ABOARD US COAST GUARD HC-130 HERCULES (AP) – A United States Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules rumbled down an airstrip on Hawaii’s Big Island Thursday carrying hundreds of pounds of rare and precious cargo: seven endangered Hawaiian monk seals.
The young monk seals were found abandoned or malnourished late last year by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials in the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. They were rescued, then rehabilitated at the nonprofit Martine Mammal Center’s monk seal hospital in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, where the Coast Guard picked them up Thursday for the first leg of their journey home.
NOAA found six of the seal pups on the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the northernmost islands and atolls in Hawaii. The seventh seal, a yearling, was rescued from Niihau, a privately owned island in the main Hawaiian Islands.
The Marine Mammal Center’s monk seal hospital on Hawaii’s Big Island then nursed the animals back to health.
On Thursday, the seals were loaded into a U.S. Coast Guard airplane and flown from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, to Honolulu. The Associated Press was on the flight.