Updates from our October 2025 Lāna‘i field project

A broadbill swordfish being eaten by two false killer whales during our last field project off Lāna‘i, in 2024 . The swordfish is upside down, and you can see the pec fins (on the left), the very upright anal fin (in the middle), and part of the tail fin (on the right side). Only part of the dorsal fin of one of the false killer whales (in the bottom left of the photo) is visible - the other only has part of the back visible.

 

We will be undertaking a field project off Lāna‘i from October 17-27, 2025. This will be our 12th year working off Maui Nui, and our 6th based on the island of Lāna‘i (our last project off Lāna‘i was in July 2024 - check out the web page for that project for more information). The area to the west and southwest of Lāna‘i is a high-density area for Cluster 4 of the endangered main Hawaiian Islands population of false killer whales, and our primary goal is to find and work with members of this population. We are hoping to deploy LIMPET satellite tags to track movements and behavior, collect biopsy samples for genetics and other studies, and, of course, photo-identify as many individuals as possible to better understand how this population is doing.

We will also be working with any other species of whale or dolphin we encounter, and are planning on deploying more of the single-pin Finmount satellite tags with the TADpole system (if you aren't familiar with these tags or this tag deployment system, check out our updates from our June 2025 field project off O'ahu or a talk Robin Baird gave on that tagging work available on our YouTube page. We are hoping to deploy these tags on several species of dolphins, including spinner dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and pantropical spotted dolphins.

Our field crew for this project will include Mark Mohler, Colin Cornforth, Bethany King, Delaney Trowbridge, and Robin Baird. This project is funded by a contract from the State of Hawai'i and a grant from the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, with funding for Finmount tags provided by a grant from Dolphin Quest.

Check back on October 18th for updates

All photos on this page are taken under NMFS Scientific Research Permit No. 26596. For more information on this project contact Robin Baird at rwbaird (at) cascadiaresearch (dot) org