Intense Interactions + Sound Clip

Aloha,

We weren’t sure what we’d see when we headed out of the bay on our Thursday Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. We began the trip with lots of sightings of the “usual” for this time of year — spouts, dorsal fins and flukes. But then we saw a pod of dolphins splashing near some whales so we headed over to investigate. By the time we arrived, the dolphins had disappeared (we couldn’t see them anywhere, which was kind of weird) but the pod of two whales were still there and turned out to be very interesting to watch. They spent an inordinate amount of time at the surface, laying on their sides. We saw single pec flippers and half flukes sticking out of the water multiple times, and clearly, these two were interacting with each other. Were they mating or about to mate? We couldn’t be sure, but something was definitely going on between them. At one point they made their way over to our idling boat and were so close to us that we could have jumped onto their bodies. When we deployed the hydrophone we didn’t hear the strange “grumbling” sounds we heard last week, but the sounds we did hear were intense. Take a moment to listen and see what you think.

Our Late Morning Whale Watch was even more incredible. Besides our “usuals” (see above), towards the end of the cruise we found a very active competitive pod just south of the bay in extremely shallow water. We were able to parallel the pod as they headed north and actually INTO the bay before heading back out again towards the Hilton. After watching them for awhile we realized that the whale in front was a calf, and that Mom was trying to shield him from the males pursuing her. We watched those males slam into each other a whole bunch of times at the surface but unfortunately had to leave them before we could witness any resolution to the chase.

Mahalo,

Claire

Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day:  According to research conducted in Japan, the peak estrus period for Humpbacks (i.e. when females are in heat) overall, is between the end of January and the end of February, but the peak estrus period for females with a calf appears to be several weeks later. Our frequent observations of pods of Mom and Baby who are accompanied by an escort or chased by multiple males at this time of year seem to support the validity of these findings. Although, we must take into account that many mature females without calves have already left Hawaii by the beginning of March, so perhaps the males aren’t choosing to join a Mom with a calf, but just chasing after any female they can find.