MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 12/1/2018 Monk Seal Dailies:

Saturday, December 1, 2018

12/1/2018 Monk Seal Dailies:

Today's dailies are brought to you by Lesley, Team Billand and Marilyn. Lesley's Ka'ena Update is part two of the dailies.

Team Billand had a repeat of yesterday with the exception they had junior sealette with them Olivia. They did an early saw a beautiful sunrise and spotted a seal foraging at the Outfall. No ID on the seal other than is had a clean coat and kept swimming in a easterly direction.

At a westside beach they saw Rip RR70 coming up on lower rocks alone. Apparently he's liking the Playboy Pond since this where he's been spending most of his time.

Then they saw a smaller seal coming in mid rocks to the right. It was Lei Ola RH48, She hauled out turned on her side and then went into to chill mode. I know Junior Sealette Olivia was a happy camper to see Lei Ola again.

Marilyn skipped her usual Saturday Ka'ena Hike today and spent this afternoon at Makai Pier viewing Rabbit Island. She had another great Rabbit Island day with a total of six seals.

Seal #1 - U/J possible subadult located alone to the far left of Left Point Beach. Medium size, lighter yellow belly, two tags but unable to determine sex.

There were four seals about 15 to 50 feet left of the 1BS.
Unknown Juvenile #2 - small seal, brown coat with yellow belly and showing a fair amount of green, with two tags. Unsure of gender may be a male. There was no evidence of an applied bleach on it's back.

There were two seals near U/J#2 that got into the water soon after Marilyn arrived. Less than 10 minutes later they hauled back out to position themselves between UJ#2. Marilyn was able to ID R1KT, by subadult size, new coat, 2 tags, male belly and partial CC scar on his ventral left side and scar on his left shoulder. The other was an easy ID thanks to NOAA's recent bleach N22, better known as Kolohe RW22.
Unknown Adult, similar in size to Kolohe, new coat, unsure of tags or sex. When the U/A showed its right side, Marilyn thought she saw 3 CC scars on the right dorsal area. This seal appeared to be reacting to something, which might have been a fledgling bird that spooked it. The seal entered the water about an hour later closely followed by Kolohe.

The final seal was alone behind the waterfront rocks near the 3BS. Adult size seal appeared to be about 20% molted. It never came out to get a good look. The upper chest area has molted. When NOAA went on island on the 29th they found Buster and Kekoa both starting to molt. Conclusion this could be one of them.

RIP RR70