Terrie Williams, a UCSC Professor, works to better understand the plight of the Hawaiian Monk Seal at the Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz. Recently, she has been working with this adult seal named KE18. (Permission #13602-1) Photo by Sal Ingram.

At the Marine Mammal Physiology Project (MMPP), a UC Santa Cruz extension that sits on the cliffs just above Natural Bridges beach, Terrie Williams is working to save a species.

A professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC since 1994, Williams has been involved in a variety of research projects both in the field and back at the lab — from Weddell seals in the Antarctic to blue whales in the Pacific. It’s her recent experience with another marine mammal, however — the Hawaiian monk seal KP2 — that’s spawned a book and an assortment of efforts to keep the remaining 1,100 monk seals worldwide from becoming extinct.

Released on July 5, “The Odyssey of KP2: An Orphan Seal, a Marine Biologist, and the Fight to Save a Species” describes Williams’ encounter with a young monk seal named KP2 who was brought to the MMPP in early 2010 in an effort to understand the physiology of the species better — and the existential crisis it faces.

“That’s really the reason I wrote the book,” Williams said, “to get people to understand that this is a pretty unique animal and that it could easily die off within our lifetimes and that … there’s a lot we can do to prevent that.”

Williams also drafted a petition to Congress, asking them to reinstate a 35 percent cut made last year in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) budget to monitor and protect monk seals.

So far, she said, the reaction to both the book and the petition have been “overwhelming.” Nonetheless, if the monk seal population continues its current trajectory of dropping four percent annually, they will be extinct in 50 years. Williams said that outcome could have unforeseen consequences.

“They’re the only animal in Hawaii that goes from freshwater to the coast and back onto land. There’s no other marine mammal that does that in Hawaii,” Williams said. “And if you take out that sort of land-oceanic link, what’s that going to do? It’s hard to predict but I suspect it’s going to be pretty devastating.”

Despite a longtime interest in monk seals — she had tried unsuccessfully for 15 years to get a permit from NMFS to study the endangered species — her opportunity to work with the species came as quite a surprise.

“For a while they just couldn’t make the connection between the science we wanted to do and saving the species,” Williams said.

That all changed in 2010. Williams was in Antarctica conducting research with Weddell seals when she got an email from NMFS. They had found a baby monk seal trying to suckle on a rock after being abandoned by its mother, and they asked if Williams could find a home for it because they were unable to pay for its care. Williams jumped at the chance.

“So I told them yes, not knowing how we were really going to do it,” Williams said. “I just decided it was put up or shut up. I’d been asking to do this for years so I said ‘well, I’ll figure it out.’”

Although she knew working out the logistics would be difficult, Williams was confident that the MMPP’s state of the art facilities and enthusiastic undergraduate volunteers could get the job done.

“It was high risk man, you have no idea,” Williams said. “[We] took this endangered animal, brought it to Santa Cruz in the middle of all these budget cuts … it was just like ‘how to get an ulcer.’”

Williams gives much of the credit for avoiding that outcome to her volunteers, to whom “The Odyssey of KP2” is dedicated.

“They are the core of it, and they don’t get paid a cent,” Williams said. “Here they are in the middle of the highest fees and tuition that they’ve ever had before and instead of going out and working at a paying job, they’re dedicating their time to taking care of these animals. I find that just amazing.”

Meagan Davis, a fourth-year marine biology major who has been working with Williams for a little over a year said it has been time well spent.

“Working with the animals has been the most amazing experience, but with that also comes the ability to see the research that comes from it,” Davis said. “These animals are really directed toward a higher purpose.”

The research that came out of KP2’s stay at the MMPP gave Williams a much deeper understanding of how Hawaiian monk seals function, something that’s often overlooked in conservation efforts, Williams said.

Williams discovered that monk seals have several morphological traits that make them well suited to the Hawaiian Islands and nowhere else. From blubber that’s less dense than that of cold water seals to shorter intestines that reflect the need for fewer calories in warmer waters, Williams said monk seal physiology is “locked in” to the Hawaiian Islands.

