{"id":153368,"date":"2025-09-13T07:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T07:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/153368\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T07:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T07:18:07","slug":"hawaiian-monk-seal-seen-molting-on-oahu-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/153368\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaiian monk seal seen molting on Oahu shore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; A Hawaiian monk seal was spotted molting in the sunshine at Paradise Cove in Ko Olina on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">This seal, known as RL12, or Aukai, was born in 2012 and has given birth to four pups, according to the Hawaii Marine Animal Response. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Monk seals undergo a \u201ccatastrophic molt\u201d about once a year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Molting is when seals shed the top layer of their skin and fur to reveal a new, silvery coat, a process that can take up to two weeks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Molting requires a lot of energy and therefore a lot of rest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Seals often stay on beaches during this time because they are more vulnerable when they are molting. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Remember to always give monk seals plenty of space, at least 50 feet for adults and at least 150 feet of space for pups and moms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Seal sightings can be reported to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s marine wildlife hotline at (888) 256-9840.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; A Hawaiian monk seal was spotted molting in the sunshine at Paradise Cove in Ko&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5300,94149,29127,94152,94150,94151,94148,8477,12852,94153,79,4814,51482,201],"class_list":["post-153368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-beach","tag-hawaiian","tag-hmar","tag-ko-olina","tag-molt","tag-molting","tag-monk","tag-noaa","tag-oahu","tag-paradise-cove","tag-science","tag-seal","tag-shore","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}