6/23/2013 Monk Seal Dailies:

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand and Lesley.  Unfortunately Team Billand was skunked today despite their checking everywhere and even hiking Ka'ena West.

Team Billand got a call at 4:30 from a friend at White Plains describing a huge seal on shore. They hurried down to Plains as quickly as they could, got there by 5 am. They saw a man on shore right where the seal was described to be, but there was no seal and the guy went surfing.  


When they got to that exact spot they did find three big wallows and a huge trail going into the water.  No way of knowing who was there, but judging the size of the wallows there is a good chance it might be Pohaku. (bummers).  They waited to see if they could see any signs of the critter off shore, waited until the day broke but nothing, so they left.

In spite of being skunked they did get to enjoy a few things along the way, especially their little trooper Olivia. Thank you Team Billand for being out there today even though you came up empty. As you will see Lesley had a bumper crop day with nine seals.

 Olivia running to Grandpa 

 wallows heading for the beach

Lesley's Complete Ka'ena Update:

Matt & I had a very busy day, did a lot of outreach with visitors and stopped by several campsites to talk to fishermen participating of the big fishing tournament and got to see 9 seals... yes 9 seals !

The day started extremely hot then the trades started blowing hard with strong gusts 

The seal part of the day was:

Down at the Playpen RK88 "Puna" (M) D56 in the water playing with RK40 "Napua" (F) D50. Later during the day she had hauled out on the beach and he was rolling in the cove pools. Didn't see him on dry today.

At 10 Mnts Beach freshly hauled out were RN58 "Luana" (F) and RK36 "Kauia Kolohe" (M). He's another candidate to 2019 pup dad added to RN30 from Kauai (2 days ago). Because of the morning glare it was very hard to confirm RK36 ID. I could see some of his scars but I preferred to call him in as U/M. Back home his tag 4DJ confirmed it as well as other scars. I called the Hotline back to let them know.

While trying to ID him in the morning, Matt saw a third seal in the water and let me know. I saw him dive 3 times, but wasn't able to ID so it will be ourU/U of the day.

On our way back from the point they were still there with a freshly hauled out BIG turtle.

Inside the NARS checking some burrows with Matt and looking for seeds I saw a seal at RL42 "Leia's" Old Molting Beach, it was RG40 "Holokai" easy to ID because of his camera box and transmitter WITH ANTENNA still on his back. Again my documentation confirms there's still and antenna on his back.

I went on by the coast, found RN30 (M) on flat reefs near Nihoa's Pool

RO'40 Ka'ena (M) was at the entrance of Ka'ena's Pool sleeping

R330 "Squinty" (M) was hauled out at the end of the Runway and later made his way into the little pool.

Our little CHICKY was stretching out his winds in the blasting wind and doin little take offs. I had a moment of "empty nest" feeling there !!!