MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: December 8, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Sunday, December 8, 2019

December 8, 2019 Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Marilyn, Lesley and Melody. Lesley's Ka'ena update has includes yesterday and todays' sightings. Guess the send button malfunctioned :-)

Marilyn was out this afternoon on the eastside and came across R1KT. Marilyn describes the situation as a real "exercise" in coexistence between humans and seals. The swell had the beach packed with surfers and families. Poor R1KT, ID'd by T37 tag had very little room to move. He only snorted at one person who accidentally got too close.

Marilyn viewed Rabbit Island for almost 2 hours today. When she first arrived there were two seal to the left of the 1BS and two seals between the 3BS and Seal Rock Inlet. About an hour later a 3rd seal joined the two near the 1BS. Although Marilyn got some great photos, she wasn't able to make any positive IDs.
Two seals by the 1st Blue Sign:
Unknown Juvenile Female (UJF) juvenile to subadult size, lighter female belly and two tags.

Unknown Male (UM1) adult size, darker male belly and at least one tag. In one photo it looked like there was a natural bleach on his LFF. Although there were no other distinctive markers for an ID.
At 12:30 an Unknown Unknown UU1 arrived. This was a subadult with a lighter belly and at least one tag. It had a newer coat, moved up closer to the other two seals with a little interaction with UM1.
Two seals by the 3rd Blue Sign
Unknown Unknown #2 UU#2, juvenile size and two tags. The critter never showed it's belly, so she was unable to determine gender. It was in close proximity to UM2 who was adult size, new coat, male belly and visible tags. When Marilyn first spotted UM2 (unknown male #2) she thought it might be molting but could not confirm when viewing her photos.

Team Billand had been out early and had done lots of looking until finally at 10:30 they came across RIP RR70 on lower rocks. After he had a sneezing fit he moved to his water hole, twirled around had a good bath and then galumphed back on the lower rocks for the day. He was alone the entire time.

At 1:20 Team Billand found RL20 Kalua at a west side location, just as they were experiencing withdrawals they came across this cutey. When they arrived there was a family taking a picture of him.

The man commented to Team Billand that they don't get to see seals very often, and that is when Team Billand did their Monk Seal 101. The gentleman said he thought you had to stay 10 feet away and Team Billand corrected him, Robert even went as far as showing them a pamphlet, so they would know what to do the next time.

Team Billand did the Ka'ena West Trek. It was just before 2 in the afternoon when they found Ka'ena sleeping in the water hole peacefully.
The next critter was RL98 Lina N34. She was hard to see, the was glare from the sun, but after a bit she stretched and they got the tag shot.

After their trek they returned to check on RIP and they hit the jack pot. RIP had company, he was now joined by R3CU and Ka'ale RH32.

Lastly an email from Melody brought news of Rocky's visit. She came late in the afternoon, and by the time Melody got down to see her she also got to enjoy the beautiful sunset. Security already had been there and put up the signs. Melody stayed with her for about an hour while Rocky rolled around and tucked herself in by the morning glory vines. Melody will check on her in the morning.

R1KT/T37 N3