MonkSealMania.blogspot.com: 01/23/2022 Sunday's Dailies

Sunday, January 23, 2022

01/23/2022 Sunday's Dailies

Todays dailies are brought to you by Marilyn, Melody, Lesley and Team R&B💕. Lesley's weekly Ka'ena update is part two of the dailies.

I also received an update and comment on Justin's sighting from yesterday. First got an email from Justin mentioning the smaller seal looked to have a hook. NOAA was out today to take a look and attempted to apply bleach N2. I don't know who the young'en is other than its a male.

Also another email from our pal Gayle that the larger seal may be RG32 male born in 2015. She based this on the head scar on right side.

Marilyn viewed Rabbit Island from 12:50 to 2:05 and there were three seals today.

Near SRI and not far apart were two seals:

A/M - adult size, male belly with gray chest, and unsure about tags.

U/A - partly hidden in SRI was an adult size, gray belly possibly male, unsure about tags. This sale was barely visible once it moved into the inlet.

After five minutes after Marilyn arrived she saw something move behind the waterfront rocks down from the 3BS. Sure enough there was a seal behind the rocks. Marilyn saw several flipper flexes and would guess the seal was a juvenile to subadult size, light belly, and unsure about tags. This critter is being reported as an Unknown Unidentified U/U.

Team R&B started their morning searching and hanging out at different spots but coming up empty. They did enjoy watching the surfers taking advantage of huge surf. Patience paid off, they found a couple of seals.

For the last seven days they have been observing a little seal from Kaulapapa, a sweet little male who loved to hide in the rocks. This morning he was in plain view. They had been waiting to get a good look at him and here he is. They had a talk with Auntie and came up with the name Pe'ekai "one who hides in the ocean". He has a white left digit, a small bleach spot on left side and no other markings they could see today.

At the same site they found RW02 PvKauai snoozing in shallow pond. All three of his tags were very

visible.

On the rocks was RL20 Kalua snoozing. He is looking very healthy and no signs of lines or hooks.

After talking with Auntie they headed over to check the area. There was Kekoa Alii RK72 so they put the signs out and educated folks. Some were respectful and others just walked pass without listening or caring. The other concern is these folks don't pay attention to the waves and put themselves in harms way just to get a picture. Melody came out to take over to help out and Team R&B was able to leave.

They made their way back to check on Pe'ekai RP84, RW02 and RL20. Pe'ekai has definitely become part of their little west side gang. Lets hope he sticks around. They were all still in the same spot resting. Now they noticed Kala RH76 was there high mid rocks. She is looking fat and beautiful and was settled in away from the boys.

Melody responded to Team R&B's text and headed over to watch over Kekoa Alii. It was nice for them to spend time with him as they usually don't see him hauled out on this beach. He was snoozing over by the rocks where Team R&B had set up the zone. Shortly after catching up on everything Kekoa started making his way to the waters edge. Melody thought she had arrived just in time for him to leave. But Kekoa went down for a few minutes to have the water wash over him and then galumphed his way back up in the sand and settled in for snooze in the exact spot.

The beach was busy with a steady flow of people, most were good. But the same trouble Team R&B had earlier there are just those who do not want to listen. Thankfully Kekoa was in snooze mode and didn't move while people passed by closely. There seem to be a new visitors so Melody spent time doing outreach and monk seal 101. Kekoa would make his way down to the waters edge two more times during the afternoon.

Posse pal Amy came down at 4 and stayed until sunset. Melody was able to leave and Amy let her know that Kekoa left the site at 5:30.

Rabbit Island