09/22/2021 Wednesday Lesley's Ka'ena Update

Yesterday we worked on road signage in the park.

We only had 2 HMSeal sightings R407 Kawika sleeping in a small sand cove and RW02 PVKauai doing the hippo in very shallow water. We did a quick check on the Shearwater chicks and our ambassador for the season Team T&D Shearwater chick

This morning a got info from a posse that there was a seal on the beach down the road. I went to check and saw a young adult seal, possibly recently molted near the waterline with rear flippers on waterline and head facing mauka. As I was waiting to see tags I had a glimpse of a GREY tag. 

Wow that was a first in 15 yrs monitoring seals. I called it in with a gut feeling the seal was a female. After a while I got a G8(?) tag then shortly after a wave helped and a clear G89 tag was visible. 

Turns out our new visitor is KG54, female tag G89. She is from Kure about 1200 miles from here !

I kept an eye on her thru the day while she rested away and nicknamed her "Huaka'i" that means traveler in Hawaiian.

Hopefully, we'll get to see more of her in the next couple of days.

More soon - Be Safe