Deeper Swims and Whales in Space

Aloha,
We’ve always wondered if the behaviors of the Humpbacks would be affected by events occurring across the ocean….so we were curious if the April 1st earthquake in Chile which spawned a very small tidal surge in this part of the Pacific would noticeably alter what we see the whales doing. On the cruises we ran today, we didn’t really see much difference in Humpback behavior. The Moms and calves we saw were all pretty mellow. If anything, the whales were further from shore today than they were the two days previous. But with the population of Humpbacks around Hawaii decreasing as the season ends, it’s really impossible for us to say if the ocean surge did encourage a deeper swim, or if it was just a coincidence. We did see a lot of flukes today, and also a lot of dorsal fins, but not many splashes at all. Our near-shore population seems more and more skewed to the Mom/Baby/Escort pods.
Mahalo,
Claire
Captain Claire’s Humpback Fact of the Day:The haunting song of the Humpback has actually travelled beyond our oceans. In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager space crafts. Aboard each was a golden record with a collection of sights, sounds and greetings from Earth in 54 different human languages. These records also include greetings from Humpback whales! And that was just the first time the whales’ song travelled beyond our planet…On Earth Day (4/22) in 2005, a private organization called Deep Space Network broadcast a live feed from a hydrophone off the coast of Maui of the Humpbacks singing. They used a five meter parabolic dish antenna and broadcast the sounds about 18 trillion miles into deep space. So far, we haven’t gotten a response back…