MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 11/07/2020 Saturday Monk Seal Dailies

Saturday, November 7, 2020

11/07/2020 Saturday Monk Seal Dailies

Today's dailies are brought to you by Lesley, Marilyn and Team Billand. Lesley's two for one Ka'ena update is part two of the dailies.

Team Billand stopped by the bay at 5:45 am and couldn't see much but a bunch of boats in the water. They heard on of the guys yell "Seal". It took them a while to figure it out but once the light came they spotted R3CX Nalu. At 6 am they saw Lei Ola RH48 out there too. She was with Nalu again. They counted up to 30 fishermen on the jetty all with lights on their heads. Team Billand left at 7 am to pick up junior sealette Olivia.

Thier second visit to the bay was at 10 am, the dinghys were all in a row, not sure why maybe easier to

catch the fish. They saw seals were fighting in the waters and now there was a third seal. Same as yesterday little RL20 was egging on Lei Ola and Nalu. He's just a kid probably wanting to play. At one point there was lots of splashing and he got into it with Lei Ola. A couple of other times they got into it between the boats.

Suddenly the seals turned inward by the jetty close to shore. Team Billand advised the kids to be careful because the males were chasing the female. They all moved to shore and watched the show. It looked like Lei Ola might haul out, but then she stopped and turned to deeper waters.

On another note the Iwa birds came today and dove to the water snatching a Halalu. COOL!

Team Billand checked another west side location just before 1 pm and there was a volunteer on site. They were watching over a seal by the rocks ID'd as RN14 Kalani. They were expecting to find Benny. So they waited and sure enough in comes a shiny seal. It's Benny RE74 coming in cautiously. When he hauled up on shore they could see he was close to 95% molted. He looked up at RN14 and continued up on shore and stayed. The volunteer had left just before Benny arrived.

Off to the next location they found RK72 Kekoa on lower rocks. They think he might be starting his

molt, there appears to be a little break in the chest area in his cookie scar.

Marilyn had a busy day today, it started just before noon. She found Right Spot R016 on the east side. A zone was set up around her and a volunteer was there with some trainees. Right Spot has started her molt and is about 35% into it. Most of her chest has molted and seems to be coming off in big chunks.

Marilyn viewed Rabbit Island from 12:15 to 2:00 pm spotting eight seals. They were all between the middle cliffs and the rock flat behind SRI. Easiest to list them by numbers.

Seal 1 - RW22 Kolohe, adult male, old coat, one chipped tag and NB behind RFF. There is a good chance he is here to molt, and it was too hard to see if he started.

Seal 2- UJM, juvenile size, male belly and not sure about tags.

Seal 3 - UAF, adult size, darker female belly and two tags.

Seal 4 - UAM, adult size, new coat, lighter male belly with C scar on left ventral side. Marilyn thinks it might be R1KT because of the belly scar.