Federal and state officials are appealing to the public for help in identifying the people who killed four critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals since November, including the death of a juvenile male on Kauai that was found Monday with an object imbedded in its skull.

All four monk seals were discovered with "visible wounds and they’re all to the head," said William Aila Jr., chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. "It’s particularly disturbing that we ended the year with some seals dying under mysterious circumstances on Molokai and we start the New Year with a seal dying under mysterious circumstances on Kauai. … There is no reason for anyone to go out and kill a monk seal, absolutely no reason."

A necropsy was performed on the male juvenile on Kauai on Wednesday after fishermen discovered the body Monday in Pilaa, on the island’s northeast coast.

It’s the same area where Charles Vidinha, then 78, shot and killed a pregnant monk seal, known to researchers as RK06, with a Browning .22-caliber rifle in 2009.

The DLNR and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have set up separate hot lines for tips on what led to the monk seals’ deaths.

Anyone with information is asked to call NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement hot line at 800-853-1964 or DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement at 873-3990 or 643-DLNR (643-3567).

After Vidinha pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the federal Endangered Species Act, the state Legislature last year increased the penalty for harassing or killing a Hawaiian monk seal from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and fines up to $50,000.

Anyone arrested in the latest killings could face federal and state prison terms and penalties, Aila said.

Hawaiian monk seals exist only in Hawaii and are the most endangered species of seals on the planet, Aila said.

Skeletal remains suggest that Hawaiian monk seals arrived in the islands before the first Polynesians. They later became embedded in Hawaiian mythology, Aila said.

But as their numbers dwindled to critical levels, two or three generations of modern-day island residents have grown up without having to coexist with monk seals, Aila said.

More than 200 Hawaiian monk seals are now thought to exist in the main Hawaiian Islands and the population is growing at about 4 percent each year, Aila said, leading to fishing competition between monk seals and humans.

Another 1,000 to 1,100 monk seals are thought to be living in the federally protected Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, but their population is declining at about 4 percent each year from the threat of sharks and other large predators, Aila said.

"They are making a comeback in the main Hawaiian Islands and we just have to learn how to deal with their increasing numbers," Aila said. "Some fishermen see them as competitors."

The monk seals that were killed on Molokai were all born on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula on the eastern side of the island but were found dead on the western side of Molokai near Laau Point, near the lush Penguin Banks feeding grounds, said Molokai community leader Walter Ritte.

"Young people think it’s an invasive species because the older people are saying they’ve never seen them before," Ritte said. "When you find seals where their heads are smashed, it’s only the places where the fishermen and hunters go. … Young people say, ‘I walk all this distance and then I get there and the seal is bothering me, it’s in our nets, it’s in our moi holes. It’s an invasive species, let’s kill them.’ … What’s happening to the seals is what’s going to happen to us as Hawaiians. If Hawaiians are killing the seals, what does that say?"

Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "Monk seals are a part of Hawaii’s natural heritage. It’s shameful that anyone would slay an endangered monk seal. A thriving population of seals would be a boon to the coastal environment and economy. Harming even one seal cannot be tolerated since the fate of the entire species hangs in the balance."