By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Nina Young of the Center for Marine Conservation shows Mayor
Jeremy Harris some of the debris found near the Northwest
Hawaiian Islands. The debris threatens the endangered
Hawaiian monk seal.

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Effort to save
seals collects six
tons of debris

Massive clutter found northwest
of Hawaii threatened their habitat

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

The Coast Guard cutter Kukui unloaded six tons of marine debis and netting today that has threatened the endangered Hawaiian monk seals off the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research vessel Townsend Cromwell is scheduled to unload another two tons on Nov. 25 at the Sand Island Coast Guard Station.

The debris was found on French Frigate Shoals on the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

Divers with the Coast Guard, NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service and Navy helped bring up the debris.

George "Bud" Antonelis, chief of Protected Species Investigation of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, said the monk seal is among the most endangered marine mammals in the United States.

He said since 1982, there have been 155 observed seal entanglements in nets.

Only 1,300 to 1,400 seals remain, with a 62 percent decrease in the mammal population since the late 1950s.

"Efforts must be made to stop this destruction," Antonelis said today at the Coast Guard station.

The northwest Hawaiian archipelago "sticks out like a huge comb in the Eastern Pacific that catches all the marine debris that floats in currents from Australia, Asia and off Alaska and the West Coast," said Mike Fergus, NOAA spokesman for the southwest region.

Fergus said the debris includes marine lines and ropes, plastic containers and fishing nets.

The city of Honolulu hauled away the debris in numerous containers provided by Browning-Ferris Industries of Hawaii.

Fergus called the cleanup "almost an unprecedented effort" because of the number of private and government organizations involved.

"I have never seen anything of this large a scale, of people with varied interests involved, with such a degree of success," he said.

Because the area is the habitat for monk seals, researchers discovered the mess, he said.

"If not for those little critters, we might not have known this stuff was out there to this degree," Fergus said.

Fergus said the congressional mandate for protecting endangered species and cleaning up their marine environment boosted the effort.

The animals in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands are mostly safe from human predation but are beset by debris.

Derelict nets from fishing operations in the North Pacific drift on ocean currents, snagging fish, birds, seals, sea turtles, dolphins and small whales.

The Sea Grant Extension Service did much of the cleanup coordination.