One of my goals in life is to see various wildlife in its natural habitat in person, (things like bears, toucans and puffins), and in Hawaii specifically I wanted to see sea turtles, whales and monk seals. I've been lucky enough to have several sea turtle encounters in Hawaii, and we took an amazing whale-watching cruise in February, but I had never seen a monk seal until last weekend. We hiked Ka'ena Point on Saturday and were thrilled to see two of the creatures. I think there's some rule about how close you're allowed to get to them, but being blissfully without crowds of onlookers we were able to get about 10 feet away without the seals even twitching a whisker in our direction. They're one of Hawaii's two native mammals (the other being the hoary bat) and, sadly, they're endangered. Jarrod and I felt it was a great treat to observe these two seals. In Hawaiian, the monk seals are known as 'ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua or "dog that runs in rough water." I'm glad we're not the only ones who think the seals resemble our boxer, Conan! The other seal we saw was basking in the sun with its head under the water.
Here's a look at the scenery... the hike takes you to the northwestern tip of Oahu and can be accessed on both the west and north sides. We took the west (Waianae) side and it was spectacular. At the end of the trail is a bird sanctuary of sorts with tons of albatross nests. We saw several adult birds and two babies.
No comments:
Post a Comment