ATTENTION: PHOTO BUFFS!

Aloha Monk Seal lovers! 
For those of you who don't know me, I have been working with the monk seal program off and on since 2005 and am currently a PhD student at Duke University where, through my research, I'm hoping to shed some light onto why juvenile seals in the Main Islands have better survival rates than those in the Northwest. (I'm the one who has been working with all the data from the cell phone tags we have been deploying around the Main Islands over the lats 2 years.) However, as most of you know, the monk seal program's budget has been cut repeatedly over the last few years and we can no longer afford to purchase all the tags we need to do our research. So, in order to keep moving forward we are getting creative! 


The cell phone tags operate through either the AT&T or Verizon network so we are going to try to get the the attention of those companies and attempt some sort of corporate sponsorship for our research. To do this, I am planning to make a mock commercial for either Verizon or AT&T highlighting how their services are helping to save this critically endangered species...which will hopefully prompt them to give us money for more tags in return for a good PR campaign that shows their companies helping to save an endangered species.

In order to make a good commercial pitch I need your help! We are asking for the best photos or video that any of you have of seals with cell phone tags attached to them. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of the tagged seals are still transmitting, but here is a list of the animals who were tagged over the last two years: RB24, RK05, RO28, RI13, RI11, R4DI, R4DF (Makaiwi), R018, RE70, R012 (Kermit), RR70 (RIP), RB02, RW02, T21M, RW30, R306, RH42, RO36, and RK35 (tagged in 2007). Some of these tags fell off rather quickly, but if any of you happened to get photos or video of any of these seals while they had their tags, and you are willing to share them with us (you will receive credit if your photos are used), please send them to kenady.wilson@duke.edu. Thank you so much for your support and continued effort to help monk seals, it's going to be a sustained group effort that makes a difference in the future and you all are doing a great job of making that happen! - Kenady