Written by Kirby Parnell I am excited to share that last week, in collaboration with NOAA’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program (HMSRP) and Pacific Islands Regional Office Protected Resources Division , we successfully instrumented two Hawaiian monk seals with Customized Animal Tracking Solutions (CATS)  tags! This company creates multi-sensor biologging devices so that scientists can track the fine-scale movements and behaviors of wild animals including sharks, whales, cro

Written by: Lily Magee, Pearl Thompson, and Kirby Parnell We are thrilled to announce that two of our undergraduate interns have received...

Written by Fabien Vivier . Did you know that three species of monk seals have been identified in the world? The three species arthe Mediterranean monk seal ( Monachus monachus ); the Hawaiian monk seal ( Neomonachus schauinslandi ); and the Caribbean monk seal ( Neomonachus tropicalis ), unfortunately extinct since the middle of the 20th century. With only ~700 Mediterranean monk seals and ~1400 Hawaiian monk seals left in the world, both species, listed as Endangered in th

Written by Kirby Parnell In early May, I traveled to Kauai to deploy an underwater acoustic recorder, known as a SoundTrap. The goal was to record the underwater vocalizations of Hawaiian monk seals offshore the tiny, uninhabited island of Lehua Rock (Fig. 1). Lehua Rock is a monk seal hotspot where adult male seals are seen and heard vocalizing often by recreational divers (Video 1). With the help of Captain Tara Leota and Adam King at Kauai Searider Adventures , we comple

Written by Kirby Parnell We are pleased to share a new publication in Endangered Species Research , which describes underwater sound reception and sound production in Hawaiian monk seals. This research was completed by Kirby Parnell and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz during Kirby’s Master’s thesis , prior to starting her Ph.D. at the University of Hawai’i . The manuscript is entitled: Underwater hearing and communication in the endangered Hawaiian mon

Written by Kirby Parnell As a first-year PhD student in the Marine Biology Graduate Program at UH Manoa, I am excited to begin my...