Hawaiian monk seal in its native habitat. Photo: NOAA

Pup Births Fall to Record Lows

The monk seal successfully survived in the Hawaiian Islands for millions of years until it was hunted to near extinction in the 1800s. Today, monk seals are at risk from entanglement in fishing gear and other marine debris, overfishing, invasive species, sea level rise and ocean acidification. But recovery efforts face strong opposition from fishermen who fear the seals’ competition for fish, and others who see any federal protections as intrusion. Adding to these threats, vocal resistance to critical habitat and recovery actions for the seal has taken an increasingly ominous turn. In late 2011 and earlier this year, four monk seals died of suspicious head injuries and a fifth is being investigated. More are suspected of having been killed offshore. New reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provide further concern. According to Charles Littnan, lead scientist for the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at NOAA, monk seal births in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) are at an all-time low. Just 105 pups were born in the NWHI this year; the lowest number since records began to be kept 30 years ago.

Recovery Funding Key to Preventing Extinction

The Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Plan, released in 2007, identified funding needs totaling $36 million over 5 years, or approximately $7 million per year in order to successfully recover and protect the seal. Though essential to the survival of the seal, these figures have never been fully realized. The Recovery Program has lost 36% of its funding from 2010 ($5.5 million to $3.5 million) and proposed cuts for 2013 threaten to further eliminate key parts of research and recovery efforts that could literally mean life or death to the endangered monk seal.

Data from NOAA show that less than 200 seals live near the main Hawaiian Islands of O‘ahu, Maui Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i, Moloka‘i, Lana‘i, Kaho‘olawe, and Ni‘ihau. Here, the majority of pups born annually survive just fine.  But out in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands where the vast majority of monk seals reside, fewer than one in five pups ever reach adulthood. Starvation and Galapagos sharks, which come into the shallow waters to prey on seal pups, take a huge annual toll.

Raising the survival rates of female pups to breeding age is key to the species’ survival. But doing so depends entirely on securing critical funding. Part of the recovery plan calls for temporarily moving small numbers of female pups from the NWHI to the main islands for up to three years to support greater survivability. Funding cuts threaten these translocation efforts as well as other important components of the recovery plan. According to the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the survival of the Hawaiian monk seal will depend largely on the stability of this recovery funding over the next several years, making the next 5 to 10 years crucial to the survival of the seal.

Donate now to help prevent monk seal killings and preserve vital seal habitat.

Make your voice heard: Speak Up for the Hawaiian Monk Seal

Right now, Congress is hearing mainly from those who oppose the actions that are needed to save our Hawaiian monk seals. Please take a moment to add your voice to those of us across the nation calling for protection of the Hawaiian monk seal by contacting your members of congress. Take action here to urge your members of Congress to support and fully fund recovery actions that will prevent Hawaiian monks seal from going extinct.

Polar bear hair is transparent; the way it reflects light makes it look white

In honor of International Polar Bear Day, which falls each year on February 27th, here are a few things about the celebrated bruin that may amaze and amuse you:

1. The polar bear rivals the Alaska brown bear as the world’s largest land predator. A large male polar bear may weigh up to 1,500 pounds and grow to nearly 10 feet tall, standing on its hide legs; however, a record male shot in 1960 in Alaska weighed 2,210 pounds and stood 12 feet tall. The petite females stand only up to about 8 feet tall and tip the scales at a svelte 550 pounds or less.
2. Polar bears are closely related to brown bears and probably evolved from a brown population that become isolated from others of their kind perhaps 150,000 years ago during the most recent ice age—making polar bears a newer, or more “modern,” species than the modern human, which dates back at least 200,000 years.
3. Brown and polar bears can interbreed and produce fertile young, which by some definitions suggests they are the same species. However, they are adapted to different habitats and behaviors and, under the climate conditions that have prevailed since the last ice age, cannot survive very long in each other’s habitat, a factor that keeps them isolated and continuing to evolve away from one another.
4. You can sometimes tell male polar bears from female by the hair on the males’ front legs. Once mature, males tend to have much longer hair on their forelimbs.
5. Polar bear hair is transparent; the way it reflects light makes it look white. It can turn yellowish with age.
6. Polar bears are so adapted to cold that they can’t take temperatures above 50 degrees.
   
7. Wild polar bears probably live more than 25 years only rarely, but in captivity they have lasted up to 43 years.
8. Despite the harsh winter conditions that batter the polar bear’s Arctic home, only females about to give birth hibernate. Males remain active year round. However, when food is scarce during warm seasons, polar bears can go a few months without eating.
9. Most land animals are too fast for the bear to catch. Polar bears prey mostly on marine mammals, including seals and the occasional beluga whale. Lying by breathing holes in the ice, the bears snatch prey from the water when the animals come up for air.
10. Although polar bears eat everything from crabs to kelp to muskoxen, they are adapted to feeding on calorie-rich blubber. When dining on seals, adults favor the fat and the skin exclusively, while younger bears may sup on seal meat.
11. Found in Arctic reaches in both hemispheres, the polar bear maintains a foothold on more of its native range than any other large meat-eating animal, but only because its habitat is so inhospitable to humans that the bear has never had to contend with much human encroachment.
12. The polar bear has been protected for many years. Russia outlawed hunting in 1956, and Greenland began regulating it in 1994. The United States began protecting the species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and under the Endangered Species Act in 2008, when the bear was listed as threatened. Tightly regulated hunting is allowed in Canada, where about 500 bears are killed yearly.
13. About 25,000 polar bears survive worldwide, but the population apparently is declining from a variety of causes, including pollution and poaching. The most severe threat in the long run is likely to be global warming, which is destroying the sea ice that the bear needs to continue its nomadic existence in search of Arctic seals for food.

Bonus Item: 9 things you can do to celebrate Polar Bear Day >>