The Odyssey of KP2

by Terrie M. Williams

  Help arrived in the form of a pink boogie board from his swim coaches. As soon as they tossed the floating board into the pool, KP2 climbed on top. Although he was not much of a diver, the seal quickly proved to onlookers that he was a natural surfer, spending hours paddling around his pool atop the board.

  The ubiquitous foam boards would remain a source of comfort and safety for KP2, a life preserver on a journey never before ventured by a Hawaiian seal.

  4.

  Growth

  There’s something else you need to know about KP2,” Beau reported as I sat at my computer in the marine biology wing of the Crary Science and Engineering Center at McMurdo Station. I tried to gauge the gravity of his message but found it difficult to take him seriously as he dusted snow from the blue flowered board shorts, bare legs, and hiking boots with no socks that poked from beneath his giant red Antarctic parka. A night of howling wind, sideways snow, and a bone-chilling drop in temperature had left the expedition members sleepless and bleary-eyed. Joints were stiff and refused to move; no heater in the dorm buildings could keep up with such blistering cold, so we shivered through the night. I did not even want to know where Beau had been in his getup.

  Beau’s second night of Internet surfing after Jennifer’s e-mail had uncovered a disturbing series of entries in KP2’s early medical history. Initially the signs were easy to ignore. Behaviorally, the little seal was as rambunctious as any rotund Labrador puppy with a pool of his own, splashing, eating, sunbathing, and riding his pink boogie board. However, as the pup’s first summer wore on, a change had slowly and subtly occurred.

  “KP2 is going blind,” Beau murmured as he tried to rub the cold out of his bare calves. My first reaction was to think: what more could happen to this seal, and would his condition affect our proposed science? Why had no one mentioned this to me? But I said nothing and waited for Beau to finish.

  “His veterinarians are not sure what caused his eyes to cloud over,” he continued. “All of the standard tests for pathogens were negative.” Beau took a breath and waited for a reaction from me. With none forthcoming, he finished, “KP2 should have been released back to the wild after being in Kewalo for two months. Instead he was transferred to an ocean pen for another five months of rehab.”

  As Beau filled me in on the details, I soon had the strange feeling that this little monk seal was following me.

  • • •

  ON SEPTEMBER 8, 2008, after winding along the lushly vegetated pali highway that segregated windward and leeward Oahu, four-month-old KP2 entered the haunts of my old island life. His destination was as far from the unstructured, carefree lifestyle of a wild monk seal as possible; his new home was the U.S. Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) in Kaneohe.

  As a postdoctoral researcher for the U.S. Navy’s Dolphin Systems program, I had once lived, played, and worked at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station—the previous name for MCBH. Dolphin Systems were, literally, marine animals. With the same professionalism and sense of duty as the human Navy SEALs, the bottlenose dolphins of the program were trained to detect submerged mines using their incredible internal sonar. I was fascinated by the dolphins’ ability to see through objects. Their sonar sense was so exact that they could assess the internal diameter core of a submerged aluminum pipe with more precision than a scientist’s micrometer. More astounding was the fact that they were capable of maintaining this accuracy hundreds of yards from the target. I couldn’t even see the pipe from that distance, much less guess its inside diameter. Add in the animals’ intelligence and you had the perfect “system,” as the Navy liked to refer to them, for finding submerged mines and protecting sailors and ships.

  Two dolphins I worked with in Kaneohe were Puka, named for a unique hole in his pectoral fin (puka means “hole” in Hawaiian), and Primo, named for a brand of Hawaiian beer. My job was to evaluate their swimming and diving capabilities, which meant glorious days out in the bay. These two special dolphins and I began a lifelong friendship in the blue waters of Kaneohe.

