In January 2018, a male juvenile monk seal was sighted on Niihau with a hook in his lower right lip. Photos of him happened to match another set of photos submitted by some kindly fishermen of a sighting in September 2017. Both sets of images showed the animal to be in good body condition with the hook not presenting a life-threatening situation. Clearly, the seal was managing to forage successfully. So, the decision was made to await an attempted de-hooking when the seal was next sighted–as long as he was in a safe place and situation to intervene.
Thing is, this wasn’t NG00‘s first hooking. In May 2016, he hauled out on a Kauai beach with a hook stuck in his lip. At the time, NOAA approved a trained team to capture him and remove the hook, and they did. Successfully. Then, 18 months later, he was hooked again. That was the Niihau sighting.
Months went by. NG00 was sighted but not in a safe place for intervention. Then, he was sighted, but he’d recently molted, so it was decided–once again–not to intervene.
You might be wondering about his flipper tag number. NG00 was tagged on Niihau, and his tags are black. As you can tell, he tends to make the swim back and forth from Niihau to Kauai fairly regularly.
Last week, the stars and seals aligned. After romping with with RG58, he hauled out in a safe spot. With NOAA’s approval, a trained team caught him, and safely removed the hook that he’d been sporting since, at least, September 2017.
This would be a good time to request fishers to use barbless hooks. Please.