SF Pride President Axes Bradley Manning’s Name from Parade; Vets Call for Resignation

                                                                                        Photo: Ted Andersen
Daniel Ellsberg, the U.S. intelligence analyst who blew the whistle on Nixon's
administration by releasing thousands of classified government documents now
known as "The Pentagon Papers," speaks at a rally in front of the SF Pride
offices on Market Street on April 29, 2013 to condemn the actions of Pride
President Lisa Williams, who revoked jailed army whistleblower Pfc. Bradley
Manning's name as a Grand Marshal in June 30's parade.

By Ted Andersen

“I was Bradley Manning,” the dignified octogenarian tells a large sidewalk crowd gathered with bated breath.

It’s Monday, April 29 at 5 p.m. and cars are whizzing by, honking occasionally, on the 1800 block of Market Street.

Famed “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg is speaking in front of the offices of SF Pride to protest the removal of the Army Private First Class as an honorary Grand Marshal in the parade. The position would have been largely symbolic as to include a proxy for the currently incarcerated Manning.

The 25-year-old Manning was a military analyst who has admitted to leaking hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents to the website WikiLeaks, in fact the biggest leak in U.S. government history, and is in solitary confinement awaiting his June trial.

In late April, Pride’s Electoral College, which is made up of former Grand Marshals, selected Manning as one of its 10 choices.

This drew the ire of both the American Military Partners Association, which advocates for same-sex military families, and the Log Cabin Republicans, who both threatened to pull out of the event.

On April 26, Pride President Lisa Williams issued a statement revoking Manning’s name from the parade, claiming that his nomination “was a mistake and should have never been allowed to happen.” She added, “Even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms [sic] way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military.”

Williams’ decision is what unleashed the quick call to action by local LGBT activists and veterans alike and is what brought Ellsberg to speak in front of a Manning banner as 5 p.m. traffic whizzed by on upper Market.

“He showed us that there were crimes that our government had denied,” said Ellsberg, who was also a military analyst when he revealed that the U.S. government had been misleading the public about the Vietnam War. “The Gay Pride Board made a big mistake by undoing one of the most honorable things they have ever done.”

The crowd was stirred when Michael Petrelis, a co-organizer of the event led them in a chant of: “They say court marshal; we say Grand Marshal!”

The local veterans also got involved. Commander John Caldera called an emergency meeting on April 28 among the officers of the Bob Basker Post 315 of the American Legion where they unanimously voted to call for Williams to step down.

“The call for resignation is not a personal attack against Ms. Williams but rather a swift and appropriate response to the disappointing and discrediting actions of the President of San Francisco Pride against the LGBT community,” Caldera said.

Veterans for Peace member Paul Cox said Manning should be lauded. “He’s really a hero in the civil rights movement not only because he is gay, but because he did what any hero would do by giving the American people the right to know what our government was secretly doing in our name and with our taxes.”

Rainey Reitman, co-founder of Bradley Manning Support Network, said that he had campaigned against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before he leaked the documents.

“Most people don’t know that Bradley was a gay rights activist,” she said. She added that his presence would be represented at the parade in the form of a flash mob.

Speaking at the rally, Joey Cain, a past president and a member of the Pride Electoral College who chose Manning, emphasized Manning’s connection to the LGBT community.

“I want to address the comment from some people that Bradley Manning has not done anything for the gay community. Well I have news for you: The gay community is part of the larger community,” he said. “And if Pride is going to say that you have to do this narrow thing that is specifically gay-focused, we’re going to end up with nobody to be grand marshal.”

The story went international when Glenn Greenwald from the U.K.’s The Guardian posted an op-ed entitled, “Bradley Manning is off limits at SF Gay Pride but corporate sleaze is embraced,” in which he argued the trivial controversy actually shows a lot about pervasive political values in the LGBT community.

Ellsberg criticized the corporate sponsorship of Pride in so far as the event had further distanced itself from its original values of social justice. “I’m here to blow the whistle on the corporatization of SF Pride.”

SF Pride is now sponsored by Bank of America (now being sued by the U.S. government for $1 billion for allegedly perpetrating a scheme of mortgage fraud), Wells Fargo (being sued for hundreds of millions over reckless mortgage claims that cost the FDIC), Clear Channel (Rush Limbaugh’s network) and AT&T and Verizon (telecom giants that enabled the Bush Administration’s policy of illegal eavesdropping and wiretapping).

