MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: September 3, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

September 3, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand and in the yesterday's news department Melody sent some news on Nanea.

Team Billand went to KoOlina before 7 this morning. Upon arrival there was a zone up with a seal snoozing alone close to the waters edge. Team Billand ID'd RH92 once again, and they spent the time educating all the curious people. All was going well until a little girl came running over lifts the ropes and runs toward the seal. They called out for her to stop, volunteer Karen arrived and did her best to coax her out. Well Mom was right there telling the little girl to get out, seems someone needs a lesson to listening to adults.... just saying.

Meanwhile RH92 still is showing no signs that she has begun her molt. There were lots of scratches showing up along her neck area. She appears to be agitated, flipping over, stretching, looking around, moving onto her belly then onto her side.

Team Billand left this site to go and check another near by beach. They heard there might be a seal.
Sure enough they arrived to see a big seal on the beach with folks all around. One dude ran right in front of the seal, and the seal reacted by leaping and barking. It was close the seal almost bit him.

Team Billand was able to ID RN14 Kalani. Now there is another dude right there with his cell phone taking close ups of RN14. Volunteer Karen with some help from Team Billand did their best to get this guy to back off. He just wouldn't listen, kept right at the seal. Finally volunteer Karen was able to get him to back off.
Volunteer Karen along with Team Billand put up a zone, Karen brought some rope and Robert went to get some signs from a different location. Just as they finished the zone, RN14 entered the water looking about. People were advised to get out of the water with the seal swimming so close. But RN14 took one more good look around and then disappeared at 9:45 am.

Team Billand went to check some west side beaches. On one stop they see a large, fat seal, small stub of a tag showing on his side, sleeping on the rocks. They were able to ID Kekoa RK72.

On a later check Kekoa was no longer at the site, but they did see another seal to the left on the rocks.
Here they found RIP RR70 who notices another seal coming into the area. RIP and the new arrival have words and the unknown took off. It all happened so quick Team Billand was not able to get an ID.

YESTERDAY's NEWS

Melody and Dana were out early to check on Nanea L44, it had been about a week since Dana had seen her. Upon arrival there was a volunteer on site and mentioned they had just missed "the girls".
The girls she was referring to was Kaimana J58, Nanea L44 and K80.
Dana and Melody decided to wait around to see who might show up. Some of Melody's frienfs who were in the area let her know they were leaving and on the way out they spotted Nanea. She was foraging alone, looks like her new friends ditched her.

Nanea didn't seem to mind, she was frolicking in the water, eating sea cucumbers, flipping her tail in the air, playing with things like pieces of rusty metal.
Nanea left the tide pool and looked like she was going to head out to deeper waters, but she made a u-turn and headed back to the beach. All that foraging and playing she took her sweet time hauling out.
No other seals showed up so about 11:30 Melody and Dana decided to go have some lunch.

When they arrived back to the beach about 1:30 they found Kaimana had shown up and was resting near the waters edge, away from Nanea. Seems that Kaimana needed some alone time today, or maybe she was tired of Nanea trying to nurse from her.
Nanea made her way back and forth to the waters edge, and Kaimana was not interested in any play or interaction.

Melody and Dana got a call from Kim that another seal was coming in and there they could see a big seal doing the head bob heading straight for the cove. When it got close to the waters edge this seal was checking out who was on the beach, and it finally hauled out and headed for Nanea. He rested his head near her small body and she finally woke up. The seal then began to roll down the beach toward the water. It didn't take Nanea too long to catch on and she went after her new found friend. When Melody left at 4:30 they were still in the water playing.

*Note; Melody was told by volunteer this adult male that arrived was Kauai Kolohe. If these photos that were posted on facebook yesterday, the monk seal mania posse had ID the male as Squinty R330.

RH92