The Odyssey of KP2

by Terrie M. Williams

  In between the seal’s naps Beau and Traci continued his training for our research. We attempted to learn everything we could about the monk seal, from seasonal changes in his blubber layer to growth patterns to his metabolic rate as he swam loops around the perimeter of his pool. Through it all he was a keen participant, always greeting each day and experimental session as if it were a game. Life was good—that is, until April blew in.

  “KP2’s shut down.”

  “Shut down how? Shut down as in he is sick?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Shut down as in he is too fat to care?”

  “He is . . .”

  “Shut down as in he just doesn’t want to do anything you are asking him to do?”

  I went down the list of possibilities weighing the likelihood of some special monk seal need we had overlooked, some invisible disease he might have contracted, or some piece of bone or debris inadvertently stuck in his throat.

  “He just isn’t interested in eating.” Beau sighed. His soaked shorts were a clear sign that he had just had a head-to-head session with the seal.

  I knew that Beau and Traci had probably tried every trainer trick in the book to spark the animal’s appetite. Conning, ignoring, favorite foods, and downright begging. If one of them was in my office with this news, there was no use in offering suggestions.

  When I looked KP2 over from head to toe, his problem was immediately apparent. He was turning into a teenager, with all the requisite hormonal mood swings. I could tell that something was different just from the size of his head. While teenage boys tend to grow feet first, male seals quickly develop blocky heads and chests—those body parts most important in the fight for winning mates. KP2’s head looked bigger, at least relative to the rest of his body. Watching Beau pet him was like watching Kobe Bryant palm a basketball.

  The seal’s vocalizations were another clue that he was getting older. Walking by the side of his pool, I heard KP2 “chugging” to himself underwater. Beginning as a series of steam engine chuffs, KP2’s call ended in a long trailing “yooooowwwwlllooo.” This was a new addition to his vocal repertoire. I was familiar with his raspy-throated “rrrraughssss,” abrupt “brahhahahas,” the Three Stooges’ “whup, whup, whups,” and assorted snorts. This new sound vibrated underwater through his throat and chest with nary a bubble appearing. Unlike humans, KP2 didn’t need to exhale to create an amazing array of sounds. The low vibrations resonated off the cement walls of his pool and could be felt as well as heard by any passersby. Almost overnight, the seal matured from puppy calls to underwater baritone rumblings.

  “It reminds me of echolocating Weddell seals,” I commented to Traci as she came out of the food prep kitchen toting a bucket of herring to feed the crooning seal. In Antarctica, while standing on the sea ice we would often feel the eerie vocalizations of the seals through the soles of our Bunny boots as the animals swam below us.

  Traci cocked her head toward KP2’s pool. “He sounds to me more like Burnyce wailing during mating season,” she responded. Traci walked off, juggling the fish bucket to begin KP2’s breakfast training session.

  Named for Professor Burney LeBoeuf, a retired UCSC elephant seal biologist, Burnyce was enormous. She was part of an acoustic research project at the lab and lived in a pool across the walkway from KP2. Snot perpetually dripped from her bulbous nose. The two seals had many things in common. She, too, had been rescued as a pup and brought to Long Marine Lab. She, too, was inexplicably going blind. Burnyce was also a seal, but of proportions that would outweigh KP2 by nearly three times when he finally reached his full adult mass. At her last weigh-in, Burnyce literally tipped the scales at 1,852 pounds, nearly a metric ton. She was the equivalent of two Harley-Davidson road hogs with sidecars to KP2’s Vespa scooter. As her species name implied, Burnyce defined the “elephant” in elephant seal.

  Every spring, as the days grew longer and wild elephant seals gathered to mate twenty miles up the coast at Año Nuevo State Reserve, Burnyce would “sing” to them. Singing, of course, is in the ear of the beholder. To the workers in the lab and the surrounding buildings, she was the ritual foghorn that drove the uninformed crazy in its volume and consistency. For days Burnyce’s call was a quest for animal sex like no other. The giant seal would haul her massive frame onto the deck of her pool, raise her head skyward, extend her bristly whiskers forward, and sing in a long, low “oooooooooooowwwwww.”

