MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 12/08/2021 Wednesday Monk Seal Dailies

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

12/08/2021 Wednesday Monk Seal Dailies

Todays dailies are brought to you by Marilyn and Team R&B💕

Marilyn viewed Rabbit Island from 1 to 2:30 this afternoon and there were five seals on island today. Viewing was difficult with winds, lots of spray and heavy overcast.

Up in the dunes near the 3BS were three seals:

Seal 1 - adult size, newer coat. Marilyn never saw the ventral side or rear flippers. The seal was reported as an Unidentified Unknown U/U. If she were to guess she thinks this could be the molting male who is now completely molted.

Seal 2 - subadult to adult size, gray male belly, she was not sure about tags. Marilyn did not initially see this seal until he came out from behind a dune.

Seal 3 - subadult to adult size, light female belly and she wasn't sure about tags.

Near SRI were two seal near each other.

Seal 4 - subadult to adult size, lighter belly and two tags. Marilyn wasn't sure if it was a male or female.

Seal 5 - Marilyn wasn't sure about size, because she only had a view of the butt end. She is guessing it was juvenile to subadult size, and she never spotted any tags.

Team R&B checked out tracks and didn't see any seals initially. Once they moved more to the right and down below they saw R407 Kawika. He was alone, dry and resting just fine. Then he started flipping over, scratching and looking out at the water (which is still filthy). They hung out over and hour and then they left the area.

Team R&B watched as there appeared to be some type of spill off shore. There was a chopper with a sprayer. Dangling from the chopper shot out some kind of black fluid. There was a ship named Eagle, that was sitting out there with a boom. The coast guard was also out there along with a second chopper cruising in the area.

Heading over to Kahe there was a seal on the rocks resting. It took a while to figure out who it was, but finally they were able to ID RG28 Lefty.

While out they saw sharks again in the area. There were two people entering the water and Team R&B tried to tell them but they kept going. They called 911, who called HFD, who called the Lifeguards.

They watch the two snorkelers anxiously, and then they suddenly turned around and got out of the water. The lifeguards came spotted the sharks and put signs up.

At another west side location they were happy when they found Kala RH76 hidden in the rocks sound a sleep. She was very generous when she gave a flipper flex to confirm her ID. She is looking fine, no new markers, just a beautiful seal.

From a distance they can see a second seal with R407. They are reporting the seal as an U/U since they didn't back track to see who it was.

The sky was getting darker and looked like rain, so Team R&B made

one last stop. While driving they saw the landslides, now piled high in front of Makua Cave. There was lots of mud alone the highway. They pulled over to take a picture of the sky and with their seal radar they saw a little seal on the rocks. There was RM31 Kai so sweet. And if that wasn't enough they saw a second seal do a flipper flex next to him. Hidden in the rocks was none other than RL42 Leia.