Ke Kai Ola on Big Island saving Hawaiian monk seals for 10 years

Michelle Barbieri still remembers when she first encountered Hawaiian monk seal, KF04.

The female pup was thin and weak when it was rescued in 2014 from Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which is within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

“Her bones were protruding, points of hips were visible, spine was showing, ribs were showing,” said Barbieri, the lead scientist for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program. “Her eyes were sunken. She was only a few months old and she didn’t have much time.”

KF04 became one of the first patients at the Marine Mammal Center’s hospital Ke Kai Ola, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary after opening its doors in Kailua-Kona on Hawai‘i Island in September 2014.

Throughout the past decade, more than 50 Hawaiian monk seals have been treated at the Kona facility and released back into the wild. Most of the animals came from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and were struggling with malnourishment, although seals from the main Hawaiian Islands also have received care at the hospital.

Malnutrition in monk seals can occur when the mom doesn’t have enough fat rich milk by the time its weaned and does not have enough energy to figure out how to feed themselves. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands also are a predator-rich environment so competition for food is fierce.

Megan McGinnis, a staff member at Ke Kai Ola for almost 8 years, said the Hawaiian monk seal population was about 1,100 and decreasing when Ke Kai Ola opened.

“Now we’re over 1,600 animals, and the population is increasing annually, so it’s really exciting,” said McGinnis, the hospital’s registered veterinary technician and an associate director of the Hawai‘i Community Conservation.

KF04 is helping with the population increase. For nearly 6 months, the pup was cared for at Ke Kai Ola before she grew strong enough to be returned to the wild.

“She was incredibly challenging,” Barbieri said. “I had many sleepless nights trying to keep calories on her.”

In the early days of her rehabilitation, Barbieri said the seal would make this hum without opening her mouth. “It was a song in her way.”

The animal was given the name Meleana, which means continuous song.

Today, Meleana is one of a handful of seals treated and released from Ke Kai Ola that has become a mom.

Barbeiri said: “She went from death’s door to producing the next generation of seals.”

NOAA rescues 2 to 12 seals a year.

Before the opening of Ke Kai Ola, Barbieri said there was no designated place to transport malnourished, sick or injured seals for additional care. In the 80s and 90s, most seals needing care or rehabilitation were taken to a space on the ground on Midway Atoll.

There also were efforts to house the animals at various institutions on O‘ahu, but they no longer exist.

“Some survived, but many did not,” Barbieri said, adding the lessons learned in the years leading up to the opening of Marine Mammal Center’s hospital Ke Kai Ola, allowing them to construct a facility tailored to the seals.

“The facility and its existence fill the key recovery needs and enhance the survival of females,” the NOAA scientist said.

Currently, the marine mammal hospital, located at the Hawai‘i Ocean Science and Technology Park in Kailua-Kona, also known as OTEC, is caring for four Hawaiian monk seals. McGinnis said the facility is “lovingly referred to as the burrito based on its shape.”

Equipped to house about 12 seals, the facility encompasses two pens and pools for monk seal pups and two larger pools for juvenile seals. There is also a medical lab, offices, food prep kitchen and an education pavilion that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

Costing $3.2 million to build, the hospital has shade cover to protect the health of the monk seal’s eyes. When staff or volunteers enter the fenced pens to interact with the seals they bring a shield-like board. McGinnis said this protects them from the animals and also distorts the human shape so seals don’t equate food with people.

The hospital has partners that provide live fish for the seals, including kampachi and sea cucumbers.

McGinnis said the hospital has had several patients come in with some kind of environmental or cross-species trauma, from an adult seal picking on a pup to swallowing hooks, as well as treating toxoplasmosis, a parasite found in cat feces that is deadly to Hawaiian monk seals.

While the marine hospital is specifically for the care of seals, McGinnis said the facility will assist in sea turtle triage before an animal goes to the Marine Institute Maui Ocean Center for longterm care.

Three of the current patients, pups from Manuwai in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, recently arrived malnourished. Also under the hospital staff’s care is R8HA, a Kaua‘i-born seal that also was rescued suffering from poor nutrition, as well as pneumonia.

McGinnis said this older seal probably will be released sometime this month.

In April, the Marine Mammal Center got word that two of the Hawaiian monk seals and previous Ke Kai Ola patients, TF90 and LL00, were reported nursing healthy pups at Hōlanikū Kure Atoll, the first recorded births for both seals. They now have successfully weaned their pups.

McGinnis said the staff and volunteers are excited about the grand pups.

“We know that about 30% of the animals that are alive today are due to some kind of direct intervention, whether NOAA, us, state partners,” McGinnis said.

It’s rewarding, she added, to watch an animal that had a slim chance of survival without help get care and go on to thrive and add to the population.

The well-being of Hawaiian monk seals also is a sign of the condition of Hawai‘i’s coastal environment.

“The same issues that seals are facing, people are facing when it comes to the health of our ocean,” McGinnis said. “They’re an apex predator in our environment, and it’s just hard to say what could come tumbling down if we lose a major part of that ocean food chain.”

Climate change is contributing to the seals facing a lack of resources, including habitat and food.

“As we’re seeing sea level rise, that means we have smaller beaches, which is where people like to hang out, which is where monk seals like to hang out,” McGinnis said. “We want to make sure that people and seals are able to share these resources effectively together, and everyone can be comfortable sharing these beaches and the coastline.”

While housed at Ke Kai Ola, seals are dewormed and provided antibiotics. If they’re struggling with malnutrition, McGinnis said staff will feed them fish mash, a mixture of restaurant-quality fish and electrolytes. They will be tube-fed until the animals can figure out how to eat.

Once eating without assistance, McGinnis said staff and volunteers will use an “enrichment device” to mimic ways the animal would feed in the wild, whether it’s flipping rocks or sucking food out of a small crevice in a rock. Devices are include a trash can with a hole cut out of the bottom and several milk crates tied together.

Once an animal’s medical issues have been resolved and they’re “nice and plump,” McGinnis said the team works to return the seal to where the site of its rescue.

Each year for 2 to 4 months in the summer, NOAA personnel goes out to the remote area Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument where scientists set up field camps to monitor pupping, track the population, detangle seals derelict nets and lancing abscesses.

McGinnis said Ke Kai Ola is working on several projects. It is doing a survivability analysis on the Hawaiian monk seals, where they’ll be looking at medical records and satellite data to see how they can improve the care. It has a community initiative coming up to address the shared space with humans on beaches.

And, the hospital will be piloting a high school work-based learning program, during which local students are introduced to options in conservation work and can get some experience in animal care response.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ke Kai Ola hasn’t been open to the public. McGinnis said the hospital hopes to do a few open house tours entering the new year.

Between the Marine Mammal Center’s facilities on the Big Island and Maui, McGinnis said there are nine staff members, of which just over half are full-time. Ke Kai Ola also has a total of about 50 animal care volunteers and 100 response volunteers on both islands who help with outreach on the beaches.

Those interested in volunteering at the facility don’t have to have any experience with animals. McGinnis said the staff provide hands-on training, with the next one occurring in December.