In more sobering news....

[zolac_no_miko]

-All of my secular prayers for the passengers of the Costa Concordia that have yet to be found.

-The biggest news in all of the Hawaiian newspapers recently is in regards to the intentional killings of three Hawaiian monk seals (an endangered species endemic to the Hawaiian chain) since November, and a suspected possible fourth. There's a $30,000 reward being offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killers. It's suspected that the killings were committed by fishermen, to whom the seals are often considered nuisances that compete with the humans for their catches. Tensions have increased recently, as the monk seal population in the main Hawaiian Islands has continued to grow, and NOAA has proposed expanding monk seal critical habitat from the Northwest Hawaiian Islands to almost the entirety of the shores and waters of the main Hawaiian chain.

...This is just killing me, guys, these sorts of conflicts between humans and wildlife are just horrible.

This face. I ask you.



;_;

Comments

[tailoredshirt.livejournal.com]

I did some research into Hawaiian monk seals recently, and gah, this news makes me sad. :(

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

i_i

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

dat face :(

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

I know! :(((((

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I'm all for eating fish, but who couldn't share with a face like that? What kind of fisherman? Is it okay if I get a spear or something and just shadow a monk seal, glaring menacingly at anyone who looks at it sideways? And then after I've built up some trust, maybe it'd let me give it a hug?

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

Obviously I agree with you (as do many of the fishermen), but the issues are pretty complicated. Moloka'i, where some of the killings occurred, is a very impoverished island, and subsistance hunting and fishing is a significant part of people's livelihood. Also, until recently, there haven't been seals in the main Hawaiian islands for over a century, so a lot of old-timers who didn't grow up seeing them are spreading the erroneous story that they don't belong here. The seals have learned to steal fish off of fishermen's hooks, compounding their ire, and they can be dangerously aggressive... the seals don't really compete significantly for species that people like to eat, though; when doing their own hunting, they go for easy-to-catch species like octopoda, squid, and crabs.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I should've known that it wasn't so simple. I was picturing corporate fishermen, not people who depended on it for their own subsistence. :/