Originally invited to represent Manning in absentia, the 82-year-old Ellsberg will now voluntarily walk in his first Pride parade despite a recent hip replacement. “With zero tolerance, everybody should come out and support him.”

Manning has been in solitary confinement for more than 1000 days, reportedly in conditions of sensor deprivation, often stripped naked, sleep deprived, and put in an animal cage while in detention in Kuwait, amounting to what his supporters call government-sponsored torture. His leaks exposed savage murders by U.S. soldiers on innocent Iraqi civilians, the Afghanistan war logs, and embarrassing State Department cables.

New York’s Pride committee now has a petition for Manning to be a Grand Marshal.

Williams did not return calls for comment by press time.

Disabled Senior with AIDS Ellis Act Evicted

Jeremy Mykaels has been living in the
Castro since the mid-1970s, just shy of 40
years, and in the same apartment for 17
of them. Now he is being served an eviction
but not without fighting back.

By Ted Andersen

For people like Jeremy Mykaels, the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.

Leaving his native Ohio behind, he pursued a dream out West, finding himself in Colorado. It was Denver where he came out as gay.

He continued his journey and arrived in the Castro in the mid 1970s in time to experience some of the area’s most iconic moments such as voting for Supervisor Harvey Milk and witnessing the scene surrounding his and Mayor George Moscone’s assassinations and the White Night riots that later ensued. 

A graphic designer by trade, he is a musician and artist at heart, and always a member of the Castro neighborhood, his home and community. He saw the scourge of AIDS through the 80s and 90s and in 2001, was tragically diagnosed with the disease himself. 

Since his diagnosis, he went on disability and soon after became housebound. He found his apartment, 460 Noe St. #2, in 1995 and has lived there ever since. 

Then the three-story building was sold in early 2012 to an LLC formed by three men, Cuong Mai, William H. Young and John H. Du, for $860,000. The outfit, 460Noe Group LLC, informed Mykaels and the occupants of the other two units in the building that they wanted them to vacate. The other two went. Then, after refusing a buyout package offered by the landlords, they served Mykaels with an Ellis Act eviction. Under California law, owners can use the Ellis Act to leave the rental business, and by consequence, legally evict the tenants.

When he went online and started looking at rents, it then hit him: this isn’t 1995 anymore.

“Only when this all started did I realize what was going on. I started checking Craigslist and other places about what the rents were in the area. And then I was blown away, like, these can’t be the rents … I can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Jeremy Mykael’s case is an example of a growing trend in the Castro and San Francisco at large: Ellis Act evictions, namely seniors. In fact, Ellis Act evictions have spiked by more than 80 percent from 2012-2013, according to the Rent Board’s Annual Eviction Reports.

“They wanted me to move out right away and I already knew I had a year, so why should I do that? It makes absolutely no sense. If I was to try and stay in the city, it would cost me $2,000 more a month on top of what I’ve been paying.”

As a disabled senior, Mykaels had one year to vacate the premises. That one-year period expired on September 10. Now he remains in limbo, expecting an “Unlawful Detainer” notice to come to his door. 

“If I can’t stay in this apartment with my rent control that I have, there’s no way I can afford anywhere in the city. I’ll end up moving out of the city totally. This has been my home for most of my life now.”

He is fighting the eviction with the help of his pro bono attorney Steve Collier, who works at Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which represents tenants in Ellis Act evictions and receives some funding from the city. Collier said that Mykaels is entitled to $8,500 as a disabled senior.

“It’s the same amount whether you’ve lived in the building one year or 50 years if you are a senior and one tenant,” Collier said.

Moreover, according to Collier, Mykaels’ circumstances are not unique.

“It’s unfortunately becoming a common occurrence that real estate speculators are buying properties in order to flip them and get rid of low-rent paying tenants or tenants who have been there a long time under rent control. And the values of the buildings tend to be lower because the income is lower because they have rent-controlled tenants in them. So, it is basically trying to profit off the displacement of tenants,” he said. “The city and the state need to do something about this rampant real estate speculation.”

District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener called the Ellis Act “draconian” and “sweeping.” He said that he and like-minded politicians have continually passed legislation to abate the impacts of the Ellis Act but that fundamentally, the law needs to be reformed in the Sacramento legislature. 

