Aloha,
We found our first pod of Humpbacks during our Monday Wake Up with the Whales Cruise just north of Anaeho’omalu Bay, but we didn’t get to watch them for very long before they gave us the slip. That was ok though because we found two more Humpback duos a bit further to the north, offshore of the Mauna Lani Resort area. We stayed with these pods for awhile, but it was difficult to predict where they’d surface after sounding – – they kept changing swimming directions while underwater. We spent some of their down time with our hydrophone in the water, but it was surprisingly quiet.
Guests on our Late-Morning Whale Watch Cruise also got to meet a couple of different Humpback duos. This time, all the whales we were watching were surfacing fairly frequently, giving us a lot of opportunities to see them. But similar to what happened on our first cruise, their behavior was pretty erratic (at least to us — maybe all their direction changes made complete sense to them). We deployed the hydrophone during this cruise too, and again we heard Humpback voices, but based on the volume, the vocalizers were pretty far away.
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: You may have heard that Humpback Whales are no longer on the Endangered Species List…but don’t worry, they’re still protected. In autumn 2016, after researchers were able to determine that the global population of Humpbacks is actually 14 distinct populations, NOAA removed “our” Humpbacks (and 8 other populations) from the list. In the United States, the protection Humpbacks receive under the Marine Mammal Protection Act has not changed. I’ll provide more info about this protection in a future Fact of the Day