‘The rat running beside the wave’

Editor’s note: In this two-part series, The Garden Island takes a look at the Hawaiian monk seal and how folks from two sides see the same creature so differently.

In today’s story, we focus on opposing sides of the debate, including the seals original origin, traditional names for the animals and their eating practices.

On Monday, we’ll look at recovery plans for the Hawaiian monk seals, federal regulations and how some are working toward coexistence and better communication.

LIHUE — When Hawaiian monk seals are spotted snoozing along Kauai’s shoreline, volunteers rush in to set up large protective barriers.

It is a reminder to give the federally- and state-protected animals their space.

But not everyone believes this space is theirs, or views the endangered mammals as harmless and lovable. In fact, the controversy has resulted in several seals being intentionally killed, including at least two on Kauai.

One side of the debate, made up primarily of Hawaiians and local fishermen, believes the federal government relocated the animals here; that there is no traditional Hawaiian word for them, proving they did not previously inhabit the Main Hawaiian Islands; and that the seals are interfering with traditional fishing practices and the Hawaiian way of life.

Timothy Oga describes the animals as a “nuisance,” forcing subsistence fisherman like himself to resort to the supermarket.

“Take them and put them someplace else,” he said. “They’re eating all our food.”

The other side, backed by scientific evidence, says these seals are endemic to the Hawaiian Archipelago and predate the presence of native Hawaiians; that their archeological remains have been discovered in middens dating as far back as the 15th century; and that references to the animals are found in ancient Hawaiian chants.

Matthew Sproat is head of community engagement and cultural development for Honua Consulting, a company that represents the Marine Conservation Institute, and is working to protect the seals without impacting the practices and livelihoods of Hawaiians and fishermen.

“Of all the islands, Kauai is the most contentious,” Sproat said. “By saying the seals aren’t native, (people) justify their animosity.”

Local environmental scientist and community advocate Fern Rosenstiel is working with Sproat toward open communication and coexistence. While each of the Islands has its issues with the seals, she said the people of Kauai are most passionate about them not being native.

“It’s just a huge misconception,” she said. “People think that not seeing it for 150 years means it’s not from here.”

Rosenstiel and Sproat say there is plenty of proof that the seals have been thriving in the Main Hawaiian Islands prior to Polynesian contact, including three reported cases — two on Big Island and one on Maui — in which archeological remains of Hawaiian monk seals were uncovered.

While it is limited — due to the unlikely chance that a marine animal’s remains are preserved on land — the evidence is still there, said Jeff Walters, the Hawaiian monk seal recovery coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Islands Regional Office.

One thing Sproat, Rosenstiel and others don’t dispute is that locals never saw monk seals while growing up on island. However, they say there is a good explanation.

“During the whaling years, they were pretty much wiped out,” said Sproat, adding there are records of one specific whaling expedition taking 1,500 monk seal skins in 1859.

Many locals don’t buy it.

They say they are being fed propaganda, often by a group of people who, like the seals, aren’t Hawaiian.

“All these people, who come from somewhere else, they all have their opinions,” said local fisherman Kopa Akana. “That’s all it is, just an opinion.”

Walters isn’t surprised the seal is not a big part of local culture.

“There never were that many to start with, and they probably got reduced to almost zero when the first humans got here,” he said.

The Hawaiian monk seal is one of only two remaining monk seal species. The Mediterranean monk seal is also critically endangered, with a population of about 500. The Caribbean monk seal is extinct, last seen in 1952.

Take them back …

to where?

After initially being contacted for this story, Oga organized a group of local residents to speak about their frustrations.

Thirty people, mostly subsistence fishermen and lifelong watermen, gathered at Salt Pond Beach Park on Kauai’s Westside May 16. Nearby, a monk seal napped lazily in the sand, unaware it was the topic of discussion, while visitors snapped photos from behind orange cones.

The overall consensus from those at the gathering was the seals first arrived on Kauai as early as the late-1950s. Before that, they were never here, they said.

“To tell you the truth, I cannot say where they are from,” Oga said. “But I know they’re not from here.”

One man, Philip Nemecek, said the seals were brought here from Algeria in order to keep the Mediterranean monk seal — a different species — from going extinct. Others said the seals are native only to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The majority of Hawaiian monk seals, about 900, reside in the Leeward Islands, part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. However, a smaller but growing population of about 200 seals inhabit the Main Hawaiian Islands.

While the subpopulations were once thought to be isolated, Sproat and Rosenstiel said recent information has proved otherwise.

“We have GPS tracking, which shows that these seals, right now, will make regular trips from the Main Hawaiian Islands to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,” Sproat said.

Given that the animals are capable of making the long journey today, Sproat said it is hard to argue that they didn’t do so in the past.

Walters agrees and said NOAA simply can’t consider the seals to be an alien or invasive species.

“Everything that we know, intuitively and scientifically, tells us that monk seals don’t know about an imaginary line between Nihoa (the nearest of the NWHI) and Niihau,” he said. “It’s a continuous ecosystem, with free exchange of species.”

