KAUAI
State and federal officials have moved a Hawaiian monk seal on Kauai due to concerns for the animal’s safety.
The officials determined the 10-month-old monk seal was at risk living in the Lihi canal in Kapaa, which is on the eastern side of the island where two other juvenile seals died in 2014 and 2016.
Necropsies conducted on the seals determined they drowned and that fishing gear was the most likely cause, KHON-TV reported Saturday.
Seals are likely attracted to the canal by fish scraps illegally left by fishermen.
The monk seal that was recently moved was fitted with a tracking device before being released back into the wild.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state Department of Land and Natural Resources assisted in moving the seal to safety.
HAWAII ISLAND
Judge rules man who killed landlord was insane at time
A Puna man who bludgeoned his wheelchair-bound landlord to death has been acquitted of murder by reason of insanity.
Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura ruled Friday that Jason Russell Jump “lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the unlawfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to requirements of law,” the Hawaii Tribune Herald reported.
Nakamura said the prosecution demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that Jump killed his landlord, 54-year-old James V. “Jimmy” Johns, on Dec. 16, 2012, in lower Puna.
Jump, 40, told his doctors that hip-hop mogul Jay Z possessed his body. He will be committed for an indefinite period to the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe.
“There’s clear and convincing evidence to support a finding … that Mr. Jump is a danger to himself or to others, or the property of others, and hospitalization is appropriate,” Nakamura said.
During a fitness hearing Oct. 29, 2015, psychologist Duke Wagner testified Jump suffers from persecutory delusional disorder and was unfit for trial.
