#Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary

As exciting as it was to see their first mother, her calf and male escort of the season, Capt. Andrew Aggergaard and naturalist Olivia Miller of Hawaiian Adventures Kona were thrilled to identify the two adults by photographing their flukes and matching them in a catalog of tails through the app Happywhale.

“Based on recordings of whale song, our research reveals that nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago is visited by humpback whales during the winter and early spring months,” says the paper’s lead author Marc Lammers, research ecologist with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. “We documented an abundance of koholā in Papahānaumokuākea.”