According to Wiener, State Senator Mark Leno brought an Ellis-Act-amending bill to the state legislature to require a new owner to possess the building for five years before selling it, thus preventing the type of eviction Mykaels has been faced with. The bill did not gain support. 

“God bless Mark for trying,” Wiener said.

Wiener said the city has a real supply-demand imbalance that has developed over many years where it had a growing population and did not produce very much housing, contributing to an explosion in rent.

“We’re going to have a lot of housing in the coming years and I do believe that will take some pressure off. But regardless, we need to keep advocating for a reform in Sacramento, we need to keep building affording housing locally, especially for seniors,” he said. “It’s absolutely awful what’s happening and we all have a responsibility to fight it.”

One organization that took up Mykaels’ battle was Eviction Free Summer, which later became known as Eviction Free San Francisco. The group concerns itself with evictions caused by speculation that ultimately lead to properties being sold instead of rented, thereby reducing the available rent-controlled housing stock of the city. 

The organization has done three action on his behalf: a demonstration at the residence of William H. Young, a follow-up phone action, both in August, and then a protest in front of 460Noe Group LLC’s address in Union City, a dentist’s office building on September 14. 

“Our hope is that they will withdraw this eviction. They can still do that,” said Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a co-founder of Eviction Free San Francisco. “Saving Jeremy is trying to save the neighborhood. That’s part of what we are doing. We’re trying to keep the neighborhood from being further gentrified.” 

Eviction Free San Francisco has also advocated for the Lee family in Chinatown, a high-profile Ellis Act eviction of a husband, wife and their adult disabled child who have lived in a 2-bedroom unit for 34 years. On September 25, a crowd of more than 200 housing-rights activists and community leaders spent the morning and early afternoon chanting and waving signs. After the effort, Mayor Ed Lee stepped in and extended the family’s eviction date by another 10 days. The owner, Matthew Miller, allegedly planned to turn the building into high-end tenancy-in-common (TIC) units.

According to Jennifer Rosdail, a local real estate agent, tenants’ rights advocates attempts to restrict condo conversion through Ellis evictions have backfired by creating more permanent TIC housing as opposed to more rental units. She said that the larger pool of TICs has given the banks more confidence in them, which has increased their value.

“The TICs have then become more valuable, which, in turn, has led to more evictions, not fewer, and to an increase in profits to developers despite the penalties that have been legislated for properties with Ellis Act evictions,” she said.

Jeremy Mykaels’ situation may drag on for several more months, maybe even over a year, during which time he is entitled to stay put. In the meantime, he has created a website, www.ellishurtsseniors.org, where he has a link on his homepage to a petition through change.org by Eviction Free San Francisco to John H. Du to rescind the eviction of Jeremy Mykaels. He is hoping to gain more support and continue living in his home for good. 

460Noe Group LLC Managing Partner Cuong Mai failed to return numerous calls for comment.

Egg Crisis: High Temperatures Threaten Sacramento River’s Fall-Run King Salmon

by Ted Andersen on September 23, 2014

Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy PNNL)

Salmon eggs need river temperatures of 56 degrees or less to survive; at 62 degrees there is a 100 percent mortality rate. So when areas of the Sacramento River hit the low 60s in late August, it made a big splash.

The early fall Chinook (also known as king) spawning run is now taking place between Red Bluff and Redding, but prolonged drought has led to reduced flows from Lake Shasta and high water temperatures down river, a situation that could deal many egg nests a death blow. The dangerously warm water recently prompted the Golden Gate Salmon Association — a Petaluma-based coalition of salmon advocates — to call on federal and state agencies to act.

“In a good year, salmon will spawn in the last 60 miles of the river, but this year we don’t have 60 miles,” said John McManus, executive director of the GGSA. “Right now they are crowding into the upper 8 miles trying desperately to find a spot.”

In a recent open letter addressed to eight federal and state agencies, the GGSA proposed the collection and incubation of eggs from wild fish along with the injection of those eggs into spawning ground gravel when river temperatures begin to cool to favorable levels. The technique has been used successfully in Oregon and Alaska but not California. The decision on whether or not to move forward would be a joint one between California Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Marine Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. October’s weather will largely influence on the outcome.

“Nobody thinks it’s going to be a good year for egg survival,” said Robert Clarke, a Regional Fisheries Program supervisor at USFWS. But it’s difficult to predict precisely how many eggs will die, he said.

