WAILUA — A cloudy Sunday morning may have seemed like the perfect time to take a nap at Kitchens, the beach behind Wailua Golf Course. But when a fat little guy decided to do it right where beachgoers drive their
WAILUA — A cloudy Sunday morning may have seemed like the perfect time to take a nap at Kitchens, the beach behind Wailua Golf Course. But when a fat little guy decided to do it right where beachgoers drive their four-wheel-drive trucks to access the popular surf area, it created a few problems.
A Kaua‘i-born 7-month-old endangered Hawaiian monk seal named Mahalo Eha laid there for more than three hours.
Harry Visitacion and his girlfriend Dori Simao were fishing and enjoying the beach, together with her little niece, Keyla Simao, when someone asked for help getting a car unstuck in the sand.
As they were freeing the car, Visitacion noticed a gray blob dragging itself from the bushes a few feet away from his truck. The seal decided to plop down on the beach access.
The young monk seal seemed completely undisturbed, even when drivers approached before realizing the animal was there and a detour was in order.
Every so often, Eha would roll and throw sand on its back with its flippers.
Simao said she called the state Department of Land and Natural Resources around 11 a.m. to report the seal. Roughly three hours later, a DLNR officer arrived.
The officer who arrived, however, said he wasn’t notified about the monk seal but just happened to be “cruising” down the beach and saw it lying down on the path.
The officer said it’s normal that monk seals show up at Kitchens, but he has never seen one hiding in the bushes.
“They come up on the beach to get far away from the water,” he said. “It’s a real common occurrence.”
The officer called the Monk Seal Response Team, who quickly sent two volunteers to secure the area.
“We do have a lot of seals that come up here, especially this little guy,” volunteer Mary Frances said. “This is one of his favorite spots.”
Mahalo Eha was born at Maha‘ulepu Beach on Nov. 27, 2009, and became almost immediately famous after his mom bit a snorkeler who got too close to them.
At 5 months old, Eha weaned from K-12, his mom, and started wandering in the Eastside. He already weighs around 150 pounds.
“They come on land because they’re tired from hunting overnight,” volunteer Lloyd Miyashiro said.
Monk seals are not usually aggressive, but Miyashiro said if someone gets too close, the seal may get startled and show its sharp teeth. Mahalo Eha’s mom was most likely defending her pup when she bit a tourist last year.
It’s not known if K-12 was born on Kaua‘i, but she has reportedly given birth to seven pups on the Garden Isle already, according to volunteer program coordinator Michelle Bain.
The volunteers quickly secured the area where Mahalo Eha was taking his nap, cordoning it off on both sides, from the bushes all the way to the water’s edge.
Mahalo Eha hung out for a few minutes thereafter, but then clumsily and slowly made his way to the water where he flowed graciously out of sight.
David Schofield, marine mammal response coordinator at NOAA Fisheries, said there are a little over 1,100 monk seals left in the world. The majority of those live in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, mostly isolated from human contact.
There are about 150 seals in the Main Hawaiian Islands, and 35 to 45 of those live on Kaua‘i, according to Schofield. It is not unusual for the seals, however, to swim back and forth between islands.
The 24-hour monk seal hotline is 651-7668.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@kauaipubco.com.
