MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 03/08/2020 Sunday Monk Seal Dailies

Sunday, March 8, 2020

03/08/2020 Sunday Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Team Billand, Marilyn and my Rabbit Island observations.

Team Billand arrived at a west side beach and upon arrival there were four seals on the rocks to right seal inlet and then three more arrived.
RW02 PvKauai, R3CU, R407 Kawika and RH36 Kawena. Kawena and Kawika were together all day.
Then at 9 am RG28 Lefty hauled in to the right inlet.

Kekoa RK72 hauled to left high rocks. RL20 Kalua was spotted behind Kekoa. He must have come in without their knowing. They didn't see him until they were ready to leave.
On their afternoon check all seven seals remained

Team Billand was on their way to KoOlina about 12:30 when they got a call from Aunty that a seal hauled out. They were surprise to find RN14 Kalani mid shore. Aunty got some one to put up the signs as people were on the beach and getting close. Kalani was barking at them. Team Billand got the ID and was walking away when they turned to see people walking up to the seal. RN14 was startled and took off. They took down the signs for Aunty and left them with her.

After 3 they took a chance to look at a beach park on the west side and sure enough there was seal. And it was Benny (for real this time) high up on the rocks.

I met up with Marilyn this afternoon and we spent almost two hours observing Rabbit Island. Marilyn had been there in the morning and found the same critters.
Momma Pua RF34 and PO1 were to the right of the 3BS. Initially Pua had completely blocked the kid from view but eventually it came around in front. We observed at least one nursing session this afternoon.

In front of the 1st blue sign was an unidentified juvenile female. She was very cooperative and

showed us her female belly. This was not RK38 that had her hook removed on Thursday. RK38 has a distinctive line of green algae under her eye. My guess would be RK37, but we have no way to confirm it.

There were two seals at left point beach. They were difficult to see but with some sunshine and in between the waves we got a couple of decent pictures. One was an adult to sub adult female. The other is an unknown unknown. NOAA did bleach a couple of seals on Thursday but we did not see any applied bleach marks on any of the seals.

R407 Kawika and RH36 Kawena