She was also able to discern the two main threats facing the survival of the monk seals: competition with fishermen and sharks for food, and pollution, which Williams said is a chronic problem in the Hawaiian Islands. She said the monk seals’ natural curiosity makes them uniquely vulnerable to habitat contamination.

“Harbor seals, all you have to do is look at them cross-eyed and they take off in a hurry, but monk seals are the most curious things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Williams said. “They hang out with garbage. If there is a totally clean beach and there’s some piece of garbage, they’re gonna go and they’re gonna lay on it, that’s just what they do …  so it’s turning out that they may be a pinniped that goes extinct simply because they’ve rolled around in our garbage. And to me, I find that a crime.”

Davis said that her time at the MMPP has brought home the importance of this sort of research.

“I’ve definitely learned a lot more about the specifics of how conservation works, and it’s helped inspire me to think that it’s really possible,” Davis said.

Williams said activism will play a large role in the survival of monk seals as a species. In addition to reducing pollution in their habitats, she said that the more people who begin to pay attention, the better the monk seal’s chances will become.

“We’re really trying to raise awareness so that the general population of the US understands that this is one more animal that’s key to an ecosystem, a tropical ecosystem and that they have to care,” Williams said. “And if they don’t, they will lose it.”

Photo by Phil Carter.

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Down the hill from the Porter Meadow in the shadow of Empire Grade’s steady traffic, a quintessential UC Santa Cruz landmark lies hidden but not forgotten.

Part of the Cave Gulch system, it is the Empire Cave, more commonly known as the “Porter Caves.”

The Cave Gulch cavern system also includes the “Hell Hole Cave,” part of Wilder Ranch State Park, located just off campus. The exterior walls of these caverns differ only marginally from the surrounding surface level ecosystems except for their graffiti-covered walls and the orphaned beer bottles and abandoned aerosol cans resting on the ground. Inside the caves, however, are animal habitats not found anywhere else in the world.

Spelunker Jay Severson was climbing through Hell Hole one day when he had an encounter with one such unusual animal.

“I remember coming out of the cave, and at one point I looked up and there was this spider not five inches from my face,” Severson said. “It was pretty scary looking and I’m not a big spider guy, so I almost killed it.”

Severson later met a park ranger and learned that spider, called a Meta Dolloff, is on the California Department of Fish and Game’s list of threatened species and is not found anywhere else in the world. Severson, like most people who enter the caves, had been completely unaware.

“After I found out about that, I felt really bad,” Severson said. “I had no idea that that there was a species of spider [in the cave] that was in danger of going extinct.”

The Meta Dolloff or Empire Cave Spider has long, black legs, dark bodies and yellow or orange splotching on their abdomen. The spider, which resembles an enormous black widow, is one of many species unique to UCSC’s cave environment. The caves are home to a total of 70 species, six of which are particular to the local caverns.

The Cave Gulch Pseudoscorpion is listed by Fish and Game as a species of special concern. This red and white creature is smaller than a human thumbnail and releases venom out of its long pincers.

Gage Dayton serves as Administrative Director of the UCSC Natural Reserve, which includes the Porter Caves, and says that it is important that the habitats of the caves be well-maintained and preserved for the sake of the species living in them.

“There is a big danger because these animals do not live in very many places,” Dayton said. “Damage to one small area or population can have a tremendous impact on the species as a whole.”

Some damage has already been caused to the Porter Caves at the hands of the UCSC student body. The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Empire Cave Cleanup organization runs cave cleanup trips at the Porter Caves multiple times a year. Information and observations collected on these trips, which can be found on the group’s website, report finding habitat-harming things like fast food containers, broken beer bottles, vandalism and bonfire remnants strewn throughout the caves, particularly around Halloween.

As a result of use by students and other cave visitors, uncontrolled access is considered the single biggest threat to species in the Porter Caves. Although Empire Cave was at one point gated, cave enthusiasts blasted off the barriers to gain cave access. Since then, the university installed a ladder making for easier access to the caves.

Dayton said that if the area is not better protected, staff and volunteers from the UCSC Natural Reserve might once again close the caves to the public.

