The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, established in 2006 under the George W. Bush presidency, safeguarded over 105,564 square nautical miles of tropical water surrounding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. As such it created one of the largest conservation areas in the world. All commercial and recreational fisheries were banned, leaving the beaches, waters, plants, and animals to the whims of nature.
Yet government scientists found that nature was frustratingly capricious. Inexplicably, the Hawaiian monk seal failed to thrive in Papahanaumokuakea. Ten years ago pups born in the remote tropical atoll of French Frigate Shoals within the reserve were almost guaranteed to see their second birthday. Today a mere 8 percent of the pups survived past this age.
Through a series of eliminations and scientific observations, Dr. Littnan’s team had identified two likely culprits: entanglement in marine debris and competition from larger, more aggressive fish. Whereas entanglement had been a long-term problem for the curious seals, competition for food was relatively new. Like diminutive cheetahs being chased off their kills by burly hyenas, juvenile monk seals were being bullied off their fishy meals.
A National Geographic Crittercam worn by several of the wild seals had revealed the problem. Left to their own devices, Hawaiian monk seals cruised the shallow blue waters and reefs of the outer islands. The remarkable videos showed that the seals used their blocky heads like battering rams. They foraged by sticking their muzzles into reef crevices and by head butting rocks and pieces of broken coral just like KP2 butted coconuts and his bowling ball. Small fish hiding in the coral were scared out into the open, where they could be easily snatched up by the hungry seals.
But the wary eyes of other carnivores were watching the monk seals’ fishing activities. Large numbers of predatory sharks and ulua fish, also called jacks, followed the monk seals on their dives. They hung in the shadows until the seals scared up a fish. Before the seals had a chance to catch their prey, the larger predatory fishes sprinted in to nab the fleeing meal. Weaned pups and juvenile seals were especially vulnerable to this parasitism. Too slow to compete, they were often left to go hungry after a long day of hunting. The emaciated bodies of young seals now littered the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
In an unorthodox, seemingly desperate management plan, the government scientists proposed to solve the problem by translocating a cohort of newly weaned female monk seal pups. Immature females would be taken from their birth sites in the remote Northwestern Islands, where they had no defense against marauding sharks and jacks, and then shipped to the “big city” of the main Hawaiian Islands to mature into adults.
Ironically, the presence of commercial and recreational fishermen in the main islands had done the seals a favor by targeting the large predatory fish that competed for the seals’ prey. Bigger fish brought in more money. As a result, the large, aggressive fish that plagued pups and juvenile seals in the outer islands were gone. In the main Hawaiian Islands, young seals were free to eat and grow. If the management plan was successful, the teenage female seals would be returned to their original birth sites in the Northwestern Islands several years later, once they were large and strong enough to compete with the predatory sharks and jacks.
However, the bold plan required one critical element for it to work: people. The locals in the main Hawaiian Islands had to be willing to share their waters and beaches with the monk seals. The loudest voices in the ensuing town hall meetings to discuss the plan indicated that the prospects were not good.
On Maui the locals objected to the government and mainland scientists telling islanders what to do, likening Hawaiians to the true endangered species in the proposed scenario. Monk seals were deemed raiders of their “ocean icebox.” Oahu fishermen echoed the sentiments and criticized the move, citing the loss of fishing gear to marauding monk seals. “The government should not be trying to play Mother Nature,” they told the NMFS representatives. At the town meeting on Molokai one resident even brought a cooler full of fish to demonstrate how much a seal would eat in a day. “We don’t even eat that much in one month!” the woman declared. To my horror, I realized that the metabolic rates and caloric demands that we had just determined for KP2 were being used against his species.
Locals pitted seal appetites against individual human appetites. But the woman’s cooler demonstration was not quite accurate. It was true that a growing monk seal ate a lot of fish—eight to nine pounds of fish per day, in the case of KP2. However, that fish represented everything the seal would eat and drink in twenty-four hours, since both calories and water came from the seal’s diet.
