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A Hawaiian monk seal in captivity in California with a history of aggression toward pups will spend the rest of his life at Sea Life Park Hawaii.
The state Board of Agriculture last week agreed to allow the 19-year-old male seal known as KE18 to be imported to Hawaii from California, where it has resided at the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory for about a decade while the subject of physiological studies.
An import permit from the Department of Agriculture’s Plant Quarantine Branch is required to import nondomestic animals into the state, and Jeff Pawloski, curator for Sea Life Park, which applied to bring KE18 back to Hawaii.
The marine mammal will be on exhibit as the park’s only Hawaiian monk seal and may be made available for follow-up studies.
“We’re excited to bring him here, and we’re really excited because of the opportunity for the kids to really get a safe, respectful viewing (of a Hawaiian monk seal),” Pawloski said. “We’ll be doing demonstrations with the seal so that people can get a better understanding for how we care for them.”
Researchers at the UCSC marine lab recently finished their work involving KE18, which included studying the underwater hearing and communication of Hawaiian monk seals.
In 2011 KE18 narrowly avoided becoming the second Hawaiian monk seal to be euthanized since at least the early 1980s, according to Thea Johanos, supervisory marine biologist for the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program.
In 1991 a seal was euthanized after attacking and killing pups. In 1998 two others were relocated to Johnston Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
KE18, who was born at Kure Atoll, had displayed prolonged “single male aggression” toward weaned pups and juveniles. It’s not uncommon for subadult males to attack smaller or younger individuals, sometimes by biting them or holding them underwater, although they usually grow out of the behavior once they reach adulthood.
In KE18’s case his aggression only grew as he reached maturity in 2010, and his attacks became more frequent. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration crews couldn’t react quickly enough to stop the violence.
“We will sometimes interrupt or intervene to make sure the behavior doesn’t progress further, but with KE18, he displayed this behavior repeatedly and injured quite a few pups,” Johanos said. “It’s very infrequent that we come across a male that does this behavior escalated and repeatedly.”
After KE18 killed two of the nine pups he attacked in 2011, a decision was made to euthanize him as a last resort to prevent harm to other seals. Crews spent a week in the summer of 2011 looking for KE18 at Kure Atoll but were unsuccessful.
That left enough time for officials to work out a less drastic arrangement by holding the seal at the Waikiki Aquarium temporarily before sending him to UCSC.
In captivity KE18 was noticeably more docile and was given the Hawaiian name Kaimalino, which translates to “calm as the sea.”
Hawaiian monk seals are endangered, with only 1,400 individuals left in the wild, although the population has been slowly recovering. Johanos said there are only three of the captive seals worldwide, and they provide rare opportunities to study the species.
“There may be research done, especially on KE18,” she said. “Because there are so few, they have been instrumental in helping us to develop our vaccination program that we have for seals and just to learn about their base-line health.”
Besides KE18, the other captives are the Waikiki Aquarium’s KP2, also known as Ho‘ailona, and a seal at the Minnesota Zoo. KP2 was abandoned by his mother as an infant, Johanos said, while the Minnesota Zoo seal, named Ola, was weaned too early and developed other issues.
It was always part of the plan to return KE18 to Hawaii after researchers finished their work with him, Pawloski said. He acknowledged the controversy over keeping marine mammals in captivity but said reintroducing KE18 to the wild isn’t a viable option.
“We don’t want to release him to the wild because of the damage he could cause. We don’t know if he’ll reengage. What’s really the alternative? Euthanasia,” Pawloski said.
Johanos said she is concerned about the possibility of KE18 attacking pups or introducing diseases to the wild population if he was returned to the wild.
Although Sea Life Park can’t entirely replicate KE18’s natural habitat, Pawloski said the seal will have plenty of enrichment. The park is equipped to house up to six seals and has had captive Hawaiian monk seals before and is familiar with caring for the animals.
He said KE18 could return to Hawaii in August.
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June 01, 2021 at 05:07PM
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Hawaiian monk seal known to attack, sometimes kill pups to be moved to Sea Life Park Hawaii - Honolulu Star-Advertiser
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