September 14, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Marilyn, Our Pal Val and Lesley. 
Lesley's update will be a little late but should be coming soon.

Marilyn sat at Makai Pier for one and a half hours and got skunked. NO critters today.

Our seal Pal Val had an incredible seal day and this comes after no being out on the beach for two weeks. Val found three of the five Kauai's chubby kids (weaners).  They are all looking good and appear to be thriving.  They spent most of their time up and down the beach and kinda sleepy. Val did manage to get a couple of action shots of RL52, RL28 and Pebbles RL58. 

Interesting note: Our pal Val made a great observation, that today our seal posse had three islands covered. Team T&D on Big Island, Val on Kauai and our crew on Oahu.  Not bad for a bunch of friends who met oh so many years ago.

Team Billand went out to KoOlina at 5 am, this being day 15 with RH92. 
When they first arrived they did not see any seals, so they took down the signs and kept looking. Sure enough they spotted RH92 way up by the beach access. She some how got behind the gazebo and was sound asleep.
They met up with a fisherman who was just coming in from fishing, he approached Team Billand to say hello and they he nearly stepped on the seal in the dark at 4:45 am. He thought it was crazy that the seal was sleeping so far from the water. 

Team Billand quickly put up a zone and Rob left to get junior sealette Olivia.  Barb stayed back and good that she did as there were lots of folks out and about, wondering where the seal was. Then when they saw where she was they all had a good laugh. "What the heck is the seal doing there?"  Answer (hiding from horny male seals and two legged critters) ... just resting.
Barbara called the hotline and left a message.

At one point RH92 moved down or was trying to, seemed disoriented being surrounded by all the beach chairs.  She tried to go through the chair, backed up, put her body on the chair, stopped, then went around the chairs and in between. 
At that point RH92 headed in a different directions and Team Billand scrambled to get to the signs. The crowds were moving with RH92, and Team Billand had to discourage them from talking to her and give her room so she could get back to the water.
Barbara managed to get the zone done, but it was already so hot and humid. They did lots of educating.
At 9 am a volunteer arrived (hooray).  Volunteer Winnie suggested there was an error in the ID, Team Billand explained who the seal was and they had just spent the last 14 days watching over her through her molt.

They left the site for a special lunch with granddaughter.  
When they returned they saw H92 was gone from the site and moved across the lagoon. They thought they saw a seal in the water, but it was gone. They saw signs were up and visitors were near by. They walked over to check out H92 and a gentleman said the volunteer left.  So Team Billand stayed for a bit and asked folks to stay behind the signs.

At 2 pm upon a recheck, H92 was still there, and still lots of people trying to get close.  Team Billand called it a day by 2:30.

 RH92

 RL28 

 RL52

 RL58 aka Pebbles (Rocky's kid)