If the drought continues into the heart of the fall spawning season, Clarke said, it is likely that Coleman National Fish Hatchery, located about 20 miles southeast of Redding and managed by USFWS, would be the location for egg incubation. He said the staff there is currently analyzing its capacity to support egg incubation.

The theory behind the egg injection process is that it offers good hatch rates while only minimally altering natural traits, resulting in stronger fish with a better chance of returning to their natural streams than those raised in a hatchery. Only about 10 percent of salmon eggs survive in nature, but up to 90 percent could hatch if inserted correctly in gravel with a hydraulic egg-planting device, McManus said.

However, according to Jim Smith from USFWS’s Red Bluff office, if state and federal agencies do decide to take action, they are more likely to release into the river hatchery salmon fry — very young salmon minnows that live in fresh water —as opposed to injecting the eggs into the gravel. This process is easier than capturing wild and transporting them to the hatchery, Smith said, but this plan poses challenges as well. He said that between 85 to 90 percent of the salmon that return to the Coleman National Fish Hatchery have never spawned in the wild and instead swim back to the hatchery as adults to lay eggs in captivity.

“Because you are artificially selecting, your natural population loses its fitness,” Smith said. “It doesn’t produce as well as natural fish.”

With Sacramento River water running low, state and federal agencies stepped in earlier this year to truck juvenile salmon from hatcheries to San Pablo Bay. (Photo by Steve Martarano, USFWS)

The warm water that poses a threat to this year’s eggs also carries with it consequences that could reverberate for a long time to come.

“That can cascade down through the years,” Clarke said. “Salmon return in cycles, so if you have super low abundance one year, the loss of that year’s class carries through for a while.”

Even though a potential exists this year for a high mortality rate, high juvenile survival rates coupled with good ocean survivability in the first two years are still possible. “Those things might mitigate the low survivability of the eggs,” Clarke said.

Conversations between the agencies and the GGSA continue into September with all attention focused on this fall season’s weather. Meanwhile, trophy fish are being landed just outside the protected 12-mile stretch of spawning grounds.

“The river is teeming with salmon,” said professional fishing guide Dave Jacobs, whose said his group landed several 15-25 pound Chinook salmon while he talked on the phone from his boat. “I saw 50 on the surface today.”

Jacobs, who frequently measures water temperatures while fishing, said the 54-degree water near the Keswick dam is perfect for spawning. However, 50 miles down river he recorded it as high as 64 degrees, two degrees higher than the GGSA had announced. The result: cautious optimism for the fall and late-fall runs.

“I do believe there is going to be cold water when the fall salmon come,” he said. “But it could be a lot warmer a month from now. That’s still to be seen in October.”

The Keswick Dam is the northernmost boundary of the salmon spawning area. Fishing is banned all year round at the dam. The stretch of the Sacramento River from the dam to the Deschutes Bridge, a landmark river crossing about 12 miles south of Redding, constitutes what is left of the Chinook’s historic spawning grounds. Two of the Sacramento’s four distinct salmon runs — the winter and spring Chinook —are protected and listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

California’s salmon industry is a $1.4 billion enterprise that employs over 20,000 workers annually. The historic spawning grounds for the fish in the Sacramento River have continually diminished since the 1940s due to the construction of the Shasta and Keswick dams.

In March, another inter-agency government effort transported 30 million Sacramento River salmon smolts to the ocean by truck to help the fish avoid harmful river conditions caused by the drought. It is unclear if such a plan will be repeated in spring.

Ted Andersen is a reporter at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. This story was produced as part of a J-school class focusing of environmental issues in the Bay Area.

On the Big Stage: Bay Area Talent Showcased in Golden Gate Park

By Ted Andersen

Local musician Nicki Bluhm sings with her band, the Gramblers, at August’s Outside Lands concert in Golden Gate Park. The concert drew close to 50,000 attendees each of its three days and hosted over a dozen Bay Area acts—this year’s musical and gastronomic extravaganza.

The impact felt by Bay Area artists during August’s Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park, brought a local feel to the mega-concert, which drew close to 50,000 spectators each of its three days. Between vaudeville, Americana, hard rock, spoken word and DJ spinning, there was an eclectic mix that offered something for every taste. Keep the following acts on your list of area names to watch for in the coming year.

