Nature

A place to discussion nature on Farcaster

My last trip to Hawaii, I was lucky enough to see four of our newest Hawaiian monk seal pups... hard to believe this little one is now a couple of months old and exploring the island on its own!

Wildlife and landscape photographer from Hawaii. All photos copyrighted. More images on my website: www.jasonorourke.com

https://foundation.app/collection/honu

ive been curious how can u tell which is which!?

investor, photographer, nomad, exploring onchain & exploring the 🌎

Well, the mother is the big, gray one and the baby is the little black one. 🤣

Most of our Hawaiian monk seals are tagged, so they can be positively ID’d by the letters and numbers on their tags, but there are also so few of them in the main Hawaiian islands (maybe 50-60 resident seals on Oahu) that you can also recognize them by distinctive markings, often scars or a natural bleach mark in their fur.

So, certainly our Hawaiian monk seals have beaches that they frequent, and mothers often pup where they were born (though, we have some transplant seals who are "winging it" when it comes to pup sites).

However, they can (and often do) swim between the islands as well, so when I say "resident" seals, we usually count the ones that spend more than six months on a particular island as part of that island's resident population.

so interesting, didn’t even realize that they have “homes” that they come back to