Officials find pregnant Hawaiian monk seal dead on shores of Haena Beach, Kauai

Wildlife officials are mourning the loss of a pregnant monk seal — R313 — who was found dead at Haena Beach on Kauai.

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently announced that R313 was found dead at the Kauai beach on April 25. The news comes shortly after another female monk seal, Honey Girl, or R5AY, was found dead on a windward Oahu beach on April 23, due to unknown causes.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NOAA’s marine mammal stranding network partners have adjusted their response to strandings, deaths, and entanglement incidents, and are unable to perform full necropsies as usual.

“We used the fewest number of people possible, followed social distancing protocols, and used personal protective equipment while transporting the carcass to a remote location for burial,” said NOAA in an online post. “As in the case of R5AY “Honey Girl”, who passed away a few days previously on Oahu, our ability to conduct the typical post-mortem examinations including a necropsy was extremely limited.”

However, the team preserved R313’s fetus and placenta, and plans to perform a necropsy and sampling as soon as possible, which may provide additional information on the cause of her death.

NOAA said R313, first identified on Kauai in 2009, was at least 15 years old at the time of her death.

Staff and volunteers with NOAA and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources had never observed R313 with a pup, but tracked her growing large, a sign she could be pregnant, on several occasions. She would usually leave for about six to eight weeks, and return very thin, as though she had just weaned a pup.

Officials believe that like many Kauai seals, she gave birth to her pups at a more remote beach on Niihau.

Slightly more than 1,400 Hawaiian monk seals, a critically endangered species protected by both state and federal laws, remain in the wild, with roughly 1,100 in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The top threats to monk seals in the main Hawaiian islands include fisheries interactions, trauma, and toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease spread through cat feces, which took the life of Pohaku, another female monk seal, in April.

There were no external signs of trauma or wounds on R313, officials said, but not all trauma is visible.

“Based on our limited examination, we cannot rule any of these out at this time,” said NOAA officials. “However, if her death was disease related we may be able to determine that from examining her fetus.”

The lifespan for a Hawaiian monk seal is typically 25 to 30 years, though a few have lived longer, according to NOAA. The loss of a female seal like R313 with many potential breeding years ahead of her is considered a setback to population recovery for the endangered seals.

Officials also said there is currently no evidence to support claims that seals, whales, sea lions, or other marine mammals are infected with COVID-19.

To report sightings of stranded marine animals, call NOAA’s hotline at 888-256-9840.