Mike Shine/ Dr. Flotsam and the Carny Bastards

Mike Shine is a Bolinas artist who creates paintings and performances. This year’s show also hosted a special stage in the woods of McLaren Pass called Dr. Flotsam’s Hell Brew Review, a live installation by Shine that has grown in popularity throughout its years at Outside Lands, especially after Jack White made a surprise appearance on the ragtag stage in 2012. At the center of the show is Pyotr Flotsam, the dark, Mephistophelean ringleader who controls the other costumed throw-back mime-like vaudeville actors.

Slim Jenkins

Playing the Flotsam stage at the same time as the headlining act of Kanye West was San Francisco-based Slim Jenkins, a group of tall, skinny guys in striped suits who play a fusion of American rock, jazz and blues. They have strong presence and sound and have played at venues from Slims in the SOMA to the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

Bassist Timothy Vickers said he enjoyed the opportunity of giving a more indie crowd what they wanted. “I think there were a lot of people that wanted something alternative to Kanye West, so it worked out really well for us.”

Drummer Felix Macnee, who lives in the Western Addition, said the band, who closed out Café Du Nord on New Year’s Eve, often takes trips to the Castro for munchies. “You can get good pizza down in the Castro,” Macnee said. “When we play late gigs we love to go to Orphan Andy’s and have the best milkshake.”

Tycho

By contrast, San Francisco-based Tycho has no vocalist. Bandleader Scott Hansen started out as a more insular laptop DJ/producer and then added his other band members a few years ago. He said bringing guitarist/bassist Zac Brown and drummer Rory O’Connor into Tycho’s creative fold expanded his songwriting and propelled the project forward. “It took the music and recontextualized it, made it a little bit more driven, more visceral,” he said.

“All of us have been here several times before so this is definitely kind of a dream to play this,” he said. “And that was actually, no joke, the biggest and best show we’ve ever played. That’s as good as it gets.”

The music is instrumental but the live sound, when coupled with Hansen’s trippy videos of occult symbols overlaying other images of pyramids and natural settings on large TV monitors throughout the Twin Peaks stage, did manage to lift the wordless musical experience above the mere ambient.

Hansen said he was enjoying the food at the venue, but as a local, he was no stranger to good eats, name-dropping Gracias Madre as one of his favorites.

“I live in the Mission, so there are a number of great restaurants around, to my financial detriment.”

Niki Bluhm and the Gramblers

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers played a dynamic afternoon set on the first day at the Sutro Stage that hit a fever pitch at its crescendo with the swath of revelers bouncing and screaming. The folk-rock band relies heavily on Bluhm’s soulful vocals and big stage presence, along with the strong musicianship of the Gramblers, namely the talented lead guitarist Deren Ney. Just when they do go a bit country-western sounding at times, they bring it back to a folk, soul or rock sound. Nicki lives in San Francisco with her husband Tim Bluhm of the SF indie band The Mother Hips. As a Grambler, Tim plays guitar, keys and sings backup.

Mikal CroninMikal Cronin

If you like head-banging heavy rock bands with hair and a grunge feel, these guys are for you. A mosh pit broke out during their Friday afternoon performance on the Panhandle stage, hair whipping, distortion guitar resonated. Cronin used to live in Los Angeles but now calls San Francisco home, now associating with fellow SF rocker, Ty Segall, who played the same stage at Outside Lands in 2011.

Trails and Ways

Trails and Ways make bossanova dream pop in Oakland. Lead singers Emma Oppen and Keith Brower Brown, both UC Berkeley grads, went abroad to Brazil and the other to Spain. When they came back they fused the music of Brazilian jazz, Latin pop and basement dream pop. The two female and two male members of Trails and Ways all sing, sometimes in foreign languages. Through 2012, they rode a swell of singles and covers, and are currently working on their debut album.

Finish Ticket

This five-piece indie rock band from Alameda played on the Panhandle stage on Saturday afternoon.

The Tumbleweed Wanderers

Returning to the music festival was Oakland’s Tumbleweed Wanderers, who combine folk and rock while weaving smooth transitions from banjo-rock to soul. Since forming in April of 2011, the band has found a wider audience, from their early performances at small venues to selling out shows around the Bay Area.

Christopher Owens

Singer/songwriter Christopher Owens, former front man for the indie rock band Girls, played a daytime set the second day on the Sutro Stage. Owens was born in Florida but moved to San Francisco after spending nine years in Texas. Last year he released his debut solo album, Lysandre.

