An oft-spotted, 15-year-old endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal, known as R4DP, was found dead on a beach near Eleele on Thursday, Feb. 23.

Officers from the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement and the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) are investigating the female seal’s death as suspicious, as it had injuries “inconsistent with any natural cause of death associated with wild monk seals.”

Jeff Walters with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Pacific Islands Regional Office explained that “Although we’re waiting for final laboratory analysis, the preliminary necropsy on R4DP indicates this seal was in good health with no apparent disease or natural cause of death.”

This is the 11th monk seal since 2009 found dead under suspicious circumstances, which means law enforcement authorities have good reason to suspect one or more people were directly involved and their activities were unauthorized or illegal.

Monk seal deaths due to interactions with fishing activities are considered in a different category, and the death of R4DP does not appear to be for this reason. NMFS maintains records of all known Hawaiian monk seals.

This is the first reported suspicious death of a monk seal since 2014, when there was one death on Oahu and one on Kauai, with both seals showing signs of significant trauma. A man was convicted of killing a seal on Kauai in 2009.

Like with many monk seals around the state, R4DP was familiar to researchers and scientists. She was tagged as a young adult seal on Kauai in the summer of 2008. Ten days later, she was flown to Oahu for a health examination after it was believed she may have ingested a hook. X-rays didn’t reveal anything, so she was returned to Kauai and released.

Anyone with information related to the death of R4DP or any other monk seal is encouraged to call the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement hotline at 1-800-853-1964 or the DLNR/DOCARE hotline at 643-DLNR (808-873-3990).

A group of non-profit organizations have stepped forward to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved. Call 1-855-DLNR-TIP (1-855-356-7847).

According to DLNR, this now brings the total possible rewards offered by local and national non-profit organizations to $50,000 for information about the killings of five Hawaiian seals.