I-37 at Sharks Cove 4-28-10

I have more pictures on the way, but for now this is it. FYI: RI37 was born on Kauai in 2005. She is the first known child of R5AY. That posterior dorsal wound was seen fresh on the west side on 4-6-10, and appeared to be a possible propeller wound. Judging by your shots it appears as though it's healing nicely. These are amazing animals.

Remember Shark Bite? Look down the blog a bit till you find her. (type in "shark bite" in the search bar) See her shark bite wound? Healed up juss fine. These are truly an amazing creation.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how RI37's posterior dorsal wound his coming along. This her first sighting since the wound was first seen on the west side on 4-6-10. DB

4-19 Monday Monk swims with the tourists

today a monk was swimming with the tourists outside of our Haleiwa Condos, kinda by Army beach. He/she popped up and made quite an entrance while others watched the Monk, the Monk watched them. After awhile of entertaining the guests, he/she shruggs his/her shoulders and quietly swims off past the reef into the deep blue pacific.



I don't think this is exactly what they saw, but it closely fits the description. I don't know how many of the swimmers had been drinking.

High tech tags townie Monks

Found this article in the Honolulu Advertiser. I don't have any knowledge of any of our North Shore Monks got the gift of tags or not. Here is the article!

High-tech transmitters giving up secret lives of Hawaiian seals
Navy pays for devices that also gauge how sonar affects species

Up to 15 monk seals in Hawai'i will be doing their part over the coming year to help scientists understand them better. The critically endangered animals will wear small transmitters that reveal their movements, including how deep they dive, when they haul out on land and how far they roam.

Accumulating normal habits of the seals also will be used to gauge the effect Navy training exercises, including use of sonar, may have on the animals. The Navy is footing the bill for the $4,500-each transmitters, NOAA scientists' travel and veterinary costs associated with the project. The project is slated to last several years.

Currently five seals are wearing the transmitters — one on O'ahu and four on Moloka'i. Additional transmitters will be placed on 10 more seals on Kaua'i and O'ahu in coming months, said Charles Littnan, lead scientist for NOAA Fisheries' Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program.

The transmitters are slightly larger than a deck of cards with a short antenna and are glued to fur on a seal's back, where it will least interfere with its daily life. Pregnant, nursing, sick or wounded seals, or seals near to their annual molt of their fur will not be tagged, Littnan said. Only seals of 200 pounds or more will be tagged.

The transmitters "are a lot like a smartphone," Littnan said. They show a seal's location with global positioning coordinates and also track water temperature, salinity and depth of dives. They "phone home" when the seals are on the surface of the water or on land and the devices can transmit via a cell phone tower, Littnan said.

So far, an O'ahu seal dubbed "Kermit" by seal protection volunteers has been the star of the project. Several tagged seals lost their transmitters, prompting a change in the glue used to attach them, and the Moloka'i seals have only recently been tagged.

Already, Littnan knows that Kermit travels regularly back and forth between Diamond Head and Nānākuli. Some of his favorite fishing grounds seem to be offshore from 'Ewa Beach. The seal often spends 12 to 24 hours at a time swimming and diving in the ocean, then hauling out at a variety of beaches for a rest.

"Monk seals dive pretty much from the time they hit the water through their entire trip," Littnan said. "Depth varies, but duration of each dive is usually around six minutes, and surface times usually about one or two minutes. They feed almost entirely along the bottom, which is why the dives are so flat."

Most of Kermit's dives are in the 100- to 150-foot range, but his record dive since wearing the transmitter was to more than 700 feet. Seals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have been recorded diving as deep as 1,500 feet on occasion.

The seals' dives are all about food. Seals are "generalists" in what they eat, Littnan said. But they "focus almost entirely on things on the bottom — tako, eels, flatfish like flounder, some reef fish — wrasses, triggerfish — and a variety of crustaceans, including lobster and crabs."

One of the mysteries of the breed is why the seals living in the main Hawaiian Islands are doing so much better than their cousins in the remote islands, which are protected as part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

"There's a stark contrast ... the animals down here have better survival and are in much better condition," Littnan said. "They're fatter, which is good for seals."