  Puka and Primo, along with my Welsh Pembroke corgi, Austin, formed my tiny Hawaiian ‘ohana. In Kaneohe I found that I was rich with family, an unusual situation for a wildlife biologist used to a nomadic life of science. In the drive to save endangered wildlife, I had traveled the world and considered the isolation and hardships as part of the adventure. The one sacrifice had been family. In retrospect, I see that singular dedication of my life as very nunlike, although it was not quite the version my parents had envisioned.

  Through sheer exuberance, the two gray bottlenose dolphins and Austin showed me the spirit of Hawaiian living. The four of us were inseparable and explored the island of Oahu together with abandon.

  Puka and Primo shared the beauty of Oahu’s water. On excursions in a Boston Whaler we visited coves and reefs and explored the depths of the windward island. Some days they would race my boat, and on others they would take off, disappearing to depths that I had no hope of reaching even on scuba. Minutes later I’d spy them leaping more than eighteen feet into the air in a display of athleticism that always left me breathless. They were cetacean Olympians that performed for the sheer pleasure of their tightly muscled bodies, and I was thrilled to be in their presence.

  With Austin by my side, I explored the lands of Oahu. Surrounded by the intoxicating perfume of plumeria, coconut palms, giant ferns, and tropical forest decay that permeated Kaneohe, we forged new hiking trails up the surrounding pali. Unconstrained foliage that threatened to reclaim the roads made the fragrant air cling mosslike to our skin. Living so close to the ground, Austin experienced the island from a whole new perspective. Ubiquitous strangler fig roots weaving across hiking trails were as monstrous as fallen trees to the short dog, and heat rising from black volcanic surfaces created a sweltering microclimate in his thick, dark coat. On those occasions he had to be carried on my shoulders, where the windward breezes cooled his batlike ears. I loved that he was oblivious to his handicapped stature and that I could help. We were ‘ohana.

  • • •

  I IMAGINED KP2 traveling across the island, sniffing like Austin had at the passing banana plantations and the two-story wood-framed houses outside the guarded entrance to the military base. Along the way he must have passed the Koa House, where the best banana pancakes in the world sizzled daily on a griddle and were served with a side of warm coconut syrup.

  With the assistance of the MCBH Environmental Division staff, the orphaned, nearly blind seal pup was given a private cove normally reserved for visiting dignitaries. Lava rocks, mangroves, and plastic netting submerged and stretched across the entrance of the cove created a secure ocean pen for KP2. I could not think of a better place to help the little seal recuperate mentally and physically from the trauma of his first months of life.

  Once released from his kennel, the pup splashed and rolled in the shallow waves that swept onto the sand. An entire summer had passed since he’d last burrowed on a warm sandy beach. In the frantic days following his birth, he’d never had the opportunity to listen to the surf or smell the salt-laced sea air. But in Kaneohe, KP2 could crawl among the volcanic rocks strewn along the coastline and explore the warm tide pools.

  Like most young boys introduced to water, KP2 immediately invented spitting and splashing games. As his caretakers looked on, the seal gulped seawater and then spewed it upward like a fountain over and over again. When they tossed in a green coconut that had fallen from one of the surrounding palm trees, KP2 learned about buoyancy. He would hold the coconut under the water with his paddlelike front flippers and then let go. Each time the coconut blasted to the surface and plunked down with a resounding splash, only to have the seal throw his body on it to begin the game again.

  When the tide rose, KP2 finally had a chance to really test his swimming muscles. Tapered on both ends, KP2’s body, like that of all marine mammals, was perfection in streamlining. His nose-to-tail length w
as four times the maximum diameter of his body, determined by physicists to be the ideal proportions for reducing hydrodynamic drag. Anatomical features that could have created turbulence—limbs, testicles, and penis—were tucked inside. A thick blubbery layer smoothed his contours. KP2 slipped through the water quickly and stealthily, and he suddenly was cognizant of his unique advantage over fish as well as human swimmers.

