Finding coexistence

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 Sunday’s story, we focused on opposing sides of the  debate, including the seals’ original origin, traditional names for the animals and their eating practices. Today, we’ll look at recovery plans for the Hawaiian monk seals, federal regulations and how some are working toward coexistence and better communication.

LIHUE — Here on Kauai, the mere mention of a Hawaiian monk seal can quickly stir up conversations about their origin, eating habits and whether references to the seals can be found in traditional Hawaiian chants.

But many, including Don Heacock, an aquatic biologist with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources on Kauai, say those debates are taking away from the real issue: How are we, the people of this island state, going to coexist with and manage their growing population, as well as look at their long-term conservation?

“The key to this is opening communication, being honest and respecting one another,” he said.

Heacock said management of endangered species can’t continue taking “top-down” federal approach. Rather, it needs to be sustainable and community-based.

“In the long run, it’s going to be the local people who take care of these animals,” he said.

Fern Rosenstiel, local environmental scientist and community advocate, hopes to get past misinformation. What’s important, she said, is that these marine mammals — one of the rarest in the world — are here, and can be found nowhere else.

“I believe we have the kuleana (responsibility) to protect them,” she said.

A handful of local fishermen feel otherwise, that the seals are threatening their traditional way of life.

“I’d like to see it out of here,” Westside fisherman Philip Nemecek said.

Janos Samu, a Westside resident and member of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, said he is fine with the federal government protecting the seals, but not here, in an area where they have negative impacts on people.

Samu believes the local community should have the right to manage the seals and deal with those that cause damage.

“Regardless if it’s a honu (turtle) or monk seal, if you leave it to the Hawaiians, they never take more than is needed, and that’s the point,” he said. “The monk seals will survive.”

Jeff Walters, Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Islands Regional Office, describes the issue here as “unique.”

“You’ve got an endangered species in an area where most local people aren’t used to dealing with it,” he said.

The result has been animosity, anger and the occasional killing of a monk seal.

Walters said he and others at NOAA are working toward coexistence, but that misinformation — such as NOAA having plans to grow the population in the Main Hawaiian Islands to 10,000-plus seals — is not helping the situation.

“We just need to continue to share what we know with the fishing community,” he said. “Hopefully we can reach an understanding.”

Recovery plan

In August 2007, NOAA signed and implemented a revised recovery plan for the Hawaiian monk seal. The goal is to reach a population of 3,400 individuals — including 500 in the MHI — and maintain them for 20 years, before they could be removed from Endangered Species Act protection.

With a growing population of about 200 seals in the MHI today, Walters said “we’re almost halfway there already,” but that abandoning the recovery plan is not up for consideration.

Over the last decade or so, the population of seals in the MHI has increased by approximately 6 percent annually, from about 15 individual seals in 2000. However, the population as a whole in the Archipelago is declining at an annual rate of 4 percent.

Biologists fear the number of seals will dip below 1,000 in the next few years.

To address the situation in the NWHI — where sharks and other predators are killing a large percentage of pups — NOAA proposed temporarily translocating up to 60 juvenile seals from the NWHI to the MHI. The idea led to additional anger among fishermen, who believe the seal population is already depleting fish populations.

In March, the translocation application was deferred for up to five years.

NOAA has also proposed expanding critical habitat for the seals to include parts of the MHI, but a final decision has not yet been reached.

With such a rapid population growth, along with state laws to protect the animals, Heacock believes critical habitat is not necessary in the MHI.

“At 7 percent, the seal population would double in 10 years,” he said. “We should be celebrating the population increase.”

As for the NWHI, Heacock questions whether establishing the monument and making the area hands-off — “as if humans aren’t part of the ecosystem” — hasn’t actually contributed to the decline.

“The seal population is crashing in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, here its growing,” he said.

If allowed to do so, he believes the local community, working in partnership with the federal government, can and will successfully manage these animals for long-term conservation.

“Hawaiians existed in the Archipelago with seals for 1,500 years,” he said. “They did not cause the decline like the way commercial hunting practices did.”

Greg Holzman, a Westside fisherman and surfer, said he was happy to hear NOAA backed off on the translocation proposal, and agreed the feds should focus its conservation efforts in the NWHI.

“The federal government just shouldn’t get involved with their existence in the Main Hawaiian Islands,” he said.

Regulations and federal force

Is local animosity really about the seals, or is it about a wave of federal proposals and the fear of losing public access and fishing rights?

Holzman said Hawaiians look at what’s going on around them and think, “They grabbed our land in 1898 and now they’re trying to grab our ocean. It’s another federal grab of our resources.”

Holzman can understand the frustration.

“If I was a Hawaiian I couldn’t think differently than that,” he said.

