California’s Marine Mammal Center plans Hawaii program

Marin County California’s nonprofit Marine Mammal Center is planning to build a $3.2 million rehabilitation center to treat critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals on the Big Island. The new center, to be built at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, would be the first outside of California for the nonprofit organization based in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco.

The Hawaiian monk seal is “the United States’ most endangered pinniped,” said Jim Oswald, mammal center spokesman. Only an estimated 1,200 Hawaiian monk seals remain in the wild. The center said one of the main causes of juvenile seal deaths is starvation. Center staff would feed young seals to help them survive.

The Marine Mammal Center already has raised $700,000 toward building the facility, which will be located on a 2.6-acre site next to West Hawaii Explorations Academy Public Charter School. An additional $1 million is needed before groundbreaking can happen.

Plans for the center include in-ground pools that would be used to treat a maximum of 10 seals at a time and smaller tanks to raise newborn pups. Construction of an office building, a clinic and a visitors' center are also planned. Since opening in 1975 the California center has treated 17,000 sea mammals rescued along 600 miles of the state’s northern and central coastline.