SEA MAMMAL RESCUERS SHARE BOND
Aquaculture has long taken many forms at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority, home to producers of abalone, kampachi, lobster and octopus. Thanks to a Bay Area nonprofit, the KailuaKona complex also boasts a fat farm — one where the clients leave weighing much more than before.
Opened in 2014, Ke Kai Ola (The Healing Ocean) is a Hawaiian monk seal hospital, dedicated to saving an endangered species of just 1,400 individuals — about 200 in the main islands and the rest in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which stretch 1,500 miles to Kure Atoll. The Marine Mammal Center, based in the Marin Headlands, partnered with the Hawaii Wildlife Fund to create the $3.2 million facility, and now runs the hospital and its community outreach.
As part of the monk seal recovery program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the hospital has treated 23 of the endemic marine mammals, most of whom arrive severely malnourished. Twenty suitably fat and happy seals have since returned to the site of their rescue, while three more are enjoying frozen “fishicles” and fresh seafood until the scales tip in their favor, too.
“Without the support of the Bay Area, we would not have been able to build this hospital,” said Dr. Shawn Johnson, the Marin center’s director of veterinary science, who flies to Hawaii each time a new monk seal is admitted. “The reason NOAA asked us if we could build a hospital is because we have 42 years of experience with elephant seals, which have some similarities.”
The center’s resources also
include 1,200 volunteers in Marin and 30 in Hawaii. “We have volunteers who live here part time and part time in Kona, and during our busy season of March 15 to May — when there can be 150 animals on site, for five weeks — we bring Hawaii-based volunteers here to get them trained. We try to take everything we learned here and just scale it down for Hawaii,” he said.
Part of that includes discouraging
the animals from becoming used to humans. At the Marine Mammal Center at Fort Cronkhite, the 100,000 or so annual visitors must stand on an observation deck to peer down at patients. The 20 currently there include three California sea lions, whom volunteers feed while holding wooden shields to block their faces.
“Sea lions habituate really quickly, so you have to be really mindful and not look them in
the eye or talk to them,” explained Laura Sherr, the center’s spokeswoman.
At Ke Kai Ola, which is open to visitors who call in advance or book a twice-weekly laboratory tour, closed-circuit TV reveals whether the patients are perhaps lounging by one of four seawater pools or playing with a puzzle that holds a fish treat.
“We try to keep our animals entertained with enrichments so they’re not focused on humans, and we view them on the screen because we don’t want to interact with them,” said Deb Wickham, the hospital’s operations manager and a 25-year employee of the Marine Mammal Center. “We want them to be very independent when they leave.”