Fuji Beach

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Our tour guide brought us to Fuji Beach for a quick stop because he’d heard there was a monk seal sighting. Fuji Beach in Kapa’a is also known as Baby Beach because it’s a great place for kids to swim with a protective reef keeping the waters near the shore calmer.

There was indeed an endangered Hawaiian Monk seal in residence…they hunt in the oceans at night and rest on the shore during the day. A volunteer from Kauai Monk Seal Conservation Hui had cordoned off a safe perimeter so that ‘RF30’ could rest undisturbed. She was happy to answer our questions about the seal and let us take pictures from a distance.

Hawaiian Monk Seals are critically endangered, with only about 1400 left in the wild. When the Polynesian settlers first migrated to the islands, the seals laying prone on the beach during their rest cycle were easy game. In modern times, threats to their existence include entanglement in plastic, swallowing fish hooks and unleashed dogs on the beach.

When RF30 was younger, she’d ingested a hook and was rescued by Kauai Monk Seal Conservation Hui, treated and then released back into the wild. She was five years old when we saw her in April 2019. We were grateful to have seen this precious survivor and to the volunteer organization that faithfully guards them while they sleep and tends to them when they are sick.