Watsky

Hitting the large Twin Peaks stage on Sunday was Hip Hop artist Watsky (George Virden Watsky), who grew up at 5th Avenue and Fulton Street, just steps from Golden Gate Park. Watsky combines humor and storytelling with poetic lyricism on top of a full band experience. He returned to the city in April 2013 and sold out the Fillmore after being featured on the TV show Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO in 2007. His most recent album Cardboard Castles peaked at #1 in iTunes hip-hop.

The Brothers Comatose

The San Francisco quintet blends Americana, folk and bluegrass. A number of stringed instruments grace the stage in their performances, including fiddle, mandolin and banjo. They played the Panhandle stage on Sunday afternoon.

Local DJs

Shawn ReynaldoShawn Reynaldo

Shawn Reynaldo spun in the DJ tent on Saturday afternoon. Originally from San Jose, DJ Shawn Reynaldo now lives in the Mission. He said one of his musical partners lives in the Castro on Douglas Street in a crazy old mansion that was once a hospital, a place he often visits. “He literally lives in the spire. It looks like a castle. So I go there a lot — it has an amazing view of the city.”

He’s a co-founder of the renowned Icee Hot parties, a monthly house and techno party that moves locations. “We try to keep it small, like 200 or 300 people. Occasionally we have a bigger one.”

Deejay Theory

Repping Faction Sound Crew and leading online Caribbean lifestyle magazine LargeUp.com, Deejay Theory continues to push the DJ / producer role forward in his home base of San Francisco, CA and throughout the world. Creating music all his life and now a key player in the explosive tropical bass movement, Theory has a natural strength for producing and flipping a broad range of formats, putting his signature touch on everything from Demi Lovato to Mavado. Think dancehall meets club music, bass meets soul, turntablism meets rave, tropical disco meets the pool, and we’re literally just getting warm.

Motion Potion

Motion Potion is a DJ/producer based in the city with almost two decades of experience. After spending the last several years working on his production companies Silent Frisco and SunsetSF, “MoPo” seems poised to reemerge onto the scene in 2014.

Shouts!

Shouts! is a project by San Francisco music producer Jason Apple. After many years of producing as Ground Control, Shouts! became a way out for more experimental, felling-driven music while still working a dance floor. Shouts! aims to mix music and mood.

Lights Down Low

LDL is a DJ project initiated by Corey Sleazemore and Richie Panic. Now rotating parties between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It has been a primary fixture in the city nightlife over the last five years. LDL had the privilege of being the last Bay Area-based act to rock the DJ tent.

photos by Ted Andersen 

Bay Area Seal Researchers Travel the Pacific to Save a Species

by Ted Andersen on September 10, 2014

Ikaika, a male Hawaiian monk seal pup found at Pearl and Hermes Reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, was one of the first four patients at The Marine Mammal Center’s Ke Kai Ola Hawaiian Monk Seal Hospital. His Hawaiian name means “strong.” (Photo by Koa Matsuoka, National Marine Fisheries Service)

I

t’s early July, and aboard the battleship-like research vessel Hi’ialakai, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists are returning from a 26-day search near Midway Island for distressed Hawaiian monk seals. The mission was a success as the ship now transports four underweight juvenile Hawaiian monk seals 1,500 miles to the Big Island for care. The two yearlings, nicknamed Hāla‘I (calm) and Maka‘ala (alert), along with two weaned pups Kūlia (to strive) and Ikaika (strong), would not have survived without help. Fewer than one in five monk seal pups will make it through their first year, according to NOAA.

Waiting to greet the young survivors were researchers from The Marine Mammal Center (TMMC), whose pioneering work on California seals and sea lions during the past four decades has given rise to a collaboration with NOAA in Hawaii. The partnership culminated at the beginning of the month with the grand opening of TMMC’s new $3.2 million Ke Kai Ola Hawaiian Monk Seal Hospital located near Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island, the only facility in the world dedicated to treating and protecting the Hawaiian monk seal.

“We are proud of what we’ve accomplished,” says Jeff Boehm, the center’s executive director. “We are doing nothing short of trying to save a species.”

The young seals became the first patients at Ke Kai Ola, which means, “The Healing Scene.” In addition to its strategic location near a marina and airfield, the 10-seal-capacity facility features well-ventilated pools for both mature animals and juveniles while offering shade, life support systems, water filtration pumps, a laboratory, a food-preparation area and a medical procedure room. It was fully funded by a combination of gifts from individuals and foundations, including donations from the Walnut Creek-based Firedoll Foundation. The lead donor wishes to remain anonymous.

