"In response to a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, last Friday the National Marine Fisheries Service announced it will grant the Hawaiian monk seal the federally protected habitat it needs for any hope of shedding its status as one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. Monk seals on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are dying by the dozens thanks to starvation, derelict fishing-gear entanglement, predation, and disease; pups in the area have only about a one-in-five chance of surviving to adulthood. Thankfully, the main islands offer better foraging conditions, as well as a better refuge for warming-caused sea-level rise and beach erosion. Accordingly, seals in the main Hawaiian Islands are giving birth to healthy pups and their numbers are slowly on the rise.
But despite the increasing importance of main-islands habitat for monk seals, it has never before been protected. Last week the Service declared it was not only going to expand habitat protections in the Northwestern Islands; it will also designate new protected habitat in the main islands.
Read more in the Honolulu Advertiser."
