All kinds of Surface Behavior

Aloha,

Hope you had a wonderful holiday yesterday…ours started off with a BANG! On our 8:00 Wake up With the Whales Cruise out of Anaeho’omalu Bay we got to watch a juvenile humpback breach 10 or 11 times (too exciting to keep track). Some of our guests got some great video — here’s hoping they share it with us, so we can share it with you!. And according to Captain Baker, there were whales everywhere, tail slapping, pec slapping, and peduncle throwing. He says “it was the direct opposite” of the day before! The rest of the day was spectacular too — we got to see the full gamut of surface behaviors, and more than once, Humpbacks decided that we were interesting enough to swing by and check us out!
Mahalo and have a great weekend. I’ll send out a weekend recap on Monday.
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day: One of the questions we get asked most frequently on whale watches, is “Why are the whales doing that?” (and for “that”, you can substitute any whale behavior we see…breaches, head lunges, peduncle throws…etc). Since we really can’t ask the whales (well, we can ask, but they aren’t answering) we tend to interpret behavior based on what else is going on in the whales’ lives at that particular time. Humpbacks are in Hawaii to mate, calve, and take care of their babies. Aerial behaviors often result in big splashes which may be a great way for a whale to communicate size, status, location, excitement, aggression, irritation, or health to other whales (or to something/someone else he hears on the surface).

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