  At night the calls increased in intensity. Burnyce howled at the moon, singing along with the lovesick coyotes under the redwoods in the surrounding Santa Cruz Mountains. Nearby ragtag hippies tending the Homeless Garden Project on the vacant lot next to the marine lab smiled in recognition of her calls and the upcoming growing season. When Burnyce sang, spring was in the air.

  Only ten feet away, KP2 watched and listened from his sealarium. Neither he nor any of his species would ever have seen or heard anything quite like Burnyce. Without the benefit of hearing the mating calls of his own kind, KP2 was immediately smitten.

  To Burnyce he called, “Yooooowwwwlllooo.”

  “Oooowwwoooo,” Burnyce howled back, without giving him the satisfaction of even looking in his direction. Given her great bulk, I suspect that turning to respond to KP2’s calls would have been physically impossible, even if the female elephant seal were attracted to her comparatively diminutive suitor.

  The language barrier didn’t help. Despite the fact that they were cousin species, to Burnyce’s and KP2’s nearly invisible pinhole ears they were speaking in two completely different seal dialects. KP2’s love was doomed from the start.

  Although the howling and yodeling of the two seals frayed the nerves of those within earshot, including the cockatoos and Puka and Primo, it diminished quickly without the benefit of consummation. After a week, Burnyce went back to snoozing and oozing snot in her pool, and KP2 amused himself by experimenting with different underwater vocalizations in the phocid version of singing in the shower.

  • • •

  SLIGHTED BY BURNYCE, KP2 soon found ways of flexing his newfound testosterone-infused muscles at the lab.

  “Into the water,” Traci announced to the hauled-out seal as she entered the sealarium with his breakfast fish bucket in hand.

  KP2’s normal response had always been an enthusiastic, splashing dive into the pool for playtime. Now the seal opened one eye in a squinting “I don’t think so.” He then rolled over on his side in the sun.

  Feigning boredom or forgetfulness, the seal turned obstinate. This was the turn in behavior that NMFS officials had feared would make KP2 dangerous to people if he’d stayed in the wild. On one level he loved the company of humans, but on another he was still a creature of the wild. Playtime was on his terms, so he began to act. What we didn’t know was what would happen if he didn’t get his way.

  “Water, Hoa!” Traci raised her voice a decibel so the lazy seal would have no doubt as to what she was asking. The increased volume elicited a rollover on the deck with KP2’s white belly facing the sun in complete, unmistakable refusal. Traci considered her next move as she did for animal and human alike. She made no distinction when it came to bad behavior. Rude drivers, rude students, and rude animals were treated equally and without latitude. No one was given a break. Traci was the epitome of fairness but also knew that letting her guard down was as good as approval to an offender. She now found herself in a showdown with the teenage KP2.

  “Hoa! Water!” Traci insisted. If the seal stalled too long, the trainer would not get mad. She would just walk away, taking the bucket of fish with her.

  KP2 waited to budge until it was clear that Traci was on the verge of leaving. Finally, he rolled onto his belly and as leisurely as he could inched to the edge of the pool to slip his body into the water in slow motion. He left his hind flippers hanging in the air just long enough to add a final insult. As soon as he w
as fully submerged, the seal popped up with an open mouth, looking for a herring handout.

  “Oh, no. I’m not going to let you have that one,” Traci berated the seal.

  KP2 looked expectantly from her to the bucket of fish. When no fish was forthcoming, the seal raised his nose into the air toward Traci and blew out a loud, honking “sneeeeppphh!” Seal snot flew in her direction.

  On that day the snot shot became KP2’s signature display of frustration.

  More than once I was the victim of the seal’s directed sneeze. It usually occurred when I entered his pool area to measure the water temperature. Up he would pop with his dripping whiskers and nose snuffling on my pant leg while his tail and flippers dangled in the water. He’d look around excitedly for the shine of the stainless steel fish bucket. If he spied the thermometer, he would realize that I was there on science business.

