On a recent Monday, a Honolulu Star-Advertiser colleague, Cindy Luis, returned to the office looking tanned and relaxed. She had been outrigger canoeing out beyond the Mokes — the small islets, or mokulua — off Lanikai over the weekend, riding the ocean swells.
“Oh, it was fun!” she said, her green eyes sparkling. “And there were whales breaching all around us.”
The paddlers in her canoe counted 35 breaches. This number struck me, being nearly the same as the number of marine mammals — 36 — the Air Force said could suffer permanent hearing loss as a result of its proposed live-fire tests in and over the ocean off the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, as reported by the Star-Advertiser’s Kathryn Mykleseth.
Just a coincidence — still, I felt haunted by images of happy, leaping whales off Lanikai and unhappy, deaf whales off Kauai. (Actually, the Air Force list included dolphins as well as whales.)
The Air Force is seeking permission from the National Marine Fisheries Service to fire up to 110 missiles per year in the area for five years through August 2022. The activity could result in behavioral responses, such as panic and disruption of feeding or breeding, in an estimated 219 marine mammals, according to the Air Force’s incidental take application. In all, an estimated 637 cetaceans from nine whale species and seven species of dolphins could be subject to harm.
While the Air Force application says none of the cetaceans would be expected to die as a result of the missile firing, hearing impairment could reduce chances of survival, said biologist Robin Baird, author of “The Lives of Hawai‘i’s Dolphins and Whales.”
“These are animals that rely on hearing for basically everything they do,” Baird said by phone from Olympia, Wash., where he conducts cetacean research with the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective.
He added that Hawaii has small resident populations of whales that are “a lot more at risk” than large, open-ocean populations.
Baird sent a written comment to the NMFS, expressing concern about endangered sperm whales, fin and blue whales that could be present in the test area but were left off the list of species that could be harmed.
He suggested that before each test the Air Force check with the Navy, whose continuous acoustic monitoring detects vocalizing whales in the area. If whales are present, the Air Force could wait until they’ve moved on.
The NMFS will address the Air Force’s application this month. (Click here for more information.)
Meanwhile the rest of us must follow federal rules prohibiting boaters, surfers, kayakers and other ocean users from approaching within 100 yards of the animals or disrupting their normal behavior.
On the last Saturday in March, volunteers on the shores of Kauai, Oahu and Hawaii Island wrapped up the 2017 Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Count. Jean Souza, NOAA Kauai programs coordinator, provided preliminary results for the average number of whales sighted per 15 minutes from each of 15 Kauai locations, including the Pacific Missile Range Facility, on the three count days.
The 2017 average for Kauai was four in January, two in February and two in March.
“Usually, January is the peak for us and then it tapers off, so I was happy with the two for March, considering what we had last year: less than one,” Souza said by phone. “But it’s a snapshot in time; they’re not evenly distributed, and when the wind comes up, whitecaps get confused with blows.”
At Poipu, volunteers watched a mother humpback whale and her calf in shallower waters all morning, interacting with other whales that came and went, appearing to visit them. View the counts for all three islands here.
During one miserable, wind-torn surf session out at Suis this winter, I glanced seaward and saw an enormous, slowly rolling black back and rounded dorsal fin glistening in the sun. I was filled with a sense of well-being, wonder and hope, my petty cares erased in the presence of this titan of the watery realm.
In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.