"It seems really counterintuitive, because the Northwestern Islands people describe as a relatively pristine environment," Littnan said. In the main islands, there is enormous pressure from recreational and commercial fishing. There's sewage going into the ocean. All these human disturbances — and monk seals are just thriving."

A working theory behind the success of seals in the main islands and the distress of those in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is that the rich population of large predators, including ulua and sharks, in the remote islands are direct competitors with the seals for their favorite foods.

Underwater video in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has shown ulua and sharks following behind seals as they turn over rocks on the sea floor to find fish — and eating the fish before the seals can get them.

There are other issues, too, including predation on seals by Galapagos sharks and entanglement in marine debris.

There are an estimated 150 monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands and about 950 in the northwestern part of the chain. The seals live in the wild only in Hawai'i and as a group have had steep overall population declines in recent years.

If trends continue, in 15 years the monk seal population of the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands could both be about 400 to 500 animals, Littnan said.

Information gathered from the tracking project should help answer the question, "What is that going to mean?" Littnan said. "And are there enough resources to support them?"

NOAA researchers get first crack at the data as they come in and use them to try and help the endangered seals survive. The Navy will work with NOAA after a quantity of baseline data has been accumulated to see if it can detect any changes in seal behavior when there Navy training activities, including use of sonar, Littnan said.

A statement from the Navy said it is funding the $198,165 project as part of its compliance with the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act for its U.S. Pacific Fleet's Hawai'i Range Complex.

This is the first year of what's expected to be a multi-year project, Littnan said.

"The monitoring plan commits the Navy to visual surveys, passive acoustic monitoring and tagging of marine mammals, including monk seals, to determine habitat use relative to Navy training events as well as any behavioral response," U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman Mark Matsunaga said.

Littnan said: "This is going to be important stuff for the Navy and for the monk seals."

Reach Diana Leone at dleone@honoluluadvertiser.com.

2010 seal count

Aloha Volunteers,
Apologies for the late notice for Seal Count Training. If you have participated in seal count in the past this is not a mandatory requirement but we would love to have you at a meeting.

If you have not participated before, this will be an exciting introduction to the Hawaiian Monk Seal and what to expect from Seal Count on April 17th.

We have beautiful new tshirts and some great ideas on how you can participate and volunteer for the upcoming year.

Please email your RSVP for the training and for the Seal Count to:

Jen Maldonado - cruisingkismet@msn.com Zones and count areas will be assigned in the upcoming week.

We look forward to seeing our great group of people, AND SEALS, on the beaches April 17, 2010






We maintain and train volunteers to assist federal, state, and non-governmental organizations' in responding to Hawaiian Monk Seal "haul-outs", pupping events, and injuries. Anything we can do to assist in the recovery of the Hawaiian Monk Seal!

Who's pregnant?

I was curious how many monks on the North Shore were pregnant this year. The Monk guru in charge of knowing questions only answered by a monk guru spoke. He said:

D.B. Dunlap to me
show details 4:39 AM (1 hour ago)


Good Morning Todd, You've got R5AY (Honey Girl), Lona (R017), KC (RK28), and Right Spot (R016) , all running around the North Shore neighborhood. Any could be potential NS births, but last year (which means absolutely nothing) all went somewhere else. R5AY to Kauai, Lona to Molokai, KC to some UNK location , and Right Spot to Molokai, So ????? In terms of potential due dates. R5AY would be around 6/23, Lona 6/12, KC 6/11, and Right Spot 9/14. Of course , there is always the possibility that somebody else will pop up. DB

KC 4-5-10 at Croziers Lp.

KC decides to move a couple of miles North to Crozier Loop. Acording to Amy W. who spotted KC this morning at about 6am, she was also there about 2 weeks ago.

KC 4-4-10 at Camp Mokuleia

Resident manager Rick called this one in. KC looking fat and happy.

Not a North Shore Monk, but an interesting read.

By SHANNA MCCORD
Posted: 03/18/2010 07:29:23 PM PDT

Rare Hawaiian monk seal lands at UCSC's Long Marine Lab: Scientists hope to learn secrets to save critically endangered species
Click photo to enlargeTerrie Williams touches the Hawaiian Monk Seal at the Long Marine... (Robinson Kuntz/Sentinel)«12345»SANTA CRUZ - UC Santa Cruz biologist Terrie Williams was on one of her annual research expeditions in Antarctica a couple of years ago when an e-mail turned her attention to the warm waters of Hawaii.

