MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: December 15, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Sunday, December 15, 2019

December 15, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand and a collaboration of Marily, Tony and my viewing Rabbit Island.

Marilyn went to the pier and Tony joined her shortly after. Marilyn made her observations from the lanai, while Tony flew his drone from the pier. I arrived about an hour before we all called it a day.

When Marilyn first arrived there was only one seal near the 1BS, this appeared to be an adult seal with a newer coar and a gray male belly. She did not see any tags, the seal entered the water about 15 minute later, and then about 10 minutes after that a seal hauled out to the middle greenery area. Marilyn believes this to be the same critter. This seal moved clear up to the bushes and then rolled down to the waterline. Still could not see any tags, but they could have been there just not visible.

About the same time the "greenry" seal hauled out, a juvenile seal hauled out closer to the 2BS. This seal was ID'd as a juvenile male and based on Tony's feed back he spotted K25 tag. This made everyone happy that RK24 was sighted.

Marilyn spotted another seal at the waterline moving left towards the 1BS. It ultimately hauled out near the 1BS and appears to be an adult with a new coat. This critter never showed its belly or tags.

Unfortunately I am having some problems reading the SD card on

my laptop with Marilyn's photos. But thankfully Tony sent some of his drone photos.

Team Billand went out to plains at sunrise, while there taking in the gorgeous scenery they notices a "blob" by the grassy area. Further investigation they determined it was Pohaku RO28. Rob ran to get signs and quickly got them up as the folks from the cabins were coming out. Team Billand provided the basic monk seal 101 and got folks to understand not to approach. They called the hotline and waited for a volunteer to arrive. It was close to 9 am and Team Billand left.

Next stop was on the west side and while they were looking around one seal popped up near some snorklers but kept going towards KoOlina direction and then out to sea. They were not able to get any ID but wouldn't be surprised if it was RN14.

At 12:27 at another west side location they found one seal on the rocks. By the time they got to the area for an ID the seal entered the play boy pond. It was RIP RR70 cooling off. Once he had his time in the pond he hauled out on the rocks once again. He was the only one around there today.

Team Billand did the Ka'ena West trek and first find was RO40 Ka'ena resting on the rocks alone. He was fine and resting peacefully.
They then spotted just across from Ka'ena R3CU. His big cookie scar was visible with the bleach and visible tag.

Their next find at 2:25 was RL42 Leia. She was snug up against the rocks, alone and in a deep sleep.
At 2:37 they spotted N34 RL98 "Lina"was very hard to spot on the rocks. Although it makes it a challenge to ID it's also a good thing in that being tucked away makes it difficult for people to see her.

unknown adult male