The rescue and rehabilitation partnership comprises the most dedicated monk seal researchers in the world. The hospital will serve as a hub for visiting experts from Europe who likewise seek to protect the Mediterranean monk seal, the only other living species of monk seal, with only 600 individuals remaining. A third member of the family, the Caribbean monk seal, was last spotted in the 1950s and was officially declared extinct by NOAA in 2008 after an extensive five-year search.

“This is a real game-changer,” says Trevor Spradlin, a marine mammal biologist at NOAA’s Office of Protected Resources. “This is why the opening of the hospital is so important. We’ve already lost the Caribbean monk seal species. We’ve only got two left.”

Hawaiian monk seal pups Ikaika and Kūlia rehabilitate at The Marine Mammal Center’s Ke Kai Ola Hawaiian Monk Seal Hospital. (Photo courtesy of the Marine Mammal Center)

T

he Hawaiian monk seal gets its name from the short hairs on its head — its skullcap coif — that is said to resemble the do of a religious ascetic. Hawaii’s official state mammal since 2008, the seal is one of the rarest ocean mammals in the world and the only one native to the Hawaiian Islands. The monk seal is also the world’s only tropical pinniped. The population of monk seals, especially juveniles, has diminished over the last several decades due to hunting, overfishing, entanglement in ocean debris, and the rise of predators such as the Galapagos shark. They are now dwindling at a rate of three to four percent each year.

Another Northern Californian ally of the Hawaiian monk seal is UC Santa Cruz biologist Terrie Williams. Williams has studied a pup, nicknamed KP2, in her UCSC lab for over five years and wrote a book about the experience entitled The Odyssey of KP2: An Orphan Seal, a Marine Biologist, and the Fight to Save a Species. Williams, who is currently conducting field research in the Amazon, responded to the news of the opening in an email from the field.

“The new hospital is a wonderful step in the right direction by helping to rescue animals that would otherwise die (every individual monk seal counts at this point), allowing us access to animals to learn about their biology, and providing outreach opportunities for involving local people,” she wrote. “That said, this is a proactive approach to help a species BEFORE it becomes impossible to bring it back from the brink of extinction. The more we all know in terms of the need of wild animals and how humans are impacting them, the more effective our conservation plans and management directions will be.”

This highlights another aspect of the conservation effort: education. According to NOAA’s Spradlin, there are two distinct populations of Hawaiian monk seals, those in the Northwestern Islands and those in the inhabited islands. While the population of roughly 900 seals in the remote archipelago is declining, the approximately 200 that reside on the main chain seem to be holding steady and even growing in numbers thanks to conservation efforts. This, however, has led to more direct run-ins between the mammal and humans.

“Sadly,” Spradlin says, “We’ve had people hurting the seal.”

A New York Times article last May detailed a string of mysterious murders of the animal perpetrated by humans. Thousands of dollars in rewards were offered for tips that could lead to an arrest, but the beatings and shootings continued.

On the flip side, when a monk seal pulls up to a beach populated with humans, an emergency response team will cordon off the animal with tape, a site that ironically draws tourists near the basking animal, though not close enough to touch it. But with the new hospital, volunteer partners on the ground can contact NOAA seal teams for quick-response air or sea transportation to Ke Kai Ola’s world-class facilities. In the battle to save the species, these small victories could signal a turning of the tide.

Long-term rescue numbers also show promise. According to NOAA statistics, up to 30 percent of Hawaiian monk seals are alive because of recovery projects over the years.

“That tells us our efforts have been working,” Spradlin said. “Hopefully, [Ke Kai Ola] will make that 30 percent even greater. We are looking at this as a long-term goal.”

As for the hospital’s first patients—Hāla‘I, Maka‘ala , Kūlia, and Ikaika—their stay at Ke Kai Ola came to an end in late August. Their rehabilitation complete, they were transferred to a NOAA ship, which transported them 1,500 miles back to their homes for a second chance at life. On August 31, with their bellies full and bodies nourished back to health, they were released back into a world of no guarantees.

Ted Andersen is a reporter at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. This story was produced as part of a J-school class focusing of environmental issues in the Bay Area.

Published on www.baynature.org on Sept. 10
http://baynature.org/articles/bay-area-seal-researchers-travel-pacific-save-species/