Hawaiian monk seals are one of the rarest pinnipeds in the world and critically endangered. KP2 (the second pup born on Kauai in 2008) was abandoned by his mother, who refused to nurse him, and would have starved but was rescued by humans. Raised to the point where he could catch fish on his own, he was released again but had difficulties with his eyesight (known cause uncertain, but one scientist speculated it was from lacking key nutrients when he was young and growing quickly). Another issue was his strong attraction to people- constantly approaching boats and playing with kids in the water (reminded me of Luna). He was starting to go blind and nobody could figure out how to keep him away from swimmers and beachgoers. So he was shipped to California, where a marine biologist tried to save his eyesight and study him- no monk seals had ever been studied up close before. He was trained to cooperate in tests that measured his metabolism and other things, teaching scientists how distinctly different the tropical seals are from the many other species that live in cold water. Enough that they could use that information to inform conservationists what the seals needed to survive, and tease out what was contributing to their demise. Lots of interesting things were observed about his behavior as well. There was much controversy about KP2 being kept in the science lab- local Hawaiians wanted him returned to his native island (while at the same time fishermen on the islands protested the protection of seals that competed with them for fish). When funding got cut (and other issues arose), the seal was finally returned to Hawaii. However due to being nearly blind, he couldn’t be released into the wild and spent the rest of his life in the Waikiki Aquarium, where he has a website. (Apparently he had a Facebook page too, but I couldn’t find that. Maybe because animals can’t have their “own” pages anymore?)
Borrowed from the public library.