  News of the orphaned seal pup traveled quickly across the base and intrigued the military residents. During the night, military police patrolled the cove to offer protection for the seal pup and his volunteer caretakers. The little Hawaiian monk seal that had been abandoned by his own species was now being safeguarded by the U.S. Marine Corps’ finest. An enforcement officer began delivering eight-pound live tako (octopus), which quickly turned into a favorite play item for the seal. KP2 tossed the octopus with eight legs swinging through the air and then hauled it in his mouth back and forth across his pen. When he finally determined that he had killed his prey, he swallowed it. In the secluded cove, KP2 began returning to his species’s roots and developed into the ocean predator he was destined biologically to become.

  In the freedom of his net pen, surrounded by other ocean creatures, KP2 also revealed an unexpected and amazing talent. Under the watchful eyes of his caretakers, he displayed a behavior never before observed for a phocid seal.

  Butting his head along the sandy bottom, KP2 began pushing small rocks and broken coral bits into the deep corner of his enclosure. He carefully piled the submerged rocks atop one another. Then he waited. Before long, small fish, crabs, and sea cucumbers were attracted to the dark crevices of his artificial reef. At first the fish and invertebrates were a source of entertainment for the curious seal. Then they were dinner.

  • • •

  “OH MY GOSH, BEAU!” I exclaimed when I heard about the seal’s early hunting behaviors. “KP2 created a tool!”

  Like many tools developed by animals, including man, the young seal used his for feeding. In the thirty years that I’d been studying seals, I had never encountered one that made or used a tool. Weddell seals will blow bubbles into brash ice to flush out fish, but that is not the same thing as taking an inanimate object and forming it into an article to serve a unique purpose. That is the definition of a tool, and few animal species are capable of mastering this feat. Such discoveries are so rare that they are generally heralded by the public and scientific community as unique evidence for animal intelligence.

  Clever gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans are famous for fashioning sticks into spears, clubs, and even ant picks. Elephants swat flies with branches held in their trunks, and innovative bottlenose dolphins in Western Australia wear bits of marine sponge to protect their rostrums as they dig for fish buried in coastal sediments. Sea otters and sea gulls use rocks as hammers to open shellfish.

  Now among this distinguished group of intelligent tool-using animals was KP2.

  • • •

  LIVING AT THE FROZEN BOTTOM of the world, three thousand miles from the Hawaiian Islands, I recognized once again that there was something very different about KP2, both in how he interacted with his environment and in how he interacted with people. It was almost as if he could read other creatures. Consequently, he affected the people he met, instilling them with a joie de vivre. Everyone, from veterinarians to the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Marine Corps to an army of volunteer caretakers, had fallen under his spell. They readily sacrificed their time to ensure his survival, even if it required teaching this naive seal how to eat and how to swim.

  In contrast to the independent, catlike Weddell seals I was studying, which weathered Antarctic extremes with stoic resolve, KP2 exuded optimism in the face of hardship. Despite all that had happened to him in the first months of his life, KP2 had remained boisterous, curious, and spirited.

  With this realization, I vowed to be careful around this animal. I was a scientist first and resolved that I would not fall into KP2’s emotional trap. There were no Kleenex boxes in my office at the university; there was no room for crying in science. No cute animal names ever made the pages of my publications. There was no anthropomorphizing. Emotions were a female luxury sacrificed long ago in order to survive in the male-dominated world of science. I would not change now.

  KP2 was a scientific opportunity—nothing more, nothing less—and I knew that I needed to remain objective if his science was to be taken seriously. The seal’s personality could not dominate our mission. Hugs and tears never saved an endangered species.

  Still, I was curious: if KP2 was so special to the people of Hawaii and so important for his species, why did he have to leave the islands?

  5.

  Discovery

  After constructing his feeding reef, KP2 began to move toward complete dietary independence. Instead of relying solely on his human companions for sustenance, KP2 started to supplement his diet with natural items from the sea that he caught himself. He still enthusiastically accepted tako handouts, but more as a toy than a necessary part of his food intake.

