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Inspiring the Next Generation of Ocean Stewards

Dedicated to inspiring future ocean stewards, Pacific Whale Foundation has been engaging the Hawaii community with our Keiki Whalewatch program for over 30 years now, encouraging local schoolchildren to learn about our oceans by getting a closer look at whales and other marine animals, each participating onboard our floating classroom vessels, as well as customized…

Our research team has finished up data collection from the 2018 field season, and what a season it was! Pacific Whale Foundation has been studying humpback whales in Hervey Bay for over 30 years, providing us with long-term sightings data in the form of our South Pacific Humpback Whale Catalogue. In 2018, we took over…

If you go whalewatching in Hervey Bay after mid-September, you may notice that there is a calf in nearly every pod you see. Mothers with calves are typically the last to arrive in the bay, and they may be the group that benefits most from the shallow, protected waters near Fraser Island. Our research on…

In 2013, Jens Currie came to Pacific Whale Foundation as a data analyst from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. With an ambition to explore more robust statistical methods of potential anthropogenic impacts on cetacean populations, Jens is now Senior Research Analyst. Here, he lends a helping hand for those of us that are new…

We all contribute to the plastic waste problem, so we should all contribute to the solution. While recycling is a good thing to do, to truly tackle this problem we must reduce the amount of plastic we are creating in the first place. In this blog…

Our Research Team has begun surveying the deeper waters southwest of Maui as part of our new false killer whale study. The first day of research took us ~30 nautical miles off the coast of Maui in waters >2,500 feet. Although we didn’t see any false killer whales, we did have two encounters with short-finned…

The Research Team is excited to announce that we have started a new study on false killer whales! We started field work for this study in May 2018 and will survey the leeward waters surrounding the Maui 4-island region; up to 50 miles offshore. This brings us into deep waters (> 2,500 ft) where the…

On the first field day for our two summer interns, you could sense the excitement as we set out on our research vessel, Ocean Protector, to survey for dolphins. Pacific Whale Foundation Research Department offers internships that give individuals the opportunity to get hands on experience in collecting and analyzing field data on marine mammals….

In February 2018 twelve Pacific Whale Foundation volunteers participated in a public access to one of Hawaii’s most sacred islands – Kaho’olawe. Kaho’olawe is believed to be the kino lau or manifestation of Kanaloa a sacred ground for the people of Hawaii to practice and embrace their culture. This island is known as the piko,…

Plastic straws are one of the top 10 marine debris items collected during beach clean-ups worldwide. They are polluting the oceans and injuring, even killing, marine wildlife. Many plastic products we use only once, and then throw away. These single-use plastics and causing a massive pollution problem around the world, and we are advocating for people…