I stood in the coffee aisle at Costco a few weeks ago with tears in my eyes. It wasn’t the price of coffee that made me cry. It was an email.
Ordinarily, I don’t read emails when I’m shopping, but I was on deadline for a story and waiting to hear from a source. That source—Dr. Michelle Barbieri who is the veterinarian with the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program—just happened to be on a ship with limited Internet access that was plying the waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and I’d set up phone alerts for Michelle’s emails.
Michelle emailed to report that Kilo, an emaciated monk seal that we picked up last September when I was aboard the Oscar Elton Sette and had spent seven months in rehabilitation at Ke Kai Ola on Big Island, had been released back into the wild.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with eyes welling with tears that day. Although I may have been the only crying one in the coffee aisle of Costco.
Today is Endangered Species Day. And Kilo’s had another adventure in her young life. It was reported on the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program’s Facebook page today as such:
When seals are returned to the wild we usually keep them in shore pens for several days. This is to help them calm down after a long sea journey and acclimate to their “new” surroundings. In the past, some seals have swam out to see and become disoriented and unable to find their way back to land. Kilo was released at Laysan Island on April 27th and quickly moved from her pen to the ocean. Over the next couple of days the Laysan field team spotted Kilo swimming in the shallow water and usually following a larger seal. Back in Honolulu we were tracking her via satellite when we noticed her travel quite a distance west, into open-ocean where navigating could be difficult for an inexperienced seal. Over the next several days we watched her moving a little north, a little south until suddenly she swam straight for a submerged seamount. A seamount she could not have any idea existed. Then she swam to another small seamount moving ever westward. The directness of her movements lead us to believe that she was probably still following another seal. This is not uncommon and has been observed in Crittercam footage, we just always hope that the young seals follow other animals that will keep them nearer to the islands. But even with these suspicions we were worried for young Kilo. It is a very big ocean out there and she is a very small seal.
It is hard to express how excited we were when we checked the satellite map one morning and found that overnight Kilo had traveled about 20 miles from the Pioneer Seamount to Neva Shoals, the shallow area surrounding Lisianski Island. She was back in habitat that she could easily dive to the bottom in…and sleep. And she was only a couple of miles from dry land. She spent several days swimming around Neva Shoals getting tantalizingly close to land, but never hauling out. Then one day it was back to open ocean, moving further to the southwest. We grew worried again until, finally, she turned around and headed back into the shoals. Needless to say we were ecstatic when we received an email from the Lisianski team with a subject line of three little words: Kilo on Lisi!
It was a trip that spanned 2 weeks and over 140 miles. She has been onshore the last several days resting and we hope she plans on sticking around. We will keep you all posted.
Here’s a map that accompanied the Facebook post.
Watch for my upcoming story in Hawai‘i magazine about the good work of the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program and Ke Kai Ola.
kimsrogers.com 
It was hard not to cry when I first saw her on the beach and it’s hard not to cry now!!!! This is why I love my day job!!! This is why we all do what we do.
Hugs, Diane
On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 1:53 PM, Kim Steutermann Rogers wrote:
> Kim posted: “I stood in the coffee aisle at Costco a few weeks ago with > tears in my eyes. It wasn’t the price of coffee that made me cry. It was an > email. Ordinarily, I don’t read emails when I’m shopping, but I was on > deadline for a story and waiting to hear from a ” >
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I love this, Kim. Thanks for sharing the good stuff, and doing it so well. Best, Patti
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My pleasure, Patti. We miss you and Paul!
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Love this! Drawing inspiration from this gritty little mammal…..
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Ah, yes, I like that thought.
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What a wonderful story of compassion and resilience! Made my heart happy.
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Agreed! Happy hearts here!
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Oh my god, I had never seen this “before” photo of Kilo before! And I adore the “after!” I love Ke Kai Ola!
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They do great work, it’s true!
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Thanks so much Kim for this update. I was able to get a few pounds of fish mash into Kilo when she first came to Ke Kai Ola. She took a long time to figure out how to eat a fish in those days. So happy she has the technique down even though she takes a lot of swims to do it. I guess I was a little confused though that she was taken to NWHI. Wasn’t she from Niihau? I may be wrong. Maybe she was trying to get back to her birth island if she was from Niihau. Here on Oahu we have a few seals that have turned up over the years from NWHI, but most have come from Nihoa, further South than Lisi. When they do, it’s a great cause for celebration. We have one beautiful seal from Nihoa ready to give birth to her 3rd Oahu pup. How blessed are we all to know these animals and see such an improvement in their health. Ke Kai Ola is truly a blessing to all the seals they have rehabbed in such a short time. Mahalo for the story.
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Thanks for caring for Kilo when she needed it most! And great question. The plan was to return Kilo to Niihau. But wind and waves upon arrival at Niihau made it too difficult to offload Kilo and the team, so they opted for an island even more remote–might be a good thing, too, if she gets around like this!–that has one of the best survival rates in the entire archipelago.
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With swims like that she will be burning too many calories. Was Neva returned to Lisianski? Maybe Kilo was looking for her.
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Yes, Neva went back to Lisi. Before Kilo went on her “swim-about,” she been sighted hanging out with a male seal around Laysan. That may be the one she followed to the seamounts. But, indeed, maybe Kilo’s discovered Neva at Lisianski! The tracks will tell. We’ll have to wait for another report.
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Please keep the coming.
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