Maui nearshore whale count down
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
KIHEI, Maui — This year's shoreline whale count confirmed what many on Maui already suspected: Fewer humpbacks are plying the nearshore waters.
Cory Lum • Honolulu Advertiser
Volunteers with the Pacific Whale Foundation's Great Whale Count, working from nine locations during a three-hour period Saturday, recorded 673 humpback whale sightings, a 26 percent drop from last year.
Susan Hatje and Thomas Tong worked on a whale count Jan. 26 on O'ahu. This weekend's count was on Maui.
But the decline in sightings may have more to do with last year being an unusually good year for whales.
"If you look at the trend from the past five years, 2001 was truly a huge year for whale sightings,'' said Dwayne Meadows, the foundation's director of research and marine sciences.
Some 127 people volunteered for the Maui whale count Saturday morning, which is annually scheduled for the peak of the whale-watch season.
On the same day, the second of three counts being held this year, more than 700 volunteers joined the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary in an ocean count on Kaua'i, O'ahu and the Big Island.
Sanctuary officials didn't release any data, saying it must yet be analyzed. But, in general, numbers were up from last month's count on Kaua'i and O'ahu, while numbers were down on the Big Island, said Jean Souza, the sanctuary's Kaua'i liaison.
Also, for the first time in decades, a whale count was held on Kaho'olawe on Saturday. Biologists from the Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission and the Lahaina-based Island Marine Institute recorded 68 animals.
Going into Saturday's count, the question was whether there are fewer or more whales around Maui, which is the epicenter of Hawai'i's whale-watch industry.
Scientists at the Dolphin Institute's shore station at Olowalu, which has views from Kaho'olawe to Moloka'i, last month were observing one-third fewer whales than last season. In addition, several boat captains and shore observers said they were seeing fewer whales this year.
Pacific Whale Foundation researchers noted that Saturday's count saw a greater concentration of whales in West Maui waters, from Kapalua to the McGregor Point lookout near Ma'alaea, while fewer whales were seen in the area within three miles of the shoreline of south Maui.
Ironically, the lowest number of whale sightings — just seven — was recorded at the North Kihei headquarters of the humpback whale sanctuary.
Overall, the whale count's totals support recent data gathered by naturalists and researchers aboard the organization's vessels, Meadows said.
"The whales are there, but they are farther offshore than in past years,'' he said.
Pacific Whale Foundation president Greg Kaufman said humpback whales reportedly were sighted in Canada's Prince Rupert Sound and along Alaska's Inside Passage just a week ago, and it appears they are arriving here late this year.
"The high availability of prey at the (arctic) feeding grounds this summer and fall may account for the later arrival of whales, but there are a variety of environmental and physiological factors that may affect the migration as well,'' he said.
Kaufman said he's confident the numbers will continue to swell in the next few weeks.