Ronald Macdonald, a fisherman for 27 years on Kauai, maintains they couldn’t have come here on their own. Rather, he said the federal government brought them here as a way of controlling the water.

“I’d like to see them gone,” he said.

Nemecek voiced a similar opinion and said the animals are being used “to prevent people from fishing rights.”

Walters said conspiracy theories that NOAA relocated the seals from far-away places — such as the Mediterranean — around the mid-1900s give NOAA “too much credit.”

“To capture a monk seal and bring it all the way over here … I just don’t see us being able to pull that off.”

The only documented case of monk seals being brought to the MHI from the NWHI was in 1994, when 21 males were relocated from Laysan Island in order to balance a population dominated by males in the NWHI.

When discussing the issue in local communities, Sproat said he points out that a population of males cannot procreate, unless of course females were already present around the MHI.

The rat of the sea?

Janos Samu, a Westside resident and member of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, said all large marine creatures are mentioned in traditional Hawaiian chants.

The only one missing, he says, is the seal.

“This name that they are using now has never been used before,” he said.

Trisha Watson, a Hawaii representative for the Marine Conservation Institute, disagrees.

In a recent letter to the editor, she wrote that the monk seal appears in the Kumulipo — the Hawaiian creation chant — as “ioleholoikauaua,” or “the rat running beside the wave.” It also appears in the Kumu Honua genealogy as “ilio holo i ka uaua a Lono,” or “the dog running at the voice of (the Hawaiian god) Lono,” she said.

Samu and others believe people have cast doubt on the record-keeping abilities of native Hawaiians and that these terms are modern creations.

“Our Hawaiian ancestors, who were wayfarers between Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Hawaii might have seen seals around the seas of Aotearoa and their head looks like a dog’s head,” Samu wrote in a recent email. “There are three subspecies of seals living there, but none of them are Hawaiian monk seals.”

Don Heacock, aquatic biologist with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources on Kauai, started the Monk Seal Watch Program on Kauai in 1990.

To his knowledge, the earliest documented sighting of a monk seal on Kauai was in the summer of 1961, when a pup was born at Polihale Beach, on Kauai’s Westside. He discovered an article about the birth in an archived edition of The Garden Island.

Heacock said the next documented sighting came in 1986, when he received a call about an adult female in Poipu.

“If that’s the immigration rate, you get one seal approximately every 25 years,” he said.

Unlike with sea turtles or sharks, which were constantly present around the Main Hawaiian Islands, Heacock believes this immigration rate may explain the lack of monk seal petroglyphs and bones found here.

“It was so infrequent that they were immediately processed and eaten,” he said. “They were considered food, recognized as part of the ecosystem, just like everything else in the ocean.”

Unfortunately, Heacock said scientists are never going to have all the data they want when it comes to the seals.

“But we have to manage resources based on what we do have,” he said.

Opportunistic

or gluttonous?

“Everything is getting scarce,” Joseph Kauahi, a 61-year-old fisherman from Kekaha said. “The monk seals eat plenty of lobsters (and) fish.”

In addition to targeting the preferred species, locals say the seals are lazy, often breaking holes in their nets to steal their hard-earned catch.

Akana said he views the seal as an “invasive species” that is undermining the host culture and its primary food source.

“Demanding that the culture bend over backwards to have this alien species in its proximity, it’s far from logical,” he said.

Elvis Kanahele, a 30-year fisherman from Niihau, went as far as to describe the seals as “vicious.”

“We used to lay net for food consumption at Salt Pond Beach … (but) it’s getting harder to fish,” he said. “Everything is declining.”

Rosenstiel and Sproat agree that fish populations are in trouble, but said the seal is not to blame.

Seals are “opportunistic feeders” and eat a maximum of 30 pounds of fish, lobster, crab, eel and octopus per day, according to Sproat.

With a population of about 200 in the main Hawaiian Islands, Rosenstiel added the seals are not having a substantial impact on fish stocks.

“The oceans are dying in every way,” she said. “There’s entire dead zones popping up around the world.”

Walters said the seals are a natural part of the marine ecosystem here and agreed that their impact on the fishery is “very, very small.”

“From what we know, based on the evidence that we have, monk seals are not, by any means, eating all the fish. … They’re not having, nor will they have, a negative impact on the marine ecosystem and the productivity of the fisheries.”

Walters added that about 25 percent of the seals in the MHI can be found around Kauai and Niihau.

“It’s just hard for us to see how 40 or 50 seals over that many miles of reef and sea floor and ocean is going to consume that much of the resources,” he said.

Rosenstiel and Sproat believe it is time for fishermen to stop focusing on and pointing the finger at the seal.

“We are from the extinction hot spot of the world,” Rosenstiel said. “Yet one of our most endangered animals has been outlawed as not native because it competes with local fishermen.”

• Chris D’Angelo, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or lifestyle@thegardenisland.com.