Kyle Nakagawa was reeling in an akule off the coast of Kauai when a critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal rose out of the sea and bit off the catch, leaving only the decapitated head of the fish dangling from a hook.

In the course of a single boat trip outside of Port Allen, the monk seal — or its buddies — snared six more akule from Nakagawa’s line in identical fashion, winning Nakagawa’s respect for their ability to adapt to humans.

"They’re real smart," Nakagawa said. "They don’t bite the top of the fish. They know how to take the fish and leave the head without getting caught on the hook."

Nakagawa, the owner of Rainbow Paint & Fishing Supply in Lihue, takes a tolerant approach to sharing the Pacific Ocean’s resources with the only species of its kind on earth.

"Hey, what you going to do?" he asked. "They gotta eat, too. You cannot get mad at them — especially when they look so nice."

But federal and state fisheries officials suspect that encounters between humans and the estimated 200 Hawaiian monk seals in the Main Hawaiian Islands led to the killings of three monk seals on Kauai and Molokai since November — and to suspicions that another monk seal found dead on Molokai also might have been killed intentionally.

On Jan. 2, a fisherman in Pilaa, on Kauai’s northeast coast, discovered the latest monk seal corpse — that of a 2- to 3-year-old, 200- to 300-pound male that had visible wounds to its head and a foreign object embedded in its skull.

The body was found in the same area where in 2009 a pregnant monk seal, known to researchers as RK06, was shot and killed with a Browning .22-caliber rifle. Charles Vidinha, then 78, pleaded guilty to violating the Endangered Species Act.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had received only "two or three" phone calls about the Jan. 2 killing last week when DLNR Director William Aila Jr. announced the largest reward of its kind in Hawaii — $30,000 — to anyone who provides information leading to arrests and convictions in all three monk seal killings.

A tip that leads to an arrest and conviction in even one of the killings will still result in a reward of $10,000, Aila said.

While federal and state agents continue to investigate the killings for separate federal and state penalties and imprisonment, tensions are certain to increase between fishermen, free divers and Hawaiian monk seals as the seals’ numbers grow in the Main Hawaiian Islands (and their population centers expand east from Niihau, Kauai, Oahu and Molokai in the next decade to Maui and Hawaii island).

The killings also have continued amid a backdrop of proposed changes that could affect Hawaiian monk seals on every populated and unpopulated island in the Main Hawaiian Islands and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including Midway Atoll.

In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposed expanding the Hawaiian monk seals’ "critical habitat" across the two Hawaiian island chains while also supporting the creation of a monk seal rehabilitation center in Kona to help injured, orphaned and sick monk seals.

NOAA’s plan to expand the monk seals’ designated critical habitat has been opposed by former Gov. Linda Lingle, a candidate for the U.S. Senate. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which this year reduced Hawaii’s annual catch limit by 6 percent for seven species of deep-water bottom fish, also raised questions about relocating Hawaiian monk seal pups from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to the Main Hawaiian Islands.

An environmental impact statement on NOAA’s proposals generated thousands of public comments and NOAA later extended the public comment period until Jan. 6.

"The issues are much larger and deeper than just monk seals," said Earl Miyamoto, DLNR’s marine wildlife program coordinator. "Fishermen are seeing more and more restrictions heaped on them as the pressures on fishing increase. This really transcends the seals."

WHILE THE LARGER policy issues play out, Jeff Walters, marine mammal branch chief for NOAA’s fisheries service, said he hopes Hawaii fishermen respond to NOAA’s plea to work with state and federal officials to find ways for humans and monk seals to coexist.

"We want to identify problem animals before they become problems for fishermen," Walters said. "We need to get fishermen to report their encounters so we can develop techniques they can use to avoid problems with seals. I don’t mean restrictions and closures. I mean finding gear modifications and other techniques to keep seals away from dangerous gear. Otherwise, it’s bad for the seals and bad for the fishermen, too."

Miyamoto grew up fishing in Hawaii and has spent the past three years meeting with fishermen on every island trying to find solutions.

Attitudes toward monk seals vary from island to island, Miyamoto said, generally based on each island’s monk seal populations and the number of encounters they have with humans.

"On Kauai, you’ve got so many seals there that fishermen see them more as a nuisance and they push back very, very hard when it comes to anything to do with the seals," Miyamoto said. "On Molokai, where there’s a more cultural flavor, where gathering rights and restricted access are concerns, they definitely see monk seals as a competitor in their icebox. On the Big Island, they’re much more blase because they don’t have many interactions."

Whether they like Hawaiian monk seals or resent them, fishermen and free divers who encounter aggressive monk seals in the open ocean can find themselves in frightening encounters, Miyamoto said.

"It’s one thing when they’re cute and cuddly pups weighing only 100 pounds," he said. "This is a big, curious and smart animal with teeth that’s in its element. They’re getting in nets and they’re getting hooked periodically. When they come up on you and they want to be fed, they get very aggressive. It can be a scary situation."

HAWAIIAN MONK SEALS had been hunted nearly out of existence in the early 1900s during the days of Hawaii’s fur and sandalwood trade, said Trisha Kehaulani Watson, project director for Na Mea Hulu, a Hawaiian monk seal education project funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Today, Hawaiian monk seals exist nowhere else on the planet and the bulk of their population — an estimated 900 animals — live in the federally protected Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

While the monk seal population grows at an annual rate of 4 percent in the Main Hawaiian Islands, their larger numbers in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are plummeting at a rate of 7 percent per year as they become entangled in human trash, get eaten by tiger sharks, gray reef sharks and the occasional great white, and are outmaneuvered for food by sharks and ulua, forcing them to dive even deeper than their 1,500 to 1,600-foot maximum depths, said Charles Littnan, NOAA’s Hawaiian monk seals research program leader.

In the next 10 to 15 years, Littnan estimates, there will be 350 to 400 Hawaiian monk seals in each of the Main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — for an overall decrease of nearly 400 seals.

As their numbers fall in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and increase in the Main Hawaiian Islands, NOAA’s Walters continues to hope to find answers to easing the tensions between fishermen and monk seals that might end the killings of a critically endangered species.

"It would be doubly tragic if we not only lose seals to intentional killings, but we further alienate and polarize the community," Walters said. "That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. Yes, there’s some animosity and there’s certainly some misperceptions regarding what impact monk seals are really having on fishing and on people’s livelihood. But intentionally killing monk seals isn’t the answer."