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

Monday, July 15, 2019

July 15, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Lesley and a link to news from Kauai. Lesley's Ka'ena update is part two of the dailies.

Thank you Gayle for forwarding me the link to pup news on Kauai.
https://kauaiseals.wordpress.com/2019/07/15/monk-seal-monday-63-announcing-pk3/

Team Billand covered so much sand looking for Pohaku and this morning they spent an hour looking and didn't come across any critters.
Then at 6:50 am checking out KoOlina they got lucky and there was a seal at Lagoon 4. They were thrilled to find Miss Pohaku RO28 in a zone already set up. They took time and educated many of the folks that were around.
They called the hotline early on, and called again to let them know they would be leaving. They were told a volunteer was on the way.

Meanwhile while standing and waiting they noticed something small moving towards the zone, initially they thought it was a piece of driftwood. Wrong! It was a stinking RAT, who hauled up (yes swam in) into the zone to rest. LOL, After a minute it re-entered the water and was gone.
In the 11 years of keeping this blog this is a first.... a swimming RAT!.
Volunteer arrived just before 10 am and Team Billand left to find other critters.

At 10:15 am they found two seals on the east side. It was Ka'ale RH32 and RG28 on the rocks. Ka'ale was pretty tired, (since he swam from the other side). Waves were hitting them, they just stayed put. Chances are good they would be leaving as the king tide arrives.

Well they were already having a good seal day but it wasn't over. Just before 11 am at another westside location they came across two more seals. Here lays Kekoa Alii RK72 with Kawena RH36 way inland just the two of them.
They stayed for 2 hours watching them and hoping another critter would arrive, but there wasn't. The super tide was rising, covering most of the rocks, but they stayed all while Team Billand was there.
Kekoa did roll up to Kawena, but he was good, and she just looked at him.
Team Billand left and on their last check at 3:45 they were both gone.

At 2:30 Team Billand found RL42 Leia, she is looking very clean in her newly molted coat. Lots of people passed her, and she was well aware of them. There were other folks that called out to stay back (nice to have the help).
Leia was busy high up on shore, going back down, getting splashed by big waves, rolled around and galumphed back up shore again. She is looking very clean, maybe a little thinner, but then again she just molted. Team Billand called her into the hotline just before they headed out.

swimming rat - who knew?