Birth of endangered Hawaiian monk seal caught on camera
ABC News
Images of a Hawaiian monk seal being born on an Oahu beach have been captured on camera
HONOLULU -- Images of a Hawaiian monk seal being born on an Oahu beach have been captured on camera.
An employee of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources shot video and photos of the pup emerging from the mother onto white sands last week.
“As soon as its (amniotic) sac burst, the little one starting wiggling around," Lesley Macpherson, who works for the department's Division of State Parks, said in a news release Tuesday. The mother monk seal checked on her pup by barking as the newborn flapped its flippers.
Hawaiian monk seals are an endangered species. There are only about 1,400 seals in the world. About three-quarters of this total live in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a remote string of small atolls northwest of Hawaii's populated islands. The rest, about 300 seals, live in the Main Hawaiian Islands including Oahu and Maui.
