Tag Archives: seals

Dead Seal Mutilation Reported

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Flip flops, hoodie and shorts. Don’t think anyone would be in a tidepool dressed from Mens’ Warehouse. Did Rashelle call the police or just critique the man’s fashion?

Rashelle Diaz said she and a friend were enjoying the beach when they noticed a man and a younger lady bent over, sawing or hacking away at something.

Diaz described the scene, saying, “He was decapitating a seal he had already skinned, and separated the skull from the body.”

Diaz confronted the man, informing him that his actions were illegal.

“90% of the locals in Monterey are aware of that. You cannot go near a seal alive or dead. It’s the law,” she said.

The man claimed he had a permit for marine biology research, but Diaz noted he lacked proper safety equipment and identification.

“This man is in flip-flops, huge hunting filet knife. You know, he’s got a hoodie on, some camo shorts. Not professional looking at all,” Diaz said.

Dead Seal Mutilation Reported

Seal Posse: Keeping The Food Chain Going Is Important

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Mister Jaws

Those winds created a rough ocean which kept kayakers and paddleboards out of the water. The minimized crowds on the water meant less disturbance to seal moms during pupping season. That is a very important factor in the survival of seal pups.

“When you interfere with the mom and the pup you frequently just kill the pup,” Akeman said.

Kim Akeman, Monterey Bay Sanctuary Shoreline docent added, “disturbances you may not see the effect right away. But a disturbance on wildlife can have an effect even months down the line.”

Seal Posse: Keeping The Food Chain Going Is Important

Seal Posse Opposes Hotel At ATC

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And did you know that a Fakebook Page about seals has fewer followers than subscribers to the Hear-old?

Pacific Grove’s shoreline is also a place where thousands of tourists flock to in order to observe wildlife, including the popular seals around Hopkins Marine Station. Thom Akeman, a docent with Bay Net, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s volunteer naturalist program, said he’s seen more than 1,000 newborn pups over the past 17 years he’s been a docent.

He’s talked about seals with more than 50,000 visitors and has trained other docents to help tourists and visitors understand the seal colonies. His wife, Kim Akeman, maintains a Facebook page called “Harbor Seals of Pacific Grove” that has in excess of 12,000 followers.

“We have seen how little it takes sometimes to disturb the harbor seals and drive them off the beaches,” Thom Akeman said about the estimated two years worth of construction that includes removing an estimated 70,000 tons of granite bedrock — enough to fill 6,000 dump trucks.

The environmental report states that no blasting will occur at the site, but it also notes in a geotechnical report that removing that much granite “will probably not be possible with conventional construction equipment.” It does not reference what alternative means of excavation would be used.

Seal Posse Opposes Hotel At ATC

Oregon Slaughters Seals So Salmon Still Survive

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Won’t see this nonsense in Oregon.
Seal Posse Red Sign

The sea lion population has steadily increased in the last several decades, but it has come with a cost, one being paid by already imperiled stocks of steelhead and salmon.

“The steelhead have a 90 percent extinction risk if nothing changes,” says Shaun Clements, a biologist and senior policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Which is why Oregon has taken the drastic step of actively culling – segregating and euthanizing – certain individual sea lions.

Oregon Slaughters Seals So Salmon Still Survive

Seals Off To Good Start, Expect More Sharks

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Mister Jaws

Akeman and her husband visit the seals almost daily and track their numbers, conducting a Harbor Seal Census annually. This year the pair are predicting 55-60 live births based on how things are going with Koala and her pup and their count on pregnant moms.

2018 was a very good year for the colony and Baynet recorded 70 births. The population has been in recovery mode since 2014 when changing ocean temperatures in the bay depleted food sources. In 2016 just 16 pups were born in the Monterey area.

Seals Off To Good Start, Expect More Sharks

Seals Not Having A Peaceful Place To Birth Pups

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Maybe all the nosy Seal Posse people are scaring them off

Volunteers with Baynet are reporting people disturbing the animals at the Hopkins Beach Rookery in an off limits area.

The animals are very skittish and will flee the beach if spooked by human activity.

“Right now we’ve got some pretty delicate situations among the harbor seals, there are a lot of pregnancies,” said Thom Akeman with Baynet.

The fear is people on the beach will scare mom off of the beach, either before delivery or after, leaving her separated from baby.

Akeman said it has already happened twice this year.

“We had two seal pups born over the weekend in rocks, while that is normal for harbor seals, that is not normal for this colony,” he said.

The harbor seals at Hopkins Beach usually deliver pups in the sand where it is easier and more protected. Akeman thinks these two moms may have been scared off the beach by people.

Seals Not Having A Peaceful Place To Birth Pups

Newcomer Acheman’s Seal Posse Reports Drop In Seals

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Wonder why.

Hungry Alien Sharks

According to a population census taken on Nov. 25 by husband and wife Thom and Kim Akeman, volunteers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s shoreline program Bay Net, the Pacific Grove Harbor seal population has declined by one-third. Numbers have plunged from about 700 individuals, based on preliminary counts taken by Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher Teri Nicholson in the 1990s, to fewer than 500 in the last couple of years, the Akemans reported. Uncharacteristically warm waters, which depleted the marine environment of oxygen and food, are to blame, they added.

Newcomer Acheman’s Seal Posse Reports Drop In Seals

Fewer Seals Sighted Sunning On Shore

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Tired of being watched so the went to Pismo?

Hungry Alien Sharks

People along the coast in Pacific Grove have been asking where all the seals have gone. According to a new census report, at least a third of the harbor seals along the Monterey Peninsula have disappeared.

Seal experts said it is hard to know how many of the missing seals are actually dead, but studies show that at least 40 disappear from the Monterey Peninsula colony each year.

“Particularly for the harbor seals if you come up to this fence you don’t want to go above the fence line. They take that as a threat and they will immediately vacate the beach. So we want to control that stress level because they’re already dealing with a lot,” said Kim Akeman.

Fewer Seals Sighted Sunning On Shore

Fear Of Seals – Man Sets Off Bomb To Scare Them Away

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Didn’t he think he was safe from seals two miles from the ocean?

The small bomb, usually used to scare off seals, went off near a hardware store and a gas station on Forest Avenue near Forest Hill Boulevard at 9 p.m. An officer in the area heard a loud bang. A resident told him a man had lit and thrown an explosive device near a gas station.

Michael Harley Henderson, a 28-year-old Pacific Grove resident, was located at a nearby liquor store and admitted to detonating the “seal bomb” and throwing a second unlit bomb into a trash can. The small cylinder-shaped bombs are about 3 inches long, police said.

Fear Of Seals – Man Sets Off Bomb To Scare Them Away

Great White Shark Population Boom

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Great White Shark

Could it be the result of all those tasty otters and sea lions that are also protected?

“White sharks can’t be fished or targeted or taken both by state and federal laws so these regulations give them the opportunity to reproduce and increase in population,” said David Ebert, director for the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

Great White Shark Population Boom