Bull

Big male Pilot Whale not afraid of rubber boats.

some more Pilot Whales

We found another pod the next day! My theory is that they must have been feeding on squid last night somewhere close to shore for us to find them on the morning trip.

Pilot Whale Encounter

About a mile offshore of Honaunau we came across a pod of Pilot Whales. They weren't the least bit concerned with us and swam right under the boat. Kahea took these pictures hanging off the side of the boat with a Canon powershot D10.

False Killer Whale. Data by Cascadia Research Collective, Robin Baird Scientist.

Thought you would be interested, the tag deployed on a false killer whale off the big island in October is still transmitting (as of yesterday), 164 days after tagging, the second-longest LIMPET tag deployment in Hawaii and the third-longest overall. The attached map shows movements over the last 10 days (with the tag transmitting over a 24 hour span out of every 5 days, so the map shows locations from March 27 and 28, April 1, 2, 6, and 7). The tagged individual, an adult female (HIPc155 in our catalog), was first documented off Oahu in 2002 and is part of “cluster 3”, a social group with a known high use area north of Oahu and Molokai based on previous satellite tag deployments. After leaving the big island HIPc155 has spent most of the last three months in the area from north of Oahu to north of Molokai.

Aloha Humpbacks

The Humpbacks have said goodbye to Kona for now. Everyone is on their way back to Alaska. Here's a few more of Susan's shots to hold you over til next season.