Who knew that this morning, by chance, we would end up sitting on the beach watching a sleeping Hawaiian monk seal? Following several miles of walking, we decided to sit on the beach for a while. I put the chairs in the shade and went walking just a bit farther north and discovered the sleeping monk seal. A woman from the Marine Mammal Center's Hawaiian Monk Seal Conservation team had set up signage on the beach to give the seal some space. We relocated to a shady spot due east of the seal. The monk seal is an endangered species and we were told that there are only 8 known individual seals on the island of Hawaii. This individual was an untagged female, estimated to weigh 400 pounds. Earlier in the morning, she had been sleeping on the sandy beach, but then moved down the beach onto the lava rock and continued to sleep. We watched her for about an hour.
While we didn't see lots of movement, the seal occasionally rolled over, and made other small movements.
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