Upcoming seminar on the science and conservation of Hawai‘i’s false killer whales

ABSTRACT: Three partially overlapping populations of false killer whales have been identified in Hawaiian waters: the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) population, an open-ocean (“Hawai‘i pelagic”) population, and the endangered main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) insular population. Considerable funding and effort have been invested into science to identify threats and assess abundance for these populations, including NOAA large-vessel line-transect surveys, photo-identification for mark-recapture abundance estimation and assessment of fisheries-related injuries, and satellite tagging to examine movements and behavior, among others. The NWHI population largely resides within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and has little overlap with human activities. By contrast, bycatch in the U.S. longline fishery of the Hawai‘i pelagic population has exceeded sustainable levels since bycatch and abundance estimates have been available, and the potential for bycatch in non-longline fisheries that overlap with the population has been consistently ignored since first raised in 2010 by the False Killer Whale Take Reduction Team. Based on mark-recapture abundance estimation, the MHI population has been declining since it was listed as endangered in 2012. An examination of fisheries-related injuries for those who have survived hooking or entanglement indicates that fishery interactions are frequent and widespread throughout the MHI population. However, while there have been considerable scientific advances in our knowledge of the threats facing both the Hawai‘i pelagic population and the MHI population, management efforts to address these threats have either been completely absent or woefully inadequate. Measures implemented as part of the 2012 Take Reduction Plan to reduce bycatch in the offshore longline fishery have been ineffective, and no management measures have been taken to address bycatch in nearshore fisheries for either the Hawai‘i pelagic population or the MHI population. We suggest reasons why managers have failed to enact meaningful conservation measures, and why prospects for the endangered and declining MHI population are grim.