We had discovered that the monk seal’s caloric demand was between that of a teenaged Hawaiian surfer and an Olympic-class swimmer such as Michael Phelps, depending on how active the seal was. In human terms, the surfer would need to eat more than ten In-N-Out burgers (at 480 calories per burger) per day to remain in caloric balance if that were the only thing he ate. Michael Phelps would need to consume twenty-five burgers during peak training periods. An active juvenile monk seal would need seventeen and a half burgers (although I admit we did not test this on KP2 when we stopped at In-N-Out on our drive through Los Angeles when he was a pup). In terms of calories, pound for pound teenage seals and human males who played in the water were not all that different. Adding a cohort of female juvenile monk seals to the main Hawaiian Islands, as Dr. Littnan’s team proposed, could be likened to an influx of young surfing tourists.
By comparison, larger marine mammals were high-end consumers. It would take 46 In-N-Out burgers to satisfy a 440-pound dolphin’s daily appetite and an astounding 354 burgers to feed a 6,500-pound killer whale each day. Unlike the oceanic cetaceans, the monk seals were making the mistake of eating in front of the fishermen. Dolphins and whales, on the other hand, seemed to forage in comparative peace offshore.
I was curious. Were monk seals as gluttonous and fat as some fishermen accused? We had been weighing KP2 nearly every week since he’d arrived. Yet that was not enough to answer the question. We needed to measure the seal’s blubber thickness. To do so, we used a portable ultrasound unit, the same instrument found in ob-gyn offices to provide eager parents with a first glimpse of their son or daughter in utero. For us, ultrasound proved to be a wonderful, noninvasive means of seeing and measuring the layer of insulating fat that encased seal bodies. It was the newest technology for assessing one of the oldest and most important metrics of animal body condition: how much fat was on board.
Before ultrasound technology, the methods for evaluating fat in wild animals ranged from distasteful to deadly. One option was to sedate the animal and then use a biopsy punch on the immobilized body to scoop a wedge of fat from beneath the skin. For a big whale, this could mean nearly twelve inches of coring. The alternative, old-fashioned naturalist method was simpler but did not do much for the health of the animal. They shot first, then skinned the carcass to reveal underlying fat deposits.
Squinting at the blurry ultrasound images on the tiny black-and-white screen, I tweaked the gain knob to focus on KP2’s fat layer. He was being especially patient as I fiddled with the instrument. Under Beau’s and Traci’s watchful eyes he was content to let me run the ultrasound probe across various body sites, except for his belly.
“Roll him, please,” I asked Beau.
With that, Beau gave KP2 a signal to roll over onto his back so I could measure his belly fat. For most marine mammal trainers this meant showing a hand and turning it from palm down to palm up. As soon as Puka and Primo saw the trainer’s hand turn, they immediately turned upside down with their pink bellies pointed to the sky. To accommodate KP2’s poor eyesight, Beau added a voice command just to make sure he got the signal: “Hoa, over!”
Having warmed to his sunbathing spot, the seal initially pretended not to hear the signal. Then, in tropical slow motion, he rolled leisurely onto his back. When I slathered blue ultrasound gel o
nto his white belly, his whole body contorted. When I tried to slide the ultrasound probe near his belly button, KP2 curled into a “C.” And so I made two discoveries: A healthy young Hawaiian monk seal has a one-inch-thick blubber layer on its belly. And, at least in the case of KP2, they are ticklish.
I found the monk seal’s thick blubber layer a mystery. Why would a seal species designed for living in the tropics need so much insulation? Admittedly, their blubber was only half as thick as that of a Weddell seal’s, but it was 100 to 150 degrees colder in the Antarctic seal’s icy home. The reason for KP2’s substantial blubber layer was likely related to padding for body streamlining or as a fatty food store to sustain the animal in lean times. But we would have to await another experiment at another time for proof.
