Tag Archives: Hawaiian Monk Seals

Monk seal scars

Monk seal scars

Monk seal with scarsThese are older photos, but still interesting to me. I spotted this monk seal one day, not too far from a second seal that is a regular around the Big Island.

The top photo shows some lighter marking on the side of the seal, below and behind the two dark marks. This lighter marking is bleaching, which is applied to seals when possible, to help researchers monitor the population and keep track of their travels. The bleaching only lasts a year as seals molt annually. In addition to the bleaching, most seals have red tags placed in their rear flippers, to help identify them. It can be a hit and miss method as these photos show. This seal has tags in both flippers, but they were never visible to me.

The other interesting thing is those two dark circles on the seal’s back. They’re made by cookiecutter sharks. Cookiecutter sharks are small dogfish sharks, less than two feet in length. They feed by gouging round plugs, hence the name, out of larger creatures such as monk seals.

Cookiecutter sharks live in the deep ocean during the day, sometimes at depths over two miles. At dusk they rise up toward the surface, before descending to the depths again around daybreak. Another reason not to go swimming at night.

Monk seal pup update

Monk seal and pup

Monk seal pup feedingI visited the Big Island’s newest monk seal pup again, a couple of days ago, and I’m happy to report that mother and pup continue to do well. Since my last post about the pup, it’s clearly been packing on the pounds. Equally obvious is the mother’s loss of weight. Also, since that post, the pup has also been identified as female and given a name, Manu’iwa, which is a reference to the great frigatebird.

In these photos the pup is exactly 6 weeks old, so sometime very soon the mother will leave the pup to fend for herself. The top photo shows the two of them, the pup having shed her black baby coat for the more usual monk seal look. In the second photo, Manu’iwa has a feed. She was lying in the water which is why her lower half looks smooth while the dry upper part is raised and lighter. Below, mom heads for the water leaving Manu’iwa barking that she’s still hungry. Bottom, mom leads Manu’iwa out into the water for a swim, part of her ongoing education of the pup so that it will be able to fend for itself.

I should mention that these photos, as with those in the previous post, are taken with a telephoto lens. The area where the seals spend their time is cordoned off with volunteers monitoring the area and providing information to visitors. The volunteers work to minimize human interactions with the seals. If the pup gets used to humans it may seek them out and, at some point, is likely to have an interaction that ends badly – not necessarily for the pup, but for the person involved. This could be a bite or something more serious. If the pup, or any seal, has such encounters, it will likely have to be captured and relocated to the northwest Hawaii islands, which are uninhabited. This would be hard on the seal, faced with new territory and greater competition, and also be a blow to the goal of raising the number of monk seals living permanently around the main Hawaii islands.

Monk seal and pup enter the waterMonk seal and pup swimming

Hawaiian monk seal and her new pup

There’s a new monk seal pup on the Big Island and, happily, both mother and pup are doing well. The pup is just over a month old now and its mother will stay with it for another two weeks or so. At that point, she’ll head out to feed, having not eaten since giving birth, and the pup will be left to fend for itself.

I’ve been to see them three times and the pup’s growth has been dramatic as seen in the third and fifth photos. In the top one, the pup is 11 days old and below, exactly a month old.

For more information about Hawaiian monk seals, go to www.pifsc.noaa.gov/hawaiian_
monk_seal/ or www.marinemammalcenter.
org/hawaii.

Posted in response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge to be a visual storyteller.

Waimanu and her pup

A Hawaiian monk seal and her pup.

Waimanu is a monk seal who spends most of her time around the Big Island, one of the few to do so. She has given birth three times here, and recently gave birth to her fouth pup. She won’t leave her pup to feed until it’s ready to fend for itself, usually around six weeks. Because of this, she feeds up, ahead of giving birth, and attains enormous size.

The top photo shows the contrast between the huge mother seal and her small pup. Over the next six weeks, if all goes well, she’ll steadily lose weight while the pup will grow quite quickly. Eventually, the pup will lose it’s black coloration and look similar to its mother, the transformation complete.

A Hawaiian monk seal and her pup.

Waimanu swimming

A Hawaiian monk seal swims in a a bay

Waimanu is one of the few Hawaiian monk seals that live permanently around the Big Island. She has given birth to three pups, each time in the vicinity of Keokea Park in North Kohala. All three pups died, one from swallowing a fish hook when a few months old, the other two while still with their mother on the beach.

We’ll see if she returns to the park again this year for another go.

 

Relaxed Hawaiian monk seal

A Hawaiian monk seal relaxes on the Big Island.
Hawaiian monk seals tend to hunt at night. During the day, they’ll often haul out on a beach or rocky shore to rest, which is when they’re most often seen by people. This seal is a 7-year-old male with the catchy moniker of IO5 (given him by the people who track seals and look out for their welfare). He’s the monk seal I see most often and he has a few distinctive characteristics.

Thus far, he has remained unscarred by encounters with boats or sharks. He usually appears to have an air of being rather pleased with himself, perhaps a certain confidence about what a fine fellow he is. And when he’s on shore, he doesn’t just look like he’s resting, he looks like he has found a deeper, Zen-like calm. Seeing him in such a state always makes me loosen my shoulders, take a deep breath, and relax.

For more information about Hawaiian monk seals, go to www.pifsc.noaa.gov/hawaiian_monk_seal/ or www.marinemammalcenter.org/hawaii.

Hawaiian monk seals getting together

Two Hawaiian monk seals tussle in a tide pool.Two Hawaiian monk seals tussle in a tide pool.

Two Hawaiian monk seals tussle in a tide pool.Last month, I posted here about how unusual it was to see two Hawaiian monk seals in the same tide pool. Those two, identified as IO5 and BOO, were stretched out, resting.

A couple of weeks later, I came across the same two seals in a different tide pool, but definitely not resting. Bouts of circling and interaction were interspersed with them just lying together or in close proximity. Mostly IO5, the male seal, seemed to be the pursuer, but when he stopped, BOO, the female, was just as likely to reinitiate the activity.

Eventually BOO left the water and IO5 followed. He made another attempt to initiate some action, but she seemed to have tired of the game. Eventually, he eased off to the side not far away, and by the time I left, the two of them seemed to have settled in for some rest.

To me, IO5 looked like he was interested in mating, and half the time, she seemed amenable, but I’m not sure they’d do that in a tide pool. None of the barking, slapping, or nipping seemed to have any malevolence behind it; after such exchanges they mostly settled down again next to each other.

IO5 is on the left in the top photo, the right in the middle photo, and the foreground in the bottom photo. He’s the seal I see most often and his expression in the middle photo is quite representative of him.

For more information about Hawaiian monk seals, see here or here.