LIHUE — Hundreds of volunteers took to the coastal shorelines across the state on Saturday for the first of three scheduled Sanctuary Ocean Counts for 2025.
Cindy Among-Serrao of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, the coordinator of the state Ocean Count, said this is the seventh year that both counts — the Maui count is performed with volunteers from the Great Whale Count by Pacific Whale Foundation — are coordinated on the same days, ensuring the data from all the main Hawaiian Islands are collected simultaneously.
A total of 429 volunteers gathered data from the shores of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii Island for the Great Whale Count, during the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Count, reported Among-Serrao. The Saturday event is the first of three coordinated whale counts between the two organizations in 2025.
“Volunteers collected data from 41 sites across all the main Hawaiian Islands,” Among-Serrao said. “A total of 296 whales were observed during the 10 to 10:15 a.m. time period, the most of any time period throughout the day’s count.”
Ocean counters were doing observations from 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at 30 sites on the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai and Hawaii Island. During the 10 to 10:15 a.m. time period, volunteers reported a total of 183 whales sighted.
On Kauai, Ron Mabry was the site leader at the Mahalepu-Makawehi site, one of nine sites on Kauai.
“We had a very active day with numerous sightings of calves and mothers along with other adult humpbacks,” Mabry said. “We had four distinct times during our 4-hour count with multiple breaches, including one breach by a female whale immediately followed by a calf breach. This activity continued up to our cutoff of noon.”
On Kauai, Among-Serrao said the total number of whales observed during the day’s count was 440. On Oahu, the total was 399, on Molokai, the total was 87, and Hawaii Island was 493.
Beverly Gotelli was one of the counters at the Ninini Point location on Kauai.
“Today’s Ocean Count was very enjoyable,” Gotelli said. “The whales were out, and playing from the time we arrived at 8 a.m. until we finished.
“I experienced tail slaps, couple of breaches and dives,” Gotelli said. “This year, the whales were swimming across the ocean at Ninini Point where you had multiple sightings on both sides of the ocean. It was awesome to see them slapping their tails and just having fun. Several visitors stopped by and were also entertained by our ocean visitors. Some were fortunate to witness the breaching and tail slaps.”
The total number for the Great Whale Count on Maui was 702 for a grand total of 2121 throughout the state, Among-Serrao said.
“This number may represent duplicate sightings of the3 same whale by different observers or at different time periods or different locations throughout the day,” she said.
The sanctuary reported that across the main Hawaiian Islands, weather conditions were ideal for observing whales during the first half of the count with mostly sunny skies and calm seas.
For the remainder of the count, the majority of sites experienced an increased presence of wind ocean swells and white caps that made it less ideal conditions for observing whales.
The sanctuary also reported a variety of other species being spotted during the count, including honu, or green sea turtles; mano, or shark; naia, or spinner and bottlenose dolphins; malolo, or Hawaiian flying fish; and multiple bird species such as koae kea, or White-tailed Tropicbird; io, or Hawaiian hawk; iwa, or great frigatebird; moli, or Laysan albatross; noio koa, or brown noddy; nene, or Hawaiian goose, and more.
The next Sanctuary Ocean Count is scheduled to take place on Feb. 22. For more information, visit the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary at www.hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov.