By noaa.gov.
New analysis confirms Hawaiian monk seals greatly benefit from marine debris cleanup efforts in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Since the early 1980s, field biologists working in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have found Hawaiian monk seals entangled in derelict fishing gear and other plastics. These entanglements can result in lethal injuries and drowning—they’re a serious threat to these endangered seals. NOAA scientists began documenting and removing debris from entangled seals they encountered while patrolling island shorelines. Biologists began cleaning up dangerous plastic garbage on Northwestern Hawaiian Island beaches in the 1980s with the hope of reducing seal entanglement. A new study published in Science shows that these efforts have been a success, with declines in entanglement rates at many sites.
Seals continued to suffer entanglement in marine debris, mostly consisting of abandoned, lost, and otherwise discarded fishing gear. This lethal ocean plastic pollution comes from all over the North Pacific Ocean and is concentrated and deposited in Hawai‘i by ocean currents. Cleaning up dangerous marine debris that had washed up on land was not enough to reduce the threat to seals.
NOAA scientists hatched a bold proposal in the late 1990s: What if we didn’t stop at the water’s edge? What if we cleaned up ocean plastics in the reef and lagoon waters, too? Would that be possible, and could it be done at a scale that would make a difference to monk seals and other marine life?
Cleaning up Debris Saves Seals
A large-scale, multi-agency program was established in fall 1999 to clean up marine debris in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. NOAA led this successful debris removal effort until the early 2020s, when it was taken on by a non-profit organization, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project.
read more at noaa.gov.
