MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: August 04, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Sunday, August 4, 2019

August 04, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Lesley, and Marilyn and my Rabbit Island observations. Lesley's Ka'ena update is part 2 of the dailies.

Team Billand arrived at the pupping site just before 6 am and found Mom and Pup in the water exploring. They did land for a quick feed and a snooze.

At 8:12 am while Mom and Pup were on the beach sleeping, RN14 Kalani was seen coming in. He swam right up to Pohaku from behind. He passed her and was staring at the pup when Pohaku woke up. She barked at Kalani, the pup got up looking at Kalani, then the pup is swept up by the current. Pohaku went crazy goes after the pup while chasing Kalani. Kalani takes off to the corner of the cover, and for some reason decides to make his way back to Pohaku.
Pohaku let him have it again and finally RN14 swam off by 8:39 am " Seal Ya Punk"!
Pohaku and pup go back to the shallows and Pohaku nurses the kid, they both fell asleep.

Team Billand left 11:30 for a break and to check on the other critters. They returned to the site at 2:15 pm and found Mom and Pup in the water close to the rocks where it opens to the open ocean. This was a rough water swim, and Nanea is having a jolly good time. After the rough water lesson, both land on birth beach side for another feed. For some reason Nanea is vocal during the feedings. (hmm maybe she singing).

Suddenly they noticed two people in the channel by Pohaku and Nanea. Everyone was frantically waving to move away.... Go Away. the first guy waves back with a shaka, smiles and the lady smiling too. They disappear and Robert ran over to Aunties to see if he could find out who they were. Volunteers on site made calls and worked together, finally security arrived and the couple was gone. This did not please Auntie. But for now everything is calm Pohaku and NAnea are sound a sleep.

Team Billand left for the day at 4:30.

During the course of the day on their breaks Team Billand did find RH92 at the same area as the last two days. They spent some time educating folks and a volunteer arrived so they headed out.

During lunchtime they found RN14 Kalani at a west side location sleeping peacefully in a small pond alone. Wonder if he is resting up to attempt another visit to Pohaku, he won't if he knows what's good for him

At another west side location they found miss Lei Ola RH48. She was in a funky position on the rocks alone. They hung out until she moved and they could get a positive ID, took a while in the hot sun, but finally she showed her tag.

Marilyn and I met at Makai Pier for two hours this afternoon. When we arrived it was sunny with a few clouds, and as time went on, it got really cloudy with some drizzle. This becomes important when you are looking through a scope an 1/8 of a mile away.

Altogether we saw five seals on the island.
At LPB was a chubby small seal with a very clean coat. While we were there we debated whether this was PO4, and once I got home I could confirm it was a weaner sized, male belly and a very clean coat.

At the far right side of the island past the 3BS on a rocky flat area usually covered by the surf, there were four seals. Once again they kept shifting positions so it became difficult to nail down who was who at any given time. At one point one of the UJs moved closer to the 3BS. What I know I saw through the scope:

U/F and an U/M both appeared to be larger than the other two.
UJ with an older coat is in the process of molting. Marilyn noticed after it had rolled over that the underside from the neck to the lower belly was clean. (maybe 20%).
The other UJ had a brand new coat and tags, other than that there wasn't much to go on. Once I saw the tags I knew this wasn't our weaner. (Wish I was better at this).

Nanea PO5 and Pohaku RO28