Charles Littnan

Charles Littnan received his Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University at Galveston and then went on to get his PhD in Environmental Sciences from Macquarie University in Australia.[2] While getting his PhD in 2004, his thesis focused on the fisheries interactions of Australian fur seals in the eastern Victorian shelf waters.[3]

Littnan is a conservation biologist who studies marine mammal ecology, endangered species, climate change, and science communication. His primary work focuses on the conservation and ecology of the endangered Hawaiian monk seals. He has spent more than 15 years researching Hawaiian monk seals. He has published over 52 peer reviewed articles, in addition to being featured in three books.[4]

Littnan is also president of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, organizing conferences to discuss conservation and management initiatives with other researchers.[5]

In May 2017, Littnan spoke at the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series on the topic titled Forty Years of Conserving Hawai'i's Native Seal. He presented on the monk seal species' threats and how a study became the world's most proactive marine mammal recovery program.[6] More recently, he gave a presentation at the 2022 Graduate Science Research symposium at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. He addressed the effects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on Hawaiian monk seals and their specific species of prey in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.[7]

Charles Littnan views images from the Puma at the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

In 2008, Littnan and a team of researchers conducted a study on a three month old female monk seal located in Penguin Bank; a submerged shield volcano that stems off the Hawaiian Island of Molokai. The point of this study was to document the geographic and vertical movements of the seal as well as her foraging behavior. Through this study Littnan and the team of researchers were able to gain valuable information on the lengths and locations of the monk seals foraging trips. They were also able to learn more about the habits of one of the United States most endangered animals.[8]

In 2014, Charles Littnan conducted research in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands using the Puma Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to survey the monk seals in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.[9] Littnan and a team of researchers investigated the foraging behavior of Hawaiian monk seals. Throughout 2012–2014, he and his team used accelerometers, seal-mounted cameras, and GPS tags on six monk seals to study their foraging dives on Molokai, Kauai, and Oahu.[10] With the results of their data, they were able to identify environmental factors that affected when and how the seals were conducting their foraging dives.[1]

In 2017, Littnan published Bio-Ecology, Threats and Conservation,[11] a chapter in the book Tropical Pinnipeds, where he discussed regulatory requirements for monk seal conservation, the key sources of seal disease in the Hawaiian Archipelago, and managers' and scientists' prior conservation efforts to eliminate these threats and guarantee the future survival of the species.[12]

Littnan also contributed to a chapter on the ethics of studying marine animals in the book Marine Mammal Ecology and Conservation. He contributed research methods on how to investigate marine life in an ethical manner.[13]

In 2020, Littnan and a group of researchers set out to examine the causes of death in Hawaiian Monk Seals. They focused on inferred deaths that were believed to have occurred from 2004 to 2019 . Through their work they were able to find that the most common causes of death were anthropogenic trauma, anthropogenic drowning, and protozoal disease. Overall, they were able to discover that anthropogenic causes had the largest effect on the growth rate of the Hawaiian Monk Seals population.[14]

In 2020, Littnan published two articles focusing on the population rate of the Hawaiian monk seals. Using public sighting reports, he and others investigated the reproductive rates of female Hawaiian monk seals in the Main Hawaiian Islands in one article.[15] In the other article, he discussed the various causes of mortality in Hawaiian monk seals as well as the resulting population effects.[16]

He was recognized in the Project Hall of Fame for his effort in conservation to the Hawaiian monk seals. [17]