#1 - Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at French Frigate Shoals

If you're a Facebook-er, you really should "like" the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program's Facebook Page.  In the last few days they have been posting interesting information about Hawaiian Monk Seals on our atoll.  Here's the most recent post, from today (Fri., March 2, 2012)--

"It's the first Friday of the month and we are going to focus on a scientist that has done a lot of work at French Frigate Shoals, Dr. Frank Parrish. Dr. Parrish's research focus has been on the feeding behavior and habitat use of monk seals, mostly at FFS. 

But he is also interested in the ecological interactions between monk seals and other predators. Here is a link to a presentation that Dr. P gave several years ago, using Crittercam to look at competition between monk seals and other apex predators. It's a little long, but fascinating; presentation starts at about 2 minutes in. 

The gist of it is that in much of the footage Dr. P observed fish and sharks escorting monk seals while they foraged. The predators exploited the seals’ superior ability to flush hidden prey from bottom cover by the probing, digging, and flipping of rocks. In many instances, the seal and predators competed for the same prey item. This was the first record of intense direct competition between monk seals and their competitors and revealed a potential major factor in poor juvenile survival."