  Over the months as KP2 matured and swam for progressively longer periods, the ocean water slowly improved his eyes. By Thanksgiving the corneal swelling and cloudiness had regressed. Soon thereafter discussions about the young seal’s release back into the wild resumed in earnest.

  Encouraged by his progress, KP2’s vets moved quickly. Thus, two weeks later, as his first Christmas approached, KP2 was given the best present that could be imagined for a wild Hawaiian monk seal: the island of Molokai.

  • • •

  AFTER PASSING A RIGOROUS series of veterinary examinations, KP2 was bundled once again into a cage and flown over the blue tropical interisland waters. His eyesight was not perfect, but he had proven that he could see well enough to catch fish. In fact, he had been so successful that the U.S. Coast Guard crew had trouble lifting his cage into their HH-65 helicopter for the transport. KP2 had gained 115 pounds, and now weighed more than a full-grown Great Dane.

  His caretakers wondered how KP2 would view his freedom. The young seal had lived for 227 days in the company of humans, five months longer than normal rehabilitation programs for newborn seals and sea lions. Seal pups his age were already living independently. They would soon discover that while KP2 owed his life to their dedicated hands, this long-term contact with man would prove to be both blessing and curse as he reentered the wild waters of Hawaii.

  • • •

  KP2’S NEWEST DESTINATION was one of the most remote areas of the main Hawaiian Islands, the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokai. With Molokai shaped like a dolphin swimming eastward, the peninsula forms a five-square-mile flat plate of land located at the dorsal fin. White churning waters that crash onto the shore and soaring na pali (sea cliffs) sixteen hundred feet high isolate the peninsula from the rest of the island. Since the first volcanic explosions that gave birth to the island, this impenetrable jut of land has served as both paradise and prison.

  The young seal’s transfer would be the second time in Molokai’s history that the U.S. government had taken advantage of the geographical isolation of the area. In each case the goal was to prevent human contact. For KP2, the isolation was meant to wean him from dependency on humans. For the souls who had walked the sands of Kalaupapa Peninsula nearly a century and a half before, the isolated peninsula was a natural quarantine facility.

  In the late 1800s, in a desperate attempt to quell the Hawaiian epidemic of Hansen’s disease (formerly called leprosy), the U.S. government shipped more than eight thousand patients to Kalaupapa Peninsula. The chronic, disfiguring disease robbed victims of their eyesight and the use of their hands and feet. The government program robbed them of families and friends. Segregation of the victims lasted for more than one hundred years, until the availability of sulfone-based drugs put the disease in remission. With Hansen’s patients no longer contagious, the isolation laws of Hawaii were
abolished in 1969, leaving a remnant settlement and a proud, close-knit, and exceedingly friendly community of nearly 150 patients and workers.

  In recent years, the residents welcomed the arrival of a small cohort of female Hawaiian monk seals attracted to the isolated beaches of Kalaupapa Peninsula. Sharing the sands with the community, the seal mothers gave birth and raised their pups in the solitude of the natural nursery.

  It was into this intimate human and seal community that the National Marine Fisheries Service, with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, delivered an energetic, cloudy-eyed KP2 ten days before Christmas. He quickly proved that his disability did not mean that he was immobile.

  • • •

  NMFS SCIENTISTS ATTACHED two small tags with epoxy to the fur on KP2’s back to track his movements, much like the ankle monitor worn by individuals placed under house arrest. Using the same GPS technology that allows an iPhone to know where you are calling from, the scientists were able to follow KP2’s exploits.

  According to David Schofield, the NMFS-PIRO stranding coordinator who had originally rescued KP2 on Kauai, “The release site was selected primarily because it is used regularly by other seals and would provide the opportunity for KP2 to socialize.” The tags would show that KP2 clearly had other ideas.

  For the first month the young seal seemed reluctant to venture from his release site. Staying close to Kalaupapa, KP2 briefly joined up with another young male monk seal to play-fight in the shallow waters. NMFS scientists were encouraged.