Retired Earth Science Professor Gerald Webber notes that after years of mistreatment, however, true restoration of the caves would be no easy fix and would likely have to involve better educating the public about the caves and the unique life thriving within them.

“The caves can still produce an interesting habitat for animals that are unique. And as far as cave systems go, if you keep people out of them, it’s better for the [habitat]. But if people go in, [we must] make sure they know what they’re doing,” Weber said.

Many students, however, are completely unaware of the harm being done—and what’s at stake.

A second year Stevenson literature student who didn’t want to share her name admitted that she had gone into the Empire Cave drunk with her friends and a boom box. She went on to say that she had no regrets about going there and that she might return again despite the risk of disrupting or even eliminating a threatened species.

“I don’t think spiders are very high on anyone’s list of priorities,” she said.

Second year Porter psychology student Kim Brauninger was a first hand witness to similar unawareness on the part of students when she attended a party in Empire Cave.

“It’s a thing of nature,” Brauninger said. “Why do people have to bring fucking beer bottles in [the caves]? Why do they have to desecrate it? It’s really immature to me.”

Brauninger admitted that she, like many students, was initially unaware that the Empire Cave and surrounding caverns housed unique, threatened species.

Fifth year marine biology and environmental studies student Lauren Fieberg ventured to the caves for the first time her freshman year and had no idea that threatened species lived in them. She believes that if students at UCSC were better educated about the fragility of Porter Cave ecosystem, they would respond positively.

“There have been a lot of restoration projects on campus, and I think a lot of students are environmentally conscious,” Fieberg said. “[With increased education] students would be more conscious of their habits in the cave, especially involving species that are endemic to that cave.”

After visiting the Cave Gulch caverns a few times, spelunker Severson believes that they may be beyond restoration or repair — at least in terms of geological structures — comparing them to the better-preserved California Caverns cave systems located in central California, about two hours southeast of Sacramento.

“I’ve been to the California Caverns, and those have been very well protected,” Severson said. “You can’t just go in there and freestyle your way around. You have to be with a guide, and they are very protective a lot of the cave formations that are in there.”

Severson and geologist Gerald Weber both emphasized that all of the Porter Caves, especially Empire Cave, have suffered enormous stress through the years and no longer contain any stalagmites or stalagtites, mineral deposit formations formed over long periods of time that can be found on the floors and ceilings of well- preserved caves. Many people believe that if easy access to the caves remains, these unique formations will never return.

“The [caves] that are readily open to the public—I think they’re pretty useless,” Weber said. “The stalactites and stalagmites are not going to grow back.”

Many of the individuals trying to better protect the caves say they are motivated by the extensive amount of information and unique learning opportunities created by studying cave species and habitats.

“We need more work done on the basic science of these animals,” Dayton explained. “There has been a lot of science done on the cave. We need to build on that and use that information to better educate people about the caves and make better informed cave management decisions. The caves need more protection.”

With the caves still open to the public, many preservationists and other concerned individuals have suggested that an informational sign be placed outside of the cave entrances asking visitors to be respectful and mindful of the habitats and species within.

“When most human beings see a spider, they think ‘Oh, I’m going to kill that thing.’” Severson said. “So it might be worth posting some sort of placard outside the cave to educate the general public before they go in.”

Dayton says that the UCSC Natural Reserve staff has been working this summer to create an informational sign in the hopes that it will help curtail destruction and disruption within the caves.

Barry Sinervo, one of Dayton’s colleagues, has been involved in molecular research focused on a specific type of salamander found in the Porter Caves. Sinervo hopes his research will reveal whether the cave salamander represents a different species or a sub-species of the Pacific Giant Salamander found elsewhere in the Santa Cruz region.

In an email from France, where he is currently studying lizards, Sinervo said that he would like students to respect the caves so that biologists like him can continue their research. He offered some cautionary advice to those students who plan on venturing into the caves – or want them to continue to be open to the public.

“Keep the caves clean, leave as little a footprint as possible, respect life in all forms,” Sinervo said. “Do not harass the insect and invertebrate life or the cave will end up being closed to everyone except researchers.”