January 22, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies:

Todays dailies are brought to you by Team Billand and Lesley. Lesley's Ka'ena update includes yesterdays update - part 3 of the dailies and today - part 2 of the dailies.  

Team Billand had been searching since the wee hours of the morning and found no one. FINALLY they were on the west side and at one of the beaches there were three seals fighting and playing.
They were in the water, going right, then left having themselves a good time. Team Billand followed and finally they were able to ID'd the three amigos; RK72 Kekoa, RH32 Ka'ale and RW02 PvKauai. Team Billand called the hotline to report the three. Team Billand waited until volunteer Melina arrived.

They might have had a slow morning but the afternoon was paying off. Next stop to another westside beach. They spotted Lei Ola RH48, thankfully they were quick enough to get a couple of photos her before she took off. She is looking quite healthy and beautiful.

Then Team Billand made there Ka'ena West trek. Way out at the 40 they were taking pictures of a small seal who they thought was RK88 Puna. Once they got a good look at the tags it was K40/41.  This left them stumped so with a little help with their friends, they figured out it was Napua!  This would be Team Billands first meeting with her.

Team Billand spent quite some time out on the west side looking for critters and they did find Ka'ena laying on his back in between

rocks. Initially they weren't sure who it was, he was totally dry and could not see the tag. His position made it really difficult to ID, but with persistence they were able to ID Ka'ena.  They could not see the blue line today, but his position and it was hard to get a good view of him. He moved around a lot which didn't help them.

The last critter for Team Billand came at the end of a very long day, they were hot and tired. The critter was clean with broken tags, high up on the rocks. The sun was very bright which made it difficult for a good visual. They are pretty sure this critter is RIP RR70.

Ka'ale

 Kekoa

 RW02 PvKauai

 the line up 3 amigos

 Lei Ola  

 Napua RK40

 Ka'ena  

 RIP