  KP2 was polite enough not to splash me as he leaned back into the water. When I bent down to measure the water temperature, however, he’d pop back up in my face with whiskers extended and—“Sneeeeppphh!” A snot shot, right as I was inhaling.

  “You bugger!” I always fell for his trick. You would have thought that I’d learned that lesson after working with Puka and Primo for so long. The two dolphins had the same habit of exhaling through their blowholes right into your open eyes and mouth if you weren’t careful. The smell of rotten fish and dolphin snot lasted for hours.

  Wiping my face from the newest attack, I wondered if KP2 had figured out this trick on his own or if he had learned it from his pool neighbors. The placement of the hole in the head was different, but the aim was just as true.

  • • •

  IGNORING THE saltwater-and-mucus spray, Traci maintained a professional upper hand when KP2 was in one of his stubborn moods. To break the cycle, she went back to basic training with the teenage seal. With the thoroughness of a drill sergeant she asked the recalcitrant KP2 to haul out on deck, lie down, and then reenter the water again and again in a series of seal calisthenics.

  “Good, Hoa.” She encouraged the seal to put more snap into his response. Warming to the game, KP2 would chase after Traci. He’d surf across the water as she ran along the pool deck to the left. Haul out, fish rewards, and splash back into the water. Then the pair would race across to the right side of the pool to repeat the maneuver. Then left, then right. By the end of the session Traci would be panting and the seal shaking with his old puppylike enthusiasm.

  • • •

  BACK IN HAWAII, one of KP2’s earliest caretakers, Donna Festa, found another solution to KP2’s teenage woes. While conducting beach observations with the Hawaiian Monk Seal Response Team Oahu (HMSRTO), she spied a “real cutie” on Nimitz Beach. NOAA Number 4DF was named Maka‘iwi, and she was all that a young male monk seal could ask for. She was sleek, silvery, and, according to the volunteer observers, a real character. She posed for pictures, was attracted to action and fun, and yet oblivious to her many admirers. Some monk seals just brim with personality. KP2 and Maka‘iwi shared a natural enjoyment of life that was obvious to all.

  On KP2’s Facebook page, Donna posted a picture of Maka‘iwi with a flipper raised in an “Aloha” greeting instigating a series of “love letters” between the seals. KP2’s exchanges with Maka‘iwi made folks smile, and it was deemed by his Facebook friends that they should one day have the chance to be together and make beautiful pups.

  The Facebook exchanges soon struck a chord with many of KP2’s fans back in the islands. The contrast between the lifestyles of KP2 and Maka‘iwi was all too evident; try as we might, we could never create the islands in KP2’s marine lab sealarium. He was a native-born boy who had now grown into a young adult. The locals wanted him back; he had been gone too long. Thus, through the digital kinship of the social network, a movement to bring KP2 back home to the islands evolved.

  A rallying cry in the form of a song was written by Lono, a local Molokai slack-key guitarist. In the lyrics there was no mistaking the connection between the islanders and the young seal. Nor was there any mistaking the seal’s power. He was no longer KP2, known just by a government-issued ID; he was Ho‘ailona, a sign that could help people renew their connection to the oceans. Lono sang:

  Molokai nui a Hina

  Home hanau Pule O‘o

  ‘aina Kaiakea me Kuapaka‘a

  Please, oh please, bring Ho‘ailona home!

  Great Molokai child of Hina

  Birthplace of the powerful prayers

  Land of Kaiakea and Kuapaka‘a

  Please, oh please, bring Ho‘ailona home!

  I loved Lono’s song for the seal, and his message. But the question was where? Where do you put a maturing, nearly blind seal who was capable of loving people to death and would naively face an angry fisherman’s gun with an enthusiastic whiskered greeting?

  17.

  A Roof Above

  Taking care of a seal is not easy. A bathtub will not do. Besides the mountain of permits and governmental inspections regarding housing, there is the cost of fish, vitamins, personal trainers, and veterinary care for an animal that can live as long as thirty years. You have to be a little crazy and in it for the long haul, especially for an endangered seal. Add in the cost of medications for his eyes, and it was no wonder that so few facilities were willing to take the risk of housing KP2.