While we were busy studying KP2’s blubber and trying to determine the relationship between the caloric needs of seals and fishermen, an article arrived from the Molokai Dispatch. Walter Ritte had recognized that the town hall meetings in the islands were not going well for the monk seals, and he decided to do something about it. The former protester at the Waikiki Aquarium enlisted students from the Ho‘omana Hou School to create a video about preserving Hawaii’s seals. In an odd twist given the current competitors of wild seals, the fictional account starred two sharks and a group of fishermen who came to the rescue of KP2.
“What are they rescuing KP2 from?” Traci asked.
I paused as I read the article.
“Well, according to the newspaper . . . ,” I replied slowly, “I think it is us.”
16.
The Social Seal
What are we doing here?” I asked Beau and Traci in frustration when I read the press release about KP2’s rescue video. I was still reeling from reports of the latest monk seal killing in Hawaii, and from my own classroom discovery. As a part of my Comparative Physiology course I had brought forty unsuspecting undergraduate students into the campus necropsy lab, where we performed a CSI-type examination of a sea lion carcass that had washed up on our beach. Usually, these cases were a simple shark bite, parasite, or lung infection. Today was different.
“Your goal today,” I informed the students, “is to determine how this supposedly healthy California sea lion died.”
Lying in front of them was a beautiful full-grown adult male sea lion that appeared to be in the prime of his life. Dark, sleek, and massively blubbered, he was an impressive animal. It saddened me to see him unceremoniously draped on a stainless steel table. He was quite dead without a mark on him. Even the attending veterinarian was stumped as to the cause of death.
The first midline incision sent a number of the weaker stomachs out the door, as blood poured from the abdomen of the sea lion. Something was very wrong. As soon as the animal’s internal organs were exposed, the problem was immediately apparent: lying in a small indentation on the liver was a bullet. He had been shot with a small-caliber handgun. The bullet had penetrated the sea lion’s blubber without leaving a mark, severed a splanchnic artery, and come to rest on the liver.
I was shocked and then visibly angry, emotions I never reveal in a classroom.
“What a waste,” I told the students disgustedly. It was salmon season off the coast of Monterey Bay. With the fishery shut in previous years because of low fish stocks, the competition for the pink meat was heightened this year. Recreational and commercial boats were out in force on the waters, and sly California sea lions had learned to follow them to nab the fatty salmon off their fishing lines. This year there was no mercy shown to the ravenous marine mammals. At times the fishing grounds five miles offshore sounded like a war zone, with the incessant pop, pop, pop of faraway gunfire. Whether to scare the animals off or to take them out permanently, this bullet had found its mark. I wondered how long it would be before the California sea lion was in the same sad state as the Hawaiian monk seal.
• • •
“WHAT IS THE POINT OF our science if people are going to hate us and shoot monk seals into extinction?” I asked my trainers.
“Well, I thought KP2 was supposed to be a sign from the ocean,” Traci reminded me. “Why doesn’t he say something?”
I had never been in a situation like this. My science was being drawn further and further into social and cultural circles, and I was unsure how to react. In Antarctica there were no local residents, fishermen, or politicians to consider. Data were just data with no ulterior motives or families at stake. In Hawaii, nature and an ancient culture were intertwined. Especially in the islands it was critical that locals got the science right, that they understood where their families and the families of wild monk seals fit into the entire tropical ecosystem. We had to do more than simply generate scientific data and go on our way. We needed to communicate with the people, a prospect I found exceedingly frightening as a reclusive scientist.
• • •
THE ARTICLE in the Molokai Dispatch included a photo showing a large group from town gathered at Kaunakakai Wharf, KP2’s favorite old swimming spot. Locals had mistakenly heard that the real KP2 was arriving back on the island, saved by fishermen from a life in California. Instead they greeted a youngster in a gray seal costume meant to look like KP2. The “seal” waved a flipper next to two papier-mâché sharks in a boat that had just traveled from my lab.
