We are planning a short (8-day) field project off Kona from October 16-23. This will be the 23rd consecutive year of working off Hawaiʻi Island. While we'll be primarily searching for false killer whales, our highest priority species, and beaked whales, we'll be working with all species we encounter, obtaining photographs for individual identification, samples for genetics and other studies, and deploying LIMPET satellite tags on a small number of individuals. In an eight-day project we are likely to encounter 8-10 different species of toothed whales and dolphins off the island. As of October 6th, we still have one satellite tag transmitting on a goose-beaked whale (the individual shown above, an adult female) that was tagged during our November 2023 project, and if the tag is still transmitting in October we hope to re-locate the individual and get follow-up photographs, as well as potentially deploy tags on any companion individuals. This project is funded by grants from the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center of NOAA Fisheries (focusing on false killer whales), and the Office of Naval Research (focusing on beaked whales).
We'll be posting updates on the project every couple of days starting October 16th or 17th - please check back then for more information.
If you are going to be on the water off Kona during this period, please contact us if you see false killer whales, killer whales, sperm whales, pygmy killer whales, or beaked whales! For more information on the project, contact Robin Baird at rwbaird (at) cascadiaresearch (dot) org.
Photos on this page taken under NMFS Scientific Research Permit No. 26596.