My Time as a Hawaiian Monk Seal Intern

As a Hawaiian monk seal intern, I not only trained and cared for the 2 resident monk seals but also took care of the day octopus, tilapia, and many reef organisms.

I want to share my fond memories of the 2 years I spent working as a Hawaiian Monk Seal Intern for the Waikiki Aquarium. Pictured above are Ho`ailona (top) and Maka`onaona (bottom). 

Maka`onaona ("soft or gentle eyes") called Maka for short was brought from the French Frigate Shoals in 1984 at only 3 weeks old. He was abandoned as a pup and would not have survived if not been taken into human care. Unfortunately in my time working with him he developed a malignant cancer below his right eye. You can see in his picture there is a white spot below his eye which was the cancer starting to grow back soon after he had his first surgery at the aquarium to have it removed. The process was intense as you cannot put a seal fully under anesthesia because they cannot breathe on their own. He had to be put under just enough to stop movement while the vet cut the tumor from his eye. He had a successful surgery the first time and things were looking good until they weren't. His tumor started to grow back and we were told that this time there would not be a second surgery as Maka was already in very late stages of his life. We made him as comfortable as we could until he passed away in 2018. He lived until 34 years of age which is above and beyond their normal life expectancy of 17 years in the wild. He lived a long, good life! The famous gif of the spinning seal is actually Maka, I remember him doing this for hours. 

Ho`ailona ("a sign from the sea") called Hoa for short was abandoned by his mother after he was born in 2008. He was rescued by NOAA and was released 6 months later but had to come back under human care because he began interacting with humans instead of seals. He was discovered to have cataracts in both eyes depleting his vision to about 10% which made him un-releasable. Waikiki has been his home for many years and even though he is blind, he knows his way around his exhibit very well and is loved and taken care of. Hoa is still around and you can see him today. I remember when I would get on shift at 0700 before the aquarium opened and everytime he heard the keys of me opening the first gate to his exhibit he would come bouncing over for his morning hose spray down! Really I would be cleaning the salt off his exhibit with the freshwater hose so as not to allow rust build-up, but he loved to feel the water on him. It was always clear that he loved being around humans. The video below is him early in the morning coming to greet me... 

One part of that job that I will never forget was the seal food prep. It took 2 hours or less if you were good, had to be done every single day, and left you smelling like fish for the rest of the day. We would pull frozen boxes of herring, night smelt, and squid from the freezer to thaw in our food prep basins. Once thawed, we would have to inspect every single fish and squid for any abnormalities. We had very tough inspections standards and the seals only got the best of the best. After inspection we would sort and fill buckets dedicated to each seal and fill the "squid pockets" with their necessary vitamins. These food buckets would then be used to feed the boys three times a day. Basically all the info about them in this blog is what we would be presenting to the public during training/feeding sessions. Even though my path of becoming a Marine Biologist did not pan out in the end, I have so much that I took away and will always cherish from my time there.