Main isles could become seal habitat - Hawaii News .

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / 2007

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration want to expand critical habitat for the Hawaiian monk seal to include parts of the main Hawaiian islands. A seal pup makes its first step backward into the wild.

A growing endangered Hawaiian monk seal population about the main Hawaiian islands has prompted the union authorities to propose designating areas on and around Hawaii`s most developed islands - and not only in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands - as protected areas or critical habitat for the species.

The amount of monk seals from Niihau to the Big Island, where Hawaii`s 1.4 million human population lives, has been rising since the mid-1990s. In 2000, federal officials counted just 45 in the main Hawaiian islands. Nine days later, they counted 113.

"In 1988, seal sightings were very rare in the main Hawaiian islands. It was very seldom that we always saw them here. But today they`re often more common here," said Jean Higgins, who is heading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration`s attempt to retool the habitat for the species. The government last revised the critical habitat for the creature in 1988.

The seal population is growth in the main Hawaiian islands because they`re giving birth to more pups.

This doesn`t think the species is booming in general. In fact, the overall population of less than 1,200 animals is shrinking 4 percent per year, primarily because the survival value for the species in the Northwest Hawaiian islands - where they are most numerous - is abysmally low.

This is because still developing juvenile seals in the remote atolls of the northwest are having trouble competing with large predators, like sharks and ulua, or jacks, for food. In contrast, juveniles in the main Hawaiian islands, where there are fewer sharks and ulua, are capable to get enough of food.

All this makes it more crucial for the regime to protect beaches and waters in the main Hawaiian islands where the seals forage for food, rest on the grit and give birth to pups, conservationists say.

"One of the keys to their recovery will be protecting habitat for them in the main Hawaiian islands - because that`s kind of a sanctuary for where they are leaving to be thriving the most right now," said Miyoko Sakashita, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The constitution is one of three environmental groups that prompted the proposition by petitioning the union authorities to retool the seal`s critical habitat.

Some of the areas proposed as critical habitat - or places deemed necessary for the preservation of the species - include beaches and waters of Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Hawaii island.

Coastlines already set with features such as seawalls - for example, Pearl Harbor and parts of Waikiki - have been left out. This is because the seals are unbelievable to rest, molt, or give birth at such sites. Other areas, like the Marine base at Kaneohe Bay on Oahu and the missile range facility on Kauai, have been excluded for internal security reasons.

NOAA proposed the critical habitat change on Thursday. It aims to maintain public hearings on the thought in August, and will accept comments from the world on it through Aug. 31.

If approved, the conclusion would involve only federal agencies, and the actions that are funded or authorised by the union government. People and organizations that aren`t funded by the federal government, or those who aren`t operating under federal permits, wouldn`t be affected.