The message from the National Marine Fisheries Service offered Williams the rare opportunity to study the critically endangered monk seal, whose population has dropped to 1,100 and dwindles at a rate of 4 percent each year, marine scientists say.

Williams jumped at the chance, and in November she brought Ho'ailona, which means "a sign from the ocean" in Hawaiian, home to UCSC's Long Marine Lab from the island of Molokai.

"The monk seal is the most endangered marine mammal in U.S. waters," said Williams, who is overseeing the research in coordination with the NOAA Fisheries Service's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and other researchers. "If we can ever make a difference in saving this endangered species, now is the time to do it."

Ho'ailona shunned the wild, and instead became friendly with the people of Molokai by hanging out at a popular wharf where he became dependent on food handouts.

His interactions with people soon became a risk to his own welfare as well as to public safety, and he was sent to UCSC's Long Marine Lab where he now lives in a special enclosure of water heated to 78 degrees with a cloth roof for protection from the wind and elements.

"We've created a little Hawaiian environment here by heating the water and putting a cover over the pool for protection from the wind and the elements," Williams said. "Ho'ailona is doing very well. He was a little thin when he arrived, but he's been rapidly putting on weight and is learning how to participate in our studies."

Thursday, the friendly, energetic seal slipped in and out of his personal pool at Long Marine Lab gulping down handfuls of herring fish from his trainer Beau Richter.

Williams, Richter and UCSC scientist Traci Kendall, are interested in studying Ho'ailona's temperature tolerances and how much energy he expends per swimming stroke to determine the "energy cost" of the seal's hunting and diving.

"No one has ever had the opportunity to conduct these kinds of basic physiological studies with a tropical seal," Williams said. "The monk seal population is in trouble, and we hope that these studies will help us to better understand their habitat requirements."

Using Ho'ailona's information and that from electronic tags recording the dives of wild monk seals, researchers can evaluate the suitability of different habitats for the seals. By counting the number of strokes they take to hunt or dive, researchers can assign an energy "cost" to each of those activities.

"It's a powerful noninvasive tool that we have used to study Antarctic seals. Now we can use it to determine what it costs to be a monk seal living under tropical conditions," Williams said. "The goal is to use this information to guide sound management decisions for the conservation of monk seals based on the best available science."

UCSC scientists also will monitor Ho'ailona's cataracts and possibly perform eye surgery later in the year.

UCSC's Long Marine Lab was chosen to house Ho'ailona largely because of the facilities ability to provide heated ocean water, Williams said.

"We are thankful for our partnership with UCSC to learn from Ho'ailona and will apply that knowledge to the conservation of monk seals worldwide in Hawaii and in the Mediterranean," said Dr. Teri Rowles, the coordinator of NOAA's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. "Ho'ailona will teach us a great deal about monk seal biology and health."

Ho'ailona is likely to be moved to a public aquarium on Oahu in January after UCSC researchers learn all they can about the monk seal and ensure his health is in good standing.

"This is a very rare animal to work with," Richter said. "I want to help figure out the pieces of the puzzle causing this animal to go extinct. Is it something happening naturally, or something we're doing?"


ABOUT MONK SEALS

Monk seals are a critically endangered species worldwide. Historically, there were three species of monk seals:

The Hawaiian monk seal, which is found in the Northwest and Main Hawaiian Islands and has a population of about 1,100.

The Mediterranean monk seal found in the western Mediterranean Sea (primarily off the coasts of Greece and Turkey) and in the eastern Atlantic Ocean (off the coast of Africa and on the island of Madeira), and has a population of about 500.

The Caribbean monk seal was found in the Caribbean Sea but is now extinct after centuries of human exploitation and hunting.

The dire status of the two existing monk seal populations has necessitated international conservation initiatives. NOAA scientists and managers are working with experts around the world to help recover monk seals, and the information gained from treating and monitoring H 'ailona's development will help future conservation efforts for the species.

SOURCE: NOAA