I snapped this belly shot with hopes of identifying the sex of our new pup. We cross our fingers for females–not because we don’t like males–but because it takes more females than males to boost the dwindling numbers of our endangered animal. After rolling around in the sand ,though, it was pretty much impossible to identify the sex of this pup. A couple days later, another volunteer captured a clean shot and our Kauai Monk Seal Coordinator Mimi Olry thinks this pup is a female. Woo hoo. With all the fetal folds–a.k.a. fat–we might still be surprised later but, for now, we’re raising our glasses to another female member of the Hawaiian monk seal species.