MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 03/10/2020 Tuesday Monk Seal Dailies

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

03/10/2020 Tuesday Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you Team Billand, our pal Diga and my Rabbit Island observations.

Diane did the Ka'ena west trek today and spotted two seals.
The first critter was spotted about 20 minutes into the trek and was reported as a U/U. She wasn't able to determine it's ID or gender, although there was a least one tag under water. The seal was still there on her return.
The second critter was spotted on the way back. The seal was ID'd RL74 by her L75 tag and N74 applied bleach.

Team Billand arrived at the outfall before 7 am and spotted a seal foraging for a while in the outfall. Then the seal changed its behavior and took off to the left just pass the left side of the jetty to open ocean when they lost site of him. Looking at their photos they are pretty sure it was Kekoa Alii RK72.
They went to a nearby beach and Kekoa just hauling out to the right side. He remained there all day in the same spot.
At the same location to the left they spotted another seal hauling in up on the rocks. They were able to ID Kawena RH36. When they did their afternoon check she was gone.

Just before 10 am they arrived at a west side location where they found RW02 PvKauai alone. He was to the right seal inlet sound a sleep. He remained there all day by himself in the inlet, and moved higher up in the afternoon due to the waves.

RL20 Kalua arrived just after 12, he hauled up between the rocks and then moved over them to sleep. He appears to have a little bite marks on his head right side. But he's okay nothing serious.
Laster afternoon he had moved all the way inland next to R3CU. R3CU came in from the other inlet and went inland where he stayed for the day. His natural bleach and cookie scar was visible.

In the afternoon Team Billand headed over to plains and found Buster RV08. They were told he had been there since about 10 am.

I went to check on Pua and PO1 this afternoon and observed Rabbit Island between 2 and 4 PM.
Pua and PO1 were to the left of the 3BS and this was the first time I had observed them in this location. There wasn't much interaction between them with the exception of one feeding.

A U/U was by the 1st Blue Sign. When I arrived the critters back was facing me and I had nothing to go on, other than thinking the seal was probably an adult. Later the seal galumphed to the left of the 1BS and while it was on its belly it looked a lot smaller.

At left point beach there were two adults, one a female and the other I think a male, although reported as an unknown. They were within a few feet of each other for the entire time.
To their right was a U/J which I had not noticed until much later. I am sure it was there the entire time in that it was completely dry. The juvenile didn't give me anything to go on, it did expose it's belly but light colored on the sand made it difficult to determine anything.
I will say there were LOTS of birds....

RL74