June 30 . . . Mom has just taken off

Then this is Right Spot at Kawela Bay by the beach park on June 22




Yup, Mom (5AY)aka Honeygirl has left Hana at the Crawfords site by Kawela Bay. She took off around 7:00am Monday and hasn't been seen since. The usual pattern of monks that give birth is to nurture the pup until 4-6 weeks sometimes 7 weeks then they swim out, pup usually follows, but then pup finds him or herself in unfamiliar waters and turns around to shore. This time, Mom will not return to shore but keeps on going. Pup expects mom to return to shore too but doesn't. When Pup finds out that mom is not around, they sit on shore and cry out. This usually lasts for a couple of days before Pup realizes that mom is not coming back. Then Pup swims around looking for food and begins to settle in to the fact that he's now on his own.

Sometimes at this point NOAA comes out to rescue Pup and takes him to a better location and sometimes Pup just swims off to begin his or her life in the wild. In this case, NOAA is planning on coming out sometime tomorrow July 1 or 2 after analyzing Hana's situation and they will decide where to take him. Either way, Hana is now on his own and no longer dependent on his mom to provide or train him any longer.

Also, sometime today or tomorrow NOAA will probably tag Hana with her official name tag. I will let you know what that official name is when it happens. But for now, we have one more monk seal in our official seal count for Hawaii.