In today’s local newspaper, you may have read about an international seal study that has implications right here in Hawaii.
The Garden Island reported the story about a long-term research study in Scotland. NOAA’s research ecologist Stacie Robinson told Jessica Else of The Garden Island, “Some of the lines of thinking (in the St. Andrews research) are applicable to Hawaiian monk seals,” Robinson said. “We’re doing something that’s logically similar, but we’re using the patterns of our citizen science reports to get the information.”
Robinson’s study is due out soon, and it likely includes information provided by Kauai’s own dedicated crew of citizen scientists, as well as, the general public and concerned visitors who call the Kauai Hawaiian Monk Seal Hui’s hotline to report seal sightings. According to Robinson, all this helps scientists working in the recovery of Hawaiian monk seals by providing critical information about “vital rates,” things like reproductive, body condition, and survival rates.
Today, the Kauai Hawaiian Monk Seal Hotline rang with one such report. The caller also provided distant cell phone photos that allowed DLNR’s Mimi Olry to identify the seal–even without the observation of a the seal’s rear flipper tag. (Ironically, this seal only has one rear flipper tag, because when she was flipper-tagged in 2015 when she was an estimated three years of age, the procedure was interrupted by an incoming wave.)
The key to the seal’s ID was that the caller texted full-length body shots–front and back–as well as a head-on and tail-first photographs. All were taken, of course, from a respectful distance. Too, the caller provided location photos to make it easier for our volunteer to find the seal.
This particular seal has some significant natural identifiers–a cookie cutter shark scar on her back, a scar across her chest from a suspected shark bite, and a missing digit on her left fore flipper.
Do you know who she is?
What’s more, the photos indicated she just might be pregnant. Here are two of the photos.
As is general protocol, a trained volunteered was dispatched to follow up and perform the usual health check to ensure there were no entanglements wrapped around the seal or fishing line projecting from the seal’s mouth. Our volunteer’s report confirmed that this seal was R1KY.
PC: K. Bove
PC: K. Bove
Kaua'i Seals 