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Hawaiian monk seal pup ʻEleu released after 2 months of rehabilitation

Hawaiian monk seal ʻEleu rests in her rehabilitation pool pen with an applied satellite tracking tag at Ke Kai Ola, The Marine Mammal Center’s hospital and visitor center in Kailua-Kona that is dedicated to the endangered marine mammal. After two plus months of rehabilitation, ʻEleu was successfully released back to the wild on Kapou (Lisianski Island).
Lauren Van Heukelem
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The Marine Mammal Center
Hawaiian monk seal ʻEleu rests in her rehabilitation pool pen with an applied satellite tracking tag at Ke Kai Ola, The Marine Mammal Center’s hospital and visitor center in Kailua-Kona that is dedicated to the endangered marine mammal. After two plus months of rehabilitation, ʻEleu was successfully released back to the wild on Kapou (Lisianski Island).

A Hawaiian monk seal pup named ʻEleu was rehabilitated to full health and released back to the wild.

ʻEleu was discovered malnourished on Kuaihelani, also known as Pihemanu or Midway Atoll — one of the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

She spent two months in rehabilitative care at Ke Kai Ola — a conservation center dedicated to Hawaiian monk seals in Kailua-Kona.

"If we have an animal that comes in from the main Hawaiian islands, we can see them in rehabilitation from anywhere between two to six weeks," said Dr. Sophie Whoriskey, a Hawaiian monk seal veterinarian.

"But if we get animals that come from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, they’re often in pretty poor condition, and they’ll be with us anywhere between six to eight months," Dr. Whoriskey told Hawaiʻi Public Radio.

There is more competition for resources in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Monk seals found in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands tend to be in poorer body conditions than seals from the main Hawaiian Islands.

ʻEleu was released to Kapou, also known as Papaʻāpoho or Lisianski Island, in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

Zoe Dym was a news producer at Hawaiʻi Public Radio.
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