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

Saturday, June 15, 2019

June 15, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Marilyn and Lesley. Lesley provided two updates one from Friday (part 3) and today's (part 2) . There is BIG news from Friday so worth taking a look.

Team Billand started their day at 6:30 am, and saw that RG28 had just hauled up on the rocks. His tags were showing and he was alone. On their follow up check he had moved into his water hole.

THEN at 10:30 am Team Billand had a WONDERFUL SURPRISE! After searching for weeks they came across Kawena RH36. Last time Kawena was seen she had been hooked, well today there was no hook and she is looking quite healthy and green. Her tags were showing, she was alert, relaxed, healthy. They were able to see there was a scar as if it had been ripped out. Other than that she is looking good. On their last check she was gone.
WHAT makes this even more exciting is.... Today is Kawena's 3rd Birthday! Happy Birthday Kawena and thank you for gifting us with your presence.

Meantime Team Billand was thrilled with spotting Kawena they didn't realize Lei Ola RH48 was nearby. She was on the lower rocks, moving over to another set of rocks. She is looking healthy.
Lei Ola was also gone on their last visit. Waves were covering the entire area. Hopefully she and Kawena found someplace safe to hang out together.

About 1:30 Team Billand spotted orange flags on shore at Makaha Surfing Beach, so they went to investigate. There was da Benny RE74. He was resting in a small flagged off zone, even then people had to get too close. Benny was gone by 2:20.

Marilyn skipped the Ka'ena trek this week and headed over to Hanauma Bay this morning for a couple of hours. In that time she did see a seal come near shore briefly, by the time she got there the seal had departed. There were no other seals during her time there.

From there Marilyn headed over to Kokee Flats, the tide was rising and there was a sizable south swell. She checked out the area and on her way back she saw Gayle who was pointing to a seal in the water. The seal was heading south and made it's way into a tide pool and started playing with several palm fronds.

They were there for about 30 minutes, watching this little one playing away. The critter was very cooperative flashing his tags K24 and K25 tags. He never hauled out and departed heading off into the south swell. He is looking very green around and below his eyes.

Marilyn and I met at Makai Pier and viewed Rabbit Island from 1:15 to 2:45 pm. We saw three seals all between the 3BS and SRI.

RB12 Sadie and PO4 were initially on the shoreline with PO4 mostly hidden behind Sadie.
They later moved up and PO4 climbed on Mom before nursing. We had a decent view of PO4's belly, Marilyn thinks it's a female, I am hoping it's a female, but neither one is willing to bet any cats at this time.
The other seal was an unknown juvenile female (UJF) who has a fairly green belly and 2 tags. Our best bet is that this is RK38 Hali'a, who was confirmed on RI by NOAA on 6/13.

RG28