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FALL 2014
M
ore than 20 million years
ago, a weasel-like progenitor
to today’s monk seals
foraged in Canada’s lakes.
By 15 million years ago,
the animal’s descendants had evolved into seals
similar to present-day monk seals. By 8 million
years ago, monk seals had spread to both sides
of the North Atlantic and to the eastern-central
Pacific. When the Isthmus of Panama separated
the two oceans about 3 to 4 million years ago,
the species diverged into the Caribbean monk
seal on one side of the continent and the
Hawaiian monk seal on the other, while seals in
the eastern Atlantic region evolved to become
the Mediterranean monk seal.
At that time, the lower five of the main
Hawaiian Islands (MHI) had not yet emerged
from the sea, so monk seals inhabited what is
now known as Kauai and the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), stretching out past
Midway to Kure, colonizing new islands as they
appeared. Hawaiian monk seals had no terrestrial
enemies until humans arrived in the MHI
around 1,000 years ago. It is believed that within
a century Polynesian settlers and their dogs had
all but extirpated the seals from the MHI.
Today the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
(IUCN) lists the Hawaiian monk seal as critically
endangered, but some islanders are protesting
recovery plans proposed by the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Some Hawaiian residents argue that
Hawaiian monk seals are not native to their
land: “The history of the monk seals is based on
WATER PLANET
Choosing Extinction
The Hawaiian monk seal
T E X T A N D P H O T O S
B Y D O U G P E R R I N E
This young female monk seal became a public safety
hazard and had to be removed from the MHI
population after being illegally fed by humans.
