#3 - Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at French Frigate Shoals

photo credit P. Leary

Today's topic from the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program's Facebook Page: The island that disappeared.

One of the factors contributing to the decline of the French Frigate Shoals seal population is the loss of important breeding habitat. Over the course of about 20 years, the low-lying, well-vegetated Whale-Skate Island disappeared. It was an important breeding site for monk seals, turtles, and numerous birds. 

 It isn't certain what caused the disappearance, probably a combination of sea level rise, currents and storms. The loss of Whale-Skate may be a sign of things to come based on climate predictions. This picture shows the submerged sand and reef of what was once an important monk seal pupping site. 

#2 - Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at French Frigate Shoals

from the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program's Facebook Page

 "The story of the rise and fall of French Frigate ... Since 1989, beach counts at FFS have declined by 75%, and the annual number of births dropped from a high of 127 in 1988, to 37 in 2011."

#1 - Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at French Frigate Shoals

If you're a Facebook-er, you really should "like" the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program's Facebook Page.  In the last few days they have been posting interesting information about Hawaiian Monk Seals on our atoll.  Here's the most recent post, from today (Fri., March 2, 2012)--

"It's the first Friday of the month and we are going to focus on a scientist that has done a lot of work at French Frigate Shoals, Dr. Frank Parrish. Dr. Parrish's research focus has been on the feeding behavior and habitat use of monk seals, mostly at FFS. 

But he is also interested in the ecological interactions between monk seals and other predators. Here is a link to a presentation that Dr. P gave several years ago, using Crittercam to look at competition between monk seals and other apex predators. It's a little long, but fascinating; presentation starts at about 2 minutes in. 

The gist of it is that in much of the footage Dr. P observed fish and sharks escorting monk seals while they foraged. The predators exploited the seals’ superior ability to flush hidden prey from bottom cover by the probing, digging, and flipping of rocks. In many instances, the seal and predators competed for the same prey item. This was the first record of intense direct competition between monk seals and their competitors and revealed a potential major factor in poor juvenile survival."

 

More videos of Tristram's

A couple more videos for those of you who are Tristram's storm petrel fans.
Videos complements of Dan Rapp and our trail cam:

Tristram's storm petrel call to mate

Getting your head into your work: Digging Tristram's

More photos of the STAL

As a mid-week break, here's some photos by Abram Fleishman, of the short-tailed albatross that visited us for a couple days on Tern:


Look how small the other albatross look around the STAL.

And my favorite....

Here's what Ian Jones tells us about the 2002 sightings of STAL on Tern:

"Congratulations on your January 31 Short-tailed Albatross. In relation to the 2002 bird, I saw a nearly full adult plumaged individual Short-tailed Albatross (STAL) three times on widely scattered days over several weeks in February 2002 (presumed to be the same bird) ...  The bird was only seen flying, making repeated passes over the island near the barracks and warehouse and checking out groups of LAALs and BFALs on the runway verges. To encourage the bird to land, I constructed six STAL decoys (in a variety of poses similar to the decoys on Midway) using paint and materials scavenged at Tern and set these up on rebar supports opposite the barracks."

Thanks, Ian!  I wasn't aware of this history, so we really appreciate the info.  We are considering deploying decoys again here soon -- probably should be sooner than later, since they've been seen here multiple years in February!

Although we haven't seen our friend after the first two days, we're hoping he/she'll come back for a longer stay.  Hopefully we'll have more STAL news soon -- We'll keep you posted.

Be sure to check out the news on the nesting STAL on the Midway blog as well!