Ask our Scientists a Question

Dear Anonymous,

I am sorry your question about the research that Pacific Whale Foundation conducts did not get properly addressed when you asked. I will work to make sure all of our staff is more aware of what our research program does. You are welcome to visit our office at the Pacific Whale Foundation any time and I will personally show you around and answer your questions if you wish to do so and you are in Hawaii.

We have several ongoing research projects in Australia, Ecuador and Hawaii.

In Australia, for example,  we have been looking at abundance and distribution patterns, habitat use, calving rates and movement patters of southern hemisphere humpback whales using the Eastern Australia coastline. A very important tool for this project is photo-identification, which involves collecting photographs of the underside of the flukes of individual whales encountered during extensive surveys of the coasts of Queensland and New South Wales. The underside of the tail fluke of a whale is like a fingerprint that allows a researcher to recognize that particular whale throughout its life. By comparing pictures taken over the years in the same region and picture taken in different regions of the coastline, our research team is able to monitor movement patterns of individual whales, and determine their preferred locations for feeding and breeding. We are able to recognize females by the presence of young calves with them in the breeding grounds and look at how many calves a female produces over the years. There are many other things that can be done with a simple photograph...researchers can even look at the whale's overall health by looking for specific scars (boat propeller scars, fishing net scars, shark or killer whale bites, to name a few) and understand a bit more of that whales past history. A skinny whale can be an indicator of poor health in certain locations, and large wounds may indicate the possibility that that whale may not survive in the long-run.

By looking at where whales aggregate by marking their position on Geographic Information System software, we can look, over-time, at how their position relates to depth, oceanography, season, time of day and numerous other factors to understand why whales use specific areas of the coastline and not others.

In Hawaii, we have several projects in progress or starting. Please refer to my posts in the last week regarding our Researcher on Board Program.

Most of our research in Hawaii is currently dedicated to dolphins, in particular bottlenose dolphins and false killer whales (which are large dolphins), as well as to spinner dolphins around Lanai. We also are designing a couple of projects looking at sea turtles at resting areas and at coral reef health. Please keep checking our posts as we will be telling you more as the time goes. 

I have just joined the Pacific Whale Foundation as Director of Research and I will be posting more information for the public as our research program expands.

Hope this helps a bit.

Daniela

Both are excellent sites. Whales tend to move around the islands and even around a single island during the season and patterns of whale distribution shift from year to year so that there is a bit of variability between sites. One thing I can guarantee...In February, whale season is at its peak and whales can be seen well from high points on land pretty much anywhere you go. That said, both Kaanapali and Wailea are good choices. I live in Kaanapali and I can see whales from my house every day at all times of the day.

Whales start showing up in Hawaii around October with some variations during the year. Whale numbers rapidly increase between December and January and peak around February in general. However, there are yearly variations at specific sites. Early December can be variable and you may just have been unlucky in the areas you have been spotting from. 

There is no real preference to islands verses continental coastlines for breeding humpback whales. Common threads found in all their chosen breeding grounds worldwide are water depths of  600 feet deep or less, water temperatures of of 20-24 degrees C, and a preference for areas between 20 - 16 degrees N or S latitude.  Check out where the 20 degrees South latitude lies and you will see there are both islands and continental shorelines the whales may inhabit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_parallel_south

Aloha Christy: we do have unpaid internships and, from time-to-time, offer opportunites for internships with stipends that cover room and board.  Please email your CV/resume to: research@pacificwhale.org for future consideration or opening announcements.  Sounds like you have been involved in a number of interesting projects so far.  We enourgage you to stay involved anyway you can, including volunteering. Good luck.

Yes the Great Whale Count, an important event of the Maui Whale Festival, will happen on Feb 26, 2011. To see all the events check out our festival website: http://www.greatmauiwhalefestival.org