With talk of critical habitat and sanctuaries, along with proposals to protect not only the seals, but corals, sea turtles and humpback whales, Holzman believes the feds have created animosity for the animals.

There are a lot of threats out there, he said, including beach closures, spatial and temporal restrictions and boating speed limits.

“Whether they happen or not isn’t important,” he said. “It stirs people up to hate the whole process.”

Heacock agrees the local community is not really fed up with monk seals, which he says “are the victims in more ways than one.”

“They’re fed up with the imperialism concept — ‘I’m from the government, I know what’s best,’” he said. “They don’t feel like they’re an integral part of (the process). Once people feel that, then they start reacting.”

Ultimately, Heacock believes the root of the problem is a lack of communication and shared core values.

Walters admits the timing for all the different NOAA proposals “isn’t great.”

“We have so many things happening more or less at the same time,” he said, but added that when it comes to the monk seal, there is no time to wait.

“We need to move pretty quickly on some things,” he said.

Walters said he recognizes and appreciates the knowledge held within the Hawaiian community, and that there is a continued need for engagement and open dialogue.

“We haven’t done the greatest job of having that discussion,” he said.

Local resident Kopa Akana has been fishing the waters around Kauai his entire life. One of the big problems today, he said, is the federal government coming in and telling the Hawaiian people “what to do and how to do it.”

As head of community engagement and cultural development for Honua Consulting, Matthew Sproat said he has been pushing for less regulation and more education.

“I don’t want these volunteers to be policing the beach, blowing whistles,” he said. “I feel that’s where a lot of the animosity comes with the local community on Kauai. There’s a lot of conservationists there that will yell at you, ‘Get away from the seal.’”

What about the Hawaiian people?

Another underlying frustration being voiced is that the seals and other marine life around the Islands are receiving better treatment than the local people.

“I hear that more than anything,” Sproat said. “That the seals are more protected than the Hawaiian people.”

A group of local fishermen and Hawaiians that gathered at Salt Pond Beach Park last month said the federal government should be spending more time and money protecting the original inhabitants of these islands.

“Now (the seals) have more rights than we do, because now they are federally protected,” Akana said.

“We’re now protecting predators over humans,” added Samu.

Of course, others are quick to point out the low number of seals, and that the animals not only predate humans in the islands, but the MHI themselves, having been isolated from their closest relative 15 million years ago.

Ronald Macdonald, also a Westside fishermen, questions why the Hawaiians are so ill-considered.

“There’s no protection for Hawaiians,” he said. “They can’t sleep on the beach. They’re called criminals.”

Heacock said people don’t feel like they are being treated fairly.

“Many local fishermen feel they are going to lose subsistence fishing, which is not recognized at the federal level,” he said.

Heacock argues the federal management process is generally broken and the solution is a return to community-based, sustainable conservation.

It is a clash of cultures, according to Heacock.

“The battle today is one of traditional Hawaiian values, which recognize that natural resources are sacred and need to be protected for future generations, versus the Western view that natural resources are commodities.”

Moving forward, Sproat’s focus is listening to community concerns, working toward coexistence and trying to change the mindset about the seals — from believing the animals are not native to accepting that they are creatures of Hawaii.

“Once that happens, I think you’ll start seeing more production with their protection,” he said. “I am not pro monk seal. I am pro community. They are a part of my community and it is my job to protect them.”  

Keeping them wild

As the Kauai Marine Mammal Response Coordinator for NOAA, Jamie Thomton is tasked with managing interactions between monk seals and people.

That means making sure the animals are not disturbed while allowing the public to access beaches and the ocean.

If a seal is behaving in a way that is not conducive — for example, sleeping on a boat ramp — he works on conditioning the animal not to be there. Thomton said a person only breaks the law when they disturb or harm the animals.

“Those zones that we set up are just guidelines,” he said. “It’s not like a police zone, or boundary where you can’t go in.”

Thomton sees the first step toward a solution as getting everyone to understand and value that the seals are a critical part of the ocean ecosystem.

Then there is the ongoing challenge of coexistence on the beach.

Holzman believes teaching the seals to go where humans aren’t is a good thing.

“Right now, (we’re) only conditioning them to think that humans mean food, shelter and safety,” he said.

In working within the community, Rosenstiel said she has heard about local fishermen feeding the seals — something she referred to as “paying the tax man.”

She said it is important that monk seals remain wild animals.

“The real problem is that obtaining food from people is becoming a common practice for the seals,” she said.

Walters has also heard about the “paying the tax man” concept. He agreed it must stop because seals are intelligent animals.

“That’s so sad because it really only takes once or twice and that seal is going down a bad path,” he said. “If we could get one message out, it’s do not feed the seal no matter what. You may mean well, but it’s the wrong thing to do.”

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