  As much as the Hawaiians wanted the seal back, they could not agree on where he would go. Walter Ritte maintained his original stance. He wanted the animal returned to Molokai to live in an abandoned fishpond where the children could continue to interact with him. Donna Festa and members of HMSRTO opted for Sea Life Park on Oahu, an older aquarium from the 1960s where a docent program could be established. NMFS in Washington saw the Waikiki Aquarium as the ideal placement facility due to its location and research connections with the University of Hawaii.

  Traci, Beau, and I wanted only one thing. Wherever KP2 went, he could not be ignored. We knew that, isolated from people in a feeder pool, the seal would wither away.

  As discussions about where to place the seal in Hawaii wore on, we faced a bigger, more immediate housing problem of our own. In the annual tug-of-war between winter and summer that was known as spring in Santa Cruz, one last storm crashed in from the Arctic to wreak havoc at the lab. One wild night water pounded on KP2’s sealarium roof, challenging the plastic-and-rope canopy that Traci and Nate had so carefully constructed. Throughout the night, the weather station on top of the lab strained under winds clocking a continuous gale force of thirty-five miles per hour and the occasional gust to sixty miles per hour. Inside the sealarium the plastic shook and snapped with the ferocity of a sail that had broken from its rigging. The trainers and I barely slept through the high winds and hailstorm, worrying about the roof and KP2’s welfare. Meanwhile, the seal was busy dealing with the storm on his own.

  The following morning was cold and crystal blue. After checking on KP2, the trainers prepared his fish breakfast while I calibrated the instruments for our next metabolic trial with him. Unexpectedly, Nate, the facilities maintenance man for the university, came by and asked, “So did you see?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The roof,” he explained. “Interesting hole.”

  Beau, Traci, and I ran out to inspect the seal’s pool. KP2 came surfing over, acting as if nothing unusual had happened. At first glance the structure seemed to have weathered the storm with little more than some sagging in the plastic roof where rainwater had collected. Then we saw the ragged tear. Rather than a simple hole, the plastic was shredded in the center and the ropes that formed the backbone of the roof were stretched beyond repair. The entire structure was in danger of collapsing inward.

  Traci looked from the hole to KP2. The damage was more than eig
ht feet above his head, but instinctively she knew that somehow the seal was behind the destruction.

  Nate brought out a twelve-foot-high orange step ladder and placed it in the pool as far into the center as he could. Stepping gingerly from the edge, he balanced himself for a closer look at the hole. KP2 slunk away to the far side of his pool, acting suspiciously like a bad dog who knew his crime was about to be discovered.

  Pulling gently down on the springy plastic, the maintenance man realized that the entire roof easily sagged to within a couple of feet of the pool surface. “You know, I do think these are bite marks,” he said slowly.

  The evidence was clear. With rainwater accumulating on the roof overnight, the supporting ropes had given way, allowing the plastic to sag within jumping range of the monk seal. KP2 had obviously spent the night playing, leaping and splashing to snap at the plastic and ropes. He had bitten through in several locations, allowing the rainwater to shower over his face like a sieve. By morning the roof and plastic had sprung back into place, almost allowing the seal to get away with his misdeeds.

  “Oh, that would be just like a seal!” Traci glared at KP2, who would not meet her accusing eyes.

  Moving the ladder to the deepest part of the pool, Nate began to remove the damaged rope and plastic. With the rest of us out of sight, KP2 overcame his guilt, and curiosity soon got the better of him. He circled the ladder and then tried to work his body in between the submerged rungs as if he were navigating a coral reef. He twisted and poked his blocky head into each rung. Finally, he greeted the man atop the ladder by hurling his body onto the steps. When that didn’t work, he hugged the legs of the ladder in an attempt to climb up. It was a remarkable, agile performance considering he didn’t have the benefit of hind feet.