RS00, “Ewa Girl”: The Monk Seal Who Crossed the Hawaiian Archipelago

NOAA Fisheries named RS00 its monk seal of the month for May. Of all Hawaiian monk seals, she had the most wanderlust.

From Midway to the main islands

RS00 was born in 1992 at Midway Atoll, near the far northwestern end of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, to a mother nobody identified. She was tagged as a weaned pup on 28 April on Spit, Midway's smallest islet, and was a healthy size, with plenty of fat to carry her while she learned to find food.

She stayed at Midway until about 5, when she reached adulthood, and then left. She probably stopped first at Laysan, for about 2 years, then reached the main Hawaiian Islands: first Molokaʻi, then Kauaʻi, then Hawaiʻi Island. In all she covered about 2,400 km (1,491 miles), nearly the whole length of the archipelago.

That is far beyond the norm. By adulthood about 14 percent of monk seals are seen away from the island where they were born, mostly at nearby islands; movement falls off fast with distance, and seals rarely move between places more than 400 km apart. More than 10 seals are known to have moved between the northwestern and main islands, so the population mixes across the chain, but the others set out from nearer islands such as Nihoa, Mokumanamana (Necker) or French Frigate Shoals.

Mother of nine

In 2001, at Kamilo near South Point, she gave birth to the first monk seal pup ever recorded on Hawaiʻi Island. She later pupped on Niʻihau and Oʻahu, nine pups in all in the main islands. From 2002 to 2004 she moved between Oʻahu, Molokaʻi and Niʻihau before settling on Oʻahu, often resting at Hanauma Bay and pupping on Rabbit Island and at Reef Runway.

Ewa Girl with a pup at Reef Runway, Oʻahu, in June 2011. NOAA Fisheries.

A temporary bleach mark, "N2," made her easy to identify. NOAA Fisheries.

She could also be recognized by her tags and by a crescent-shaped scar on her right cheek.

The price of living near people

Nobody knows why she left Midway. She thrived in the main islands, and so did her pups, but she met dangers there she would have avoided in the remote northwest. In her first year she swallowed a fishhook on Kauaʻi; in 2002 she came ashore at ʻEwa Beach, Oʻahu, with another hook in her mouth, which gave her her nickname. Both times NOAA staff and partners removed the hooks. She was also pelted with rocks by children, and once burned on the upper right chest, possibly on purpose.

Where did she go?

Ewa Girl was last seen in April 2014. At 22, she was old for a monk seal, but she may simply have moved again, to somewhere harder to reach.

Sources

• NOAA Fisheries, "RS00: The Seal Who Journeyed Across the Archipelago"; rewritten in hubnx's own words. Photographs: NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office. Uncredited photographs and a map are not reproduced here.