HONOLULU (AP) – Federal officials say cutting Hawaiian monk seals free from fishing nets, moving vulnerable pups away from preying sharks, and other efforts to rescue the animals are significantly helping the endangered species.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show about one-fifth of the roughly 1,100 Hawaiian monk seals in the world are alive today because of interventions to save them, their mother or their grandmother between 1994 and 2009.
Charles Littnan, lead scientist for NOAA’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Program, says the seal population is also about 30 percent larger today than it would have been if authorities didn’t act.
Littnan says this is the first time NOAA has studied how interventions to save the lives of individual seals are affecting the overall population.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
