A good number of Hawaiian monk seal pups were born at Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument this year, according to biologists that recently returned from annual field camps.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologists reported their findings following two-to-five-month-long deployments to field camps at Papahanaumokuakea, which seemed promising despite ongoing challenges.

“Field teams documented about 171 pups this year, and that number of pups compares favorably with the number in 2019 the last season,” said Hope Ronco, chief scientist of the research cruises this year.

Last year, researchers had to skip the camps due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but returned this year following safety precautions to continue fieldwork, which includes collecting data on animal abundance, as well as disentangling marine life from fishing nets. Small teams, which first set out in March, conducted surveys at five atolls at Papahanaumokuakea.

The seal field teams managed to tag at least 135 of the 171 pups they found at Papahanaumokuakea this year. The flipper tags are used to help researchers identify and track the seals from year to year.

Since they skipped the 2020 field season, they found many untagged monk seal pups and juveniles.

They also translocated 14 weaned seal pups from East Island and Gin Islands to Tern Island, the largest island in the atoll, for their safety, disentangled a few others from fishing nets, and transported a pre-weaned pup named ‘Eleu from Ke Kai Ola back to Lisianski Island.

The pup, originally rescued from Midway Atoll, was taken to Ke Kai Ola, The Marine Mammal Center’s monk seal hospital in Kailua-Kona for rehabilitation, and released at Lisianski Island.

The turtle team also found an abundance of turtles — more than 1,000 individual turtles — at French Frigate Shoals, or Lalo, including 679 females on Tern Island. Over the past three seasons, the average number of females on Tern Island was at 254.

The numbers can vary since female sea turtles migrate and reproduce every three to five years in Hawaii, according to Marylou Staman, lead researcher of the NOAA marine turtle biology and assessment program.

Researchers are investigating whether these higher numbers reflect displacement from other islands such as East Island, which is still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Walaka in 2018.

Staman said the annual “Honu Count,” a community science project, is still ongoing, and that the public is encouraged to take photos from a respectful distance, and report the white numbers painted on the shells of green sea turtles spotted around the main Hawaiian isles by emailing respectwildlife@noaa.gov.

The aging seawall around Tern Island at French Frigate Shoals continues to entrap numerous wildlife, particularly turtles.

Teams documented 344 turtles, including 55 adult females and juveniles and 289 hatchlings, 10 seabirds, and two seals entrapped in the dilapidated seawall at French Frigate Shoals.

They were able to release 340 animals, while 11 turtles and one seal found their way out on their own. Unfortunately, four of the trapped turtles died.

As usual, the teams also collected marine debris and removed it from the environment while on deployment.