. “The seals belong to the realm of Kanaloa, of the ocean, that’s their realm, we’re interfering in their realm.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2021 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Gunshot to the head kills endangered monk seal on Hawaii beach, officials say."
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