It was early morning, and we had arrived on a white-sand beach empty of people and empty of footprints . . . but not for long. Within minutes, the morning sun cast a long shadow on the sand, and we were joined by a spear fisherman, a friendly Filipino fellow.
He said he had been spearfishing a few days earlier, and he had quite a few fish on his stringer when a monk seal swam by and stopped to eat them. All of them. (You don’t mess with monk seals, which can grow to 7 feet and nearly 500 pounds; and, although they are normally non-aggressive, they have been known to bite swimmers and to hold them underwater.) When he returned home, his wife said, “Where da fish? Wassamatter you?” So, with a bit of chagrin, he told us he was planning to try again to get some fish for "mama," and he hoped that another big seal wasn’t waiting for him. We laughed, and we all glanced at the ocean. A wisp of wind blew across the surface, and we could mark its path as it ruffled the water on its haphazard path to sea. We could see no monk seals. Then we turned, the three of us readied our gear, and we slipped into the water, and we did not see him again. A mile down the beach, however, we came across a big seal on the beach who looked like he might have stolen some fish in his day. He was having a nap, possibly a food coma from some other spear fisherman’s catch. My wife swam into the shallows and then went onto the beach to get a few photos of the handsome fellow, who would certainly be a heartthrob among monk seals if they could overlook the mold on its back. (Algae sometimes adheres to a monk seal's hide, leading to a green tinge.) Then she came back into the water, and we continued our swim down the beach. We returned an hour later, and we could see from the water that the beach was empty, but as we continued on back to our starting point, a large well-fed seal, perhaps the same one we had observed on the beach, emerged silently from its undersea ledge and proceeded to check us out to determine what the “Catch of the Day” was. Discovering that we had no fish, he promptly lost all interest in us, took a few breaths of air, snorted his disgust and returned to his undersea lair. Monk seals may be cute to some people, but those people are usually not spear fishermen. Seals are opportunistic feeders, and they are clever. They have been known to follow spear fishermen in the water, and, when a spear shot is successful, a seal becomes an underwater tax man, barging in to take its fair share, which it usually regards as 100 percent. Even boaters don’t always escape a seal’s ingenuity. In testimony before the NOAA a few years ago, a boater claimed that a seal hid under his boat, and every time he hooked a fish, the seal would steal it as he was reeling it in. To thwart the seal, he motored three miles down the coast . . . and the seal followed, stealthily taking its same position beneath his boat. Due to actions such as these, monk seals have earned a negative, but perhaps undeserved, reputation among many island fishermen. The fishermen believe monk seals not only steal their catch, but they also eat the same type of fish that fishermen hunt. For this reason, they regard monk seals as food chain competitors, a belief that has proved fatal for some seals. Many of the residents of Molokai fish for personal or family consumption, and it is no coincidence that, according to the NOAA, Molokai has the most intentional monk seal killings of any island. At least nine have occurred on Molokai since 2009, including six in 2021. Seals have been shot and beaten, and others have been speared. This carnage has occurred despite the fact that Hawaiian monk seals are one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world and are protected under Hawaiian state law, the federal Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Monk seals, however, are not eating anywhere near the amount of shoreline fish as many fishermen believe they are. In addition, they are not significant competitors for the local fish supply and do not target most popular gamefish species, such as ulua, papio and oio. NOAA states that seals eat a wide variety of species, many of which are not targeted by fishermen. In addition, monk seals generally hunt for food outside of the immediate shoreline areas and often in waters 60-300 feet deep, far beyond the range frequented by most spear fishermen. Hawaiian monk seals spend about a third of their time resting and sleeping on shore. They do this to conserve energy for their foraging trips and deep dives, which can reach a depth of 1,800-feet. They can live to be 25-30 years old, provided they escape their natural predators, such as tiger and Galapagos sharks. If you get up close and personal with a monk seal - which you really don’t want to do - you might notice that its face resembles the face of a dog. They even have whiskers. It’s easy to see why the Hawaiian name for monk seals - "llio holo I ka uaua” - means “dog running in rough seas.” The seal in the photo on the beach looks a bit like my dog. Except my dog is fatter.
Sadly, within a few months after I wrote this, two more monk seals drowned on Kauai after being caught in fishermen's nets.
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