Thursday, December 27, 2018

12/27/2018 Monk Seal Dailies:

Todays dailies are brought to you by Team Billand and yours truly. 

I made my way to the pier today to check out Rabbit Island. I had to take care of some personal business so I got a much later start than expected. There were two critters in front of the first blue sign. One very large adult which I am pretty sure is a male, and a small weaner size that I also think is a male. ( but I wouldn't bet the cat on it).   Both critters had older coats and were sandy so that added to the challenge. The weaner was a little greenish with yellowish belly. The adult had a ragged coat on its belly so it might be getting ready to molt. 
Other than rolling over they did not move for the time I was there. I left around 3 as the afternoon shadow covered the island and made for poor visibility.

Team Billand was out at a Leeward Beach where they had four critters. The first three were left overs from yesterday RIP RR70, Kalani RN14, and Kaale RH32 (3 amigos) were hanging out. Team Billand was getting ready to leave the site when they noticed the 4th seal coming in with a big beautiful visible applied bleach N22, it's Kolohe RW22.  He headed toward Ka'ale but he wasn't interested in the company. Kolohe went over to Kalani who was sleeping, then onto RIP. A huge bark from RIP, Kolohe kept going and all the seals settle for the day.  Kolohe is one of the older big boys now, but all four together must be quite a sight to see.


Team Billand received a call that there was a seal hauled out by the windsock area and people were really close to it. They headed over and found Pohaku RO28 on shore moved closer to the waters edge surrounded by lots of people enjoying their holiday vacation.
Team Billand called the hotline and stuck around to provide some outreach and education. They stayed for a while and as they were leaving they saw volunteer Christina arrive.
A text later in the day from Dana letting me know she spent some quality time with Pohaku as well.

 Rabbit Island Critters
 RIP RR70 
 RN14 Kalani
 settling in
 Ka'ale
 Kolohe RW22
 silly seal snoozing
 Pohaku

1 comment:

Dana Jones said...

I arrived at 1:12pm but no one else was there. It got busy but no signs were up so we stayed. Later on another seal friend showed up and took time to look after Pohaku. There were a lot of people out with dogs too. Glad we could help look after her. Also DLNR came by and was great to see them out and about.