Efforts to save the Hawaiian monk seal are failing. The population of this critically endangered pinniped, estimated at 1,125, is declining at a rate of about 4.5 percent a year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service — this despite the seal joining the endangered species list 35 years ago.

In their primary habitat of the northwestern Hawaiian islands, young seals have been unable to compete with apex predators like sharks and ulua. Research shows that fewer than one out of five seals reach the reproductive age of 5 years.

Ironically, the seals have succeeded in establishing a beachhead in the main Hawaiian islands, presumably because there are fewer natural predators willing to kill and eat them or their food supply. About 200 seals seem to be thriving in our populated waters, and four out of five seals reach reproductive age.

So it’s not surprising that the fisheries service, its back to the wall, would try a new and eminently reasonable idea: bringing weaned female pups from the northwestern islands to the main islands, temporarily.

The proposal is included in a number of actions detailed in a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) released earlier this month and now open to public comment.

The pups, which are abandoned by their mothers once weaned at five to seven weeks, would be brought to the safer confines of the main islands to live for about three years.

They would then be returned to the northwestern islands, and, it is hoped, be strong enough to hold their own and eventually establish a stable population, far from human ones.

Not surprisingly, the fishing community fears the worst. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council complained that the "perceived protection of monk seals over humans," through the translocation of seal pups and a proposed expansion to the main islands of critical habitat boundaries for the monk seal, could cause serious damage not only to fisheries, but to the seals themselves through human interaction.

Monk seals already interfere with fishermen, the council said, stealing their catch and destroying gear.

Such impacts on fishermen is individual and anecdotal; there are no data to support a claim that the 200 monk seals already living here have harmed local fisheries.

So the temporary introduction of between 10 and 20 juvenile seals over the next few years hardly seems like a dire threat to fishermen.

Furthermore, the PEIS includes other activities designed to increase the chance of success.

Perhaps the one most critical to the success of translocation is the development of a behavior modification program to discourage seals — and humans — from interacting with each other. Such a common-sense approach deserves the full involvement and support of the fishing community and the public at large.

It’s not clear that these latest ideas to save the Hawaiian monk seal will work. Critics say they probably won’t.

They also fear, with some justification, that expanded restrictions on human activities in critical habitat areas where the seals live could do harm to the fisheries, tourism and the overall economy.

But the proposals in the PEIS are not draconian. They do not address the proposed expansion of monk seal critical habitat areas — a separate issue that involves federal, not state, activities in the designated waters.

Rather, they attempt to save a uniquely Hawaiian species, a few pups at a time, before they’re all gone.

It’s a worthy effort, for seals and humans. It should begin as soon as possible.