The Monk Seals of Poipu, Kauai

On this last trip to Poipu, Kauai, we were fortunate to see the Hawaiian Monk Seals sleeping on the beach. There were two of them snoozing in the sand. They slept so heavily that they appeared to be dead! They had to be a mother seal and her young nursing baby because that is the only time that you will see a Monk Seal with another Monk Seal. The mother seal nurses the thirty-pound newborn baby for six weeks, until it weighs around two-hundred pounds, and then the young seal is on its own! This mother seal was about six feet long and weighed about four hundred pounds. Her baby must have been close to the end of the nursing stage, since he or she looked to weigh near two-hundred pounds.

They flopped up on the beach early one morning, and the lifeguard cordoned off the area so that people could not approach them too closely. They are very solitary creatures and prefer to be alone, and they are extremely sensitive to humans. A mother Monk Seal will actually abandon her young nursing seal if disturbed by people. They are the most endangered marine mammal located in the United States. There are around twelve-hundred of them living in and around the Hawaiian atolls.

The mother and her young seal slept on the beach all day until the tide came in. The sleepy heads didn’t want to wake up yet, and so they climbed up a little further on the beach. An hour passed and the surf increased even more in the late afternoon. The water sloshed around the mother and cub, and pushed them up on the beach and then pulled them back in the water. They enjoyed their snooze so much that they purposely slept on. It looked like two dead seals washed in from sea. My husband and I laughed as they slept so solidly in the moving surf. Most other creatures would notice when a big wave crashed over their back. The high tide at Poipu pushed the mother seal and her baby around for about an hour. It was hilarious!

When the sun waned towards the horizon, the mother woke up first, shook her head, and waited for the baby to wake up. When the baby finally opened its eyes, the mother seal led the way, and the two seals swam away from the reef out into the Pacific Ocean. The baby would nurse and the mother would enjoy her gourmet cuisine of bottom fish, eel, lobster, and possibly an octopus! They have the amazing ability to dive down to around sixteen-hundred feet, and so they stay well fed.

We viewed the amazing couple of seals for three days, and then they must have found another sunny beach to occupy.

I praise our Maker for the order that he created in our world for all species of animals, including the Monk Seals. However, I am thankful that the closest our Maker came to make me a Monk Seal was to make me a writer instead! Imagine living your entire life without the companionship of another human being. He not only gave us fellowship, but he also gave us his grace through his Son. Our lives are infinitely better than the lives of the Monk Seals, although, I could certainly handle living in Hawaii, couldn’t you?