MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION — Annual Report for 1992 
March 1992, the Service replied to the Commission’s 
recommendations. While there was agreement regard- 
ing many of the recommendations, some were not 
adopted and others were deferred for possible future 
consideration. In response, the Commission, in 
consultation with its Committee of Scientific Advisors, 
offered further comments to the Service by letter of 
17 April 1992. Some of the principal issues examined 
by the Commission, the Service, and the Recovery 
Team in these meetings and letters, as well as follow- 
up actions taken in 1992, are discussed below. 
Hawaiian Monk Seal 
Program Budget Priorities 
The Commission’s 20 December 1991 letter to the 
Service on the results of the monk seal program 
review noted that most program funding and personnel 
had been devoted to documenting population status 
and trends. While this work has been useful in 
identifying needed management actions, the Commis- 
sion observed that the information base appears to 
have evolved to a point where greater emphasis could 
now more appropriately be placed on work more 
directly related to identified recovery needs. Exam- 
ples of such needs include addressing the male mob- 
bing problem, rehabilitating underweight pups to help 
rebuild certain populations, and resolving questions 
concerning food availability and foraging patterns. To 
permit greater efforts in these areas, the Commission 
suggested that consideration be given to reducing the 
level of monitoring at some locations and/or using less 
expensive monitoring approaches that would not 
require extended field camps at each island each year. 
During the Recovery Team’s January 1992 meet- 
ing, this point was considered along with plans for the 
coming year. The team concluded that, while means 
of collecting data more efficiently should be explored, 
support for annual field camps should continue to be 
a priority. In this regard, the team noted that each 
island group of seals appears to behave differently, 
that certain valuable information, such as survival 
rates, could not be collected without extended field 
camps, and that annual surveys at each island were 
needed to understand the factors responsible for 
population trends and to assess the effectiveness of 
restoration tasks. 
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The team also noted that extended annual field 
camps improve the ability to detect catastrophic 
events, such as a sudden die-off, to identify and 
remove overly aggressive males, and to free entangled 
animals. Finally, the team concluded that activities 
planned for 1992 with respect to mobbing behavior, 
rehabilitating underweight pups, identifying prey 
species and feeding areas, etc., would not be signifi- 
cantly improved by the addition of whatever resources 
might be saved by reducing population monitoring. 
The Service’s 11 March 1992 letter reflected the 
team’s views. It also noted that alternative monitoring 
techniques such as aerial surveys or satellite photo- 
grammetry were reexamined on a regular basis and 
that alternate-year monitoring schedules might be 
appropriate for populations at Kure Atoll and Pearl 
and Hermes Reef. The Service indicated that it would 
continue to consider such approaches, but stated that 
it had decided to proceed with its planned field 
program in 1992 and to monitor all five major breed- 
ing sites as well as Midway Island, where new popu- 
lation restoration work was begun (see below). 
Interactions with Commercial Longline Fishing 
Early in 1990 several injured monk seals, as well 
as albatrosses, were found at French Frigate Shoals 
with hooks from longline gear embedded in their skins 
and with injuries suggesting interactions with fisher- 
men or fishing gear. The observations coincided with 
a several-fold increase in the number of longline 
vessels fishing for swordfish near the Northwestern 
Hawaiian Islands. In response, the Western Pacific 
Regional Fishery Management Council and the 
National Marine Fisheries Service established a 
protected species zone within 50 nautical miles of the 
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and between the 
islands. Longline fishing within this zone was prohib- 
ited in 1991. 
There are almost no data on the distribution of 
monk seals at sea, and the Marine Mammal Commis- 
sion has been concerned that interactions beyond 50 
nautical miles also may occur. To assess the likeli- 
hood of such interactions, the Commission’s Decem- 
ber 1991 letter repeated earlier recommendations that 
steps be taken to place observers aboard longline 