Being upstaged by paper sharks and fishermen would have seemed funny had it not been for the rescue by the scientists in California. I felt the need to set the record straight, if for no other reason than to defend my fellow researchers. People had to understand why KP2 was here.
That night I wrote a letter to the editor of the Molokai Dispatch. Trying to dispel the myth concerning scientists, I wrote, “As opposed to white lab coats my research team goes to work in flowered board shorts and flip-flops.” I told of KP2’s daily life and work with us. Most important, I acknowledged that the elders of Molokai were wise when KP2 was blessed with the name Ho‘ailona. “This seal does carry a message—that all of us—islanders and mainlanders, schoolchildren and adults, fishermen and scientists alike—must live together and share the oceans.”
The response from Molokai was a series of heartfelt e-mails and phone calls from KP2’s former caretakers, the palm frond shakers, and the general public. So many people were excited and curious about KP2’s foray into science that I was encouraged to say more.
I decided it was time to follow in the long tradition of Hawaiian communication through storytelling and gave the seal his own voice. It had to be an exceptionally big voice in order for it to carry across the Pacific Ocean, so I had KP2 join the newest form of social communication: Facebook.
With a doctored age so that he was old enough to join Facebook, KP2 began talking to the children of Molokai, the aunties and uncles who’d once cared for him, as well as anyone willing to friend him. To cover all bases, his name was Ho‘ailona Monk Seal (Kptwo Monk Seal). No subject was too small or too big for him to discuss. He told his friends about his early abandonment, about his love of the oceans and Hawaii, about environmental issues and his life in Santa Cruz. He spoke of the oceans in peril, of overfishing and pollution, of climate change and the impact of oceanic sounds—and he was not above commenting on such important topics as the joys of In-N-Out burgers or the Giants’ World Series win (although I made sure he was also a Yankees fan like me). He was a single male who worked at the University of California, and his residence was listed as “Sealarium.”
Almost immediately I ran afoul of island sensitivities as the Facebook voice of KP2 reverberated through Hawaii. Searching for a way to describe the shape of the seal, I innocently had him ask his four hundred new friends, “Some of the folks here say I look like a banana slug. What do you think?” I signed it “Your Hoa.” The response from the islands was swift and brutal. Through e-mails and KP2’s Facebook page I was harshly scolded for my “insensitivity,” “disrespectfulness,” and “immaturity.” Complaints s
ailed from the islands, across the mainland, and to the NOAA and National Marine Fisheries Service permit offices in metro Washington, D.C. By likening the seal to the UC Santa Cruz school mascot—the Banana Slugs—I had created a transoceanic national incident.
“It was meant to be funny, an honor. John Travolta wore a UC slug T-shirt in Pulp Fiction. It’s our school mascot!” I defended myself to David Schofield when he called from Honolulu to explain the trouble I had caused. David had been in my position many times when working with stranded seals and whales in Hawaii.
“You have to understand. These ocean animals are ‘aumakua, a physical manifestation of nature, of deity in Hawaii,” he responded seriously.
I felt stupid. Had I just likened a god to a worm? No wonder people were upset. For traditional Hawaiians there was no distinction between nature and culture; the ‘aina (land), the kai (ocean), and the lewa (sky) were intertwined in the life and spirit of the islands.
Still, I argued, if monk seals were ‘aumakua, how could anyone be allowed to kick or shoot them? I didn’t understand. Obviously, my ability to read people fell considerably short of my skill with animals. I immediately removed the offensive posting and from then on chose KP2’s words with the utmost care.
• • •
SOON OUR LIFE WITH KP2 settled into a pattern as we entered into the warmer days of spring. The trainers opened the doors connecting KP2’s sealarium to the outside decking, and he wandered around according to the shifting sun to choose the warmest, most windless spots for his daily suntan sessions. The cockatoos noted his appearance with a brief display of squawking and then went on with their day, talking to themselves.
The Odyssey of KP2 Page 15