Chapter III — Species of Special Concern 



noted that manatees in Puerto Rico were sometimes 

 sold for meat and taken in gillnets. Although infor- 

 mation was scarce, it appeared that fishery interac- 

 tions significantly affect the status of the population. 



Because of the species' status as endangered and 

 the high levels of natural and human-related mortality, 

 the assessments for both stocks concluded that they 

 should be considered as strategic stocks. As of the 

 end of 1995 no steps had been taken to establish take 

 reduction teams for either stock. 



Adventures with Chessie 



In the summer of 1994 a Florida manatee was 

 sighted in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, establish- 

 ing a new northernmost record for the species. By 

 September the animal had not begun to move south 

 and its plight became national news. Because of 

 falling water temperatures and limited time to make 

 the 1 , 000-mile return trip to Florida, the animal was 

 captured on 1 October with the assistance of the 

 National Aquarium in Baltimore. Ten days later it 

 was flown back to Florida on a plane donated by the 

 Coast Guard. The animal, a large male nicknamed 

 Chessie, was subsequently placed in the soft-release 

 pen and released early in October with a satellite 

 transmitter attached by Sirenia Project staff to track its 

 movements. He remained in Florida's coastal water 

 for the remainder of the winter. 



In June 1995, with his satellite tag still attached, 

 Chessie again began moving north up the intracoastal 

 waterway, reaching the Chesapeake Bay in July. 

 Although his tag was lost along the way, he was 

 relocated and a new tag was attached. He again 

 became national news as he continued north, reaching 

 Pt. Judith, Pvhode Island, on 16 August. There cold 

 water presumably stopped his northward trek and he 

 turned south, again losing his tag on 22 August off 

 Connecticut. Occasional reports placed him in New 

 Jersey on 6 September and contingency plans were 

 made in the event another rescue might be needed. 



The opportunity never arose. With his ability to 

 return to Florida before succumbing to cold-stress in 

 doubt, brief sightings reported to the Service and by 

 the media still had him in the lower Chesapeake Bay 

 on 21 September. After several more weeks with a 



few unconfirmed sighting reports, he was finally seen 

 at a warm-water power plant outfall in Jacksonville, 

 Florida, on 16 November, having completed a five- 

 month odyssey covering nearly 4,000 miles and 

 setting a northern record for the species' distribution. 



Hawaiian Monk Seal 

 (Monachus shauinslandi) 



The Hawaiian monk seal is the most endangered 

 seal in U.S. waters. The species currently is thought 

 to number about 1,300 to 1,400 animals and to have 

 declined significantly since 1990. After the northern 

 right whale, the Hawaiian monk seal is the nation's 

 second most endangered marine mammal. The 

 species occurs only in the Hawaiian Archipelago with 

 most animals living around remote, largely uninhabit- 

 ed islets in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands extend- 

 ing 1,200 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian 

 Islands (Figure 1). 



The largest monk seal colony is at French Frigate 

 Shoals where more than 50 percent of the species' 

 births have occurred in recent years. Most of the 

 remaining seals and almost all other pupping occurs at 

 four other islands and atolls: Laysan Island, Lisianski 

 Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef, and Kure Atoll. A 

 sixth atoll, the Midway Islands, supported a major 

 breeding colony as recently as the 1950s, but the 

 colony virtually disappeared by the late 1960s. About 

 45 animals, mostly immigrants from nearby atolls, 

 now use that site and a few births occur annually. 



Accounts of Hawaiian monk seals before 1900 are 

 rare. Their numbers are believed to have been 

 reduced significantly in the 1800s by a short-lived 

 commercial sealing venture and by transient visitors, 

 including shipwrecked sailors, who killed seals for 

 food. Since then, other human activities and natural 

 factors have suppressed the species' recovery. The 

 principal human threats have been disruption of 

 normal haul-out patterns by people and pets on 

 beaches, interactions with commercial fisheries, 

 entanglement in derelict fishing gear and other debris, 

 pollution from human activities and abandoned equip- 

 ment, entrapment in old shore protection structures, 

 and overfishing of seal prey species. 



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