Petition: An Abandoned Net Killed a Three-Month-Old Monk Seal. Nobody Had to Be Watching It.

A lay net does not stop working when the person who set it walks away. That is the entire problem. Campaigners report that a three-month-old Hawaiian monk seal was found dead just off O’ahu’s North Shore, tangled in an abandoned lay net, at an age when she was barely exploring the water on her own. Nobody was there to check the gear, because nobody had to be. Please sign the petition urging the Hawaii State Legislature to tighten restrictions on lay net use in Hawaiian waters.

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The federal data on this is not ambiguous. NOAA Fisheries states that Hawaiian monk seals have one of the highest documented entanglement rates of any pinniped species, and that pups and juveniles are entangled most often. Between 1974 and 2022 NOAA documented 437 entanglements in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument alone, and removed 945 metric tons of marine debris there between 1996 and 2022, while noting that accumulation rates appear to remain constant. Pulling out nearly a thousand tonnes of gear and finding the rate unchanged tells you something about where it keeps coming from.

One correction is worth making, because accuracy matters more than intensity here. The Hawaiian monk seal is listed as endangered rather than critically endangered, with a population NOAA estimates at roughly 1,570 animals. That number is far below historical levels, but it has grown by around 400 in two decades with a recent growth rate near two percent, which means this is a species being pulled back from the edge rather than one sliding off it. That makes each young female a larger proportion of the recovery than the raw figure suggests. Lay nets, also called gill nets, are already regulated in Hawaii, and the petition’s argument is that the current rules are not sufficient, particularly around unattended gear. These nets do not distinguish between a target fish and an endangered seal, and an abandoned one keeps killing silently for as long as it stays in the water. It is also worth noting that entanglement is only one of the pressures here: NOAA has documented monk seals on O’ahu killed by off-leash dogs and by intentional blunt force trauma. One Green Planet has covered efforts to strengthen the Endangered Species Act.

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