Chapter XII: French Frigate Shoals - The Search for the Six

Our journey is coming to an end, but there is much work to be done. Some of us on the cruise have traveled all the way and most of the way back down the chain, for the work that is being done these next few days.

We have arrived at French Frigate Shoals to take on new passengers. One group is four scientists that have been at French Frigate for the last 4 months monitoring the monk seals in the atoll: Shawn, Derrick, Monica, and Mark. The other part of their job was to set up deterrents at key locations in the atoll to keep sharks from eating suckling and recently weaned pups. This group of scientists went above and beyond the normal exceptional job done at this camp. They did all their work, retagged a bunch of adult animals (that's where we got our butts kicked earlier in the cruise), found a plethora of poop, and much more. Great job team FFS.

The second group of passengers is a little different. We are on a mission to find six young seals that have weaned in the last month. These brave critters are going to be moved to Nihoa in an effort to increase their likelihood of surviving to adulthood. FFS is a tough place to be born and grow up with most seals dying before they ever reach adulthood. The seals will be captured, health screened, instrumented with a satellite tag, and then transported on our ship to Nihoa. Phase One happened on our first day at Nihoa...find them and capture them for the medical screening and instrumentation.

Team FFS was well prepared to greet us and get to work. Within an hour of landing at Tern Island we had our first seal and all went smoothly. Over the course of a very long and hot day we were able to catch 4 of our candidates. After capture we spent several long hours late into the night working up the blood to make sure the seals were all healthy enough to transport to their new home. Tenaya is a trooper, she worked the hardest and the longest of us all.

The second day was more of the same except, thankfully, we only had to capture two more little guys. The work went off without a hitch and we returned to the ship for another late night for Tenaya and Jenny (you guys are stars). I might have been playing Rock Band when I should have been working.

We also had to clean and sterilize the cages the pups would be traveling in and we got the whole team together to do that. Over course Chad, the Chief, stood above us and directed our actions.