Page 32 - AT

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 30 OctOber 2019
Scientists: People getting too close to Hawaiian monk seals

Associated Press Only about 1,400 Hawai- rupt their rest if they get too 2,392 posts uploaded to In- Sullivan, NOAA researcher
HONOLULU (AP) — Photos ian monk seals remain in close to the seals to take stagram from October 2014 and co-author of the study,
posted on social media in- the wild, with about 1,100 photos of them or take self- to September 2015 say told the Honolulu Star-Ad-
dicate the public has been in the Northwestern Hawaii ies with the animals. about 22% showed people vertiser. "Most of the time,
getting too close to Hawai- Islands and 300 in the main The National Oceanic and within 10 feet (3 meters) of it was the photographer,
ian monk seals, a critically Hawaiian Islands. The ani- Atmospheric Administra- a seal. The peer-reviewed and we conservatively esti-
endangered species pro- mals rest when they lie on tion recommends staying study was published last mated they were within 10
tected by federal and state the beach after hunting for 50 feet (15 meters) from week by the scientific jour- feet."
law, government research- food in the ocean most of monk seals on a shoreline. nal PLOS One. The study found that 18% of
ers said in a new study. the day. Humans can dis- But researchers studying "That is way too close," Mark the posts showed a monk
seal responding to some
type of disturbance by
looking, moving away, or
mouthing or barking.
Still, a large majority, 82%,
of the interactions with hu-
mans led to no response
from the monk seals, ac-
cording to the study.
Sullivan acknowledged so-
cial media's downfalls for
this type of study: Some-
times the posts can be al-
tered, might be shared a
week or a year later and
do not offer as much accu-
racy as the trained network
of volunteers who report on
the status of the seals.
However, he concluded
that social media platforms
can be an effective tool
for researchers to track the
behavior and threats to the
survival of seals, to help in-
form management deci-
sions, as well as provide re-
al-time data for population
monitoring.
For example, researchers
had been monitoring R329,
a female monk seal who
suffered from a shark bite
to her face, but lost track of
where she went for months.
Then a social media post
surfaced showing her swim-
ming on Lanai, where few
are sighted. NOAA was
able to see that her wound
was healing.q