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Language: en

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Aloha everyone and welcome to day two of the 
Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary's  

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2021 research symposium. so for those of you 
who are not able to attend yesterday my name is  

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Marc Lammers. I'm the research 
ecologist here at the sanctuary  

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and along with Cindy Among-Serrao we will be 
your moderators for  for today's sessions  

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 so as we heard yesterday the symposium aims 
to introduce the public to some of the cutting  

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edge humpback whale science and conservation 
work being conducted in sanctuary waters  

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by NOAA staff but also uh by our partners in 
academia and the nonprofit research community  

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and this year's participants are recipients of the 
National Marine Sanctuary Foundation's research  

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mini grants that were awarded a little earlier 
this year um so yesterday we had a great 

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series of sessions we had Martin Van Aswegen from 
a PhD student from the University of Hawaii Manoa  

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who gave a great presentation on measuring 
whale body condition using drones and also  

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highlighted some of the challenges of motherhood 
and being able to maintain enough you know  

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resources to to to to carry out the motherhood 
process and we heard from Adam Frankel from  

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from the Hawaii Marine Mammal Consortium who 
presented on 20 years of monitoring trends  

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in whale abundance off Hawaii island and presented 
some very interesting and important linkages with  

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with climate drivers like the 
Pacific decadal oscillation  

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and then Eden Zang and myself highlighted 
some of the research on  research activities  

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and and our various collaborations that we're 
involved in so moving over to today's agenda  

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so we will begin with some opening thoughts 
and remarks from two of our Sanctuaries 

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our Sanctuary Advisory Council's chair and Kris Sari who's the President and CEO of the National

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Marine Sanctuary Foundation then we'll
switch over to our own Ed Lyman who will speak  

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to us about the sanctuary's efforts to monitor the 
health of humpback whales that will be followed  

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by Dr. Adam Pack of the University of Hawaii 
who will present on stress-related storage  

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hormones in whale mothers and then we'll hear 
from Haley Rob from University of California Santa  

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Cruz and also Whale Trust who will talk to us 
about assessing female humpback whale reproductive  

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status and we'll finish with some closing thoughts 
on the symposium by our our Sanctuary co-manager  

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Jeannine Rosa and time permitting will have an 
opportunity for more questions and discussions  

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with the speakers but before we get started i'd 
like to just make a couple of housekeeping notes  

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so during the symposium all attendees will be 
in listen only mode you are welcome to type in  

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questions for the presenters into the question box 
in the bottom of the control panel on the right  

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hand side of your screen this is the same area you 
can let us know about any technical issues you may  

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be having we'll be monitoring incoming questions 
and technical issues and we'll respond to them  

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as soon as we can I should also mention that the 
symposium is being recorded so for those of you  

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who are not able to make the presentations 
yesterday or who can't make the presentations  

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all of them today they will be available for 
your viewing on the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

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website we have to close capture them first 
so that will take a little bit of time so we'll  

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probably have these presentations up 
on the website sometime later this  

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next month sometime so without further delay 
i'd like to introduce our our first VIP speaker  

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Sol Kaho'ohalahala who is a seventh generation native 
Hawaiian descendant from the island of Lanai  

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and as I mentioned he serves as a Sanctuary 
Advisory Council's chair and is very passionate  

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about about protecting the kohola or our 
humpback whales so Sol please take it away

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"For Sol Kaho'ohalahala's presentation please see re-recorded Day 2 symposium introduction"

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you're still muted Sol

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we're still having a little bit of a hard  

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time hearing you and you're 
kind of frozen at the moment

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unfortunately 

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the these thank you very much 

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list of the themed presenters

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have begun since yesterday 
and i would like to do join

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them by providing Hawaiian 
cultural perspective

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the

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the are we okay

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okay i like to preface by saying for us 
the god of comes in many different kind of

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referred to as a family member an 
omakua or a guardian so with that then  

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i would like to begin our presentation

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okay

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and if i can get this

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to begin and

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i'll start there

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so I want to begin with the kumulipo

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this story of connection connect 

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the next

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dwelling in the sea the lands and the sky  

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and the native Hawaiians and the place we 
call home so our kuleana responsibility

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i don't know what are the mountains of the city  

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it's realm and so when we think about the 
kanaloa we're reminded of only so in the mind

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of chance and of science and when we listen to the 
songs of the great kanaloa it is reminding us of  

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perhaps our connection and it speaks of perhaps 
a genealogy and with this the whale becomes a  

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chanter and a story time and for the Hawaiian 
people we resonate in that kind of connection with

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and also when we think of the 
palaoa the great whale the palaoa  

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is also a symbol for a symbol 
of authority so when one wears

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is a symbol of that kind of 
authority the talking chief  

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when we connect ourselves to the palaoa

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and it is a connection that is

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and demonstrates the ability for them to care 
and to nurture your family so here we see  

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the kind of law embracing and holding their 
cake and children no different than believe  

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it in that process of care and nurture that 
embrace history all of that we understand it's

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which represents the

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it is representative life in the life 
force itself so the love is great

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gives us an opportunity to see and fear

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and we have a connection with 
the spirit to this great family  

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and this is how we communicate and 
this is how we continue to move  

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so i wanted to bring these thoughts forward to 
us all as we contemplate the discussions that  

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you have heard and those that you are about 
to hear today and see that from a cultural  

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perspective that Kanaloa represents to us our 
attention to the sea the land and the sky and

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is

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and so we hope and we continue

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Okay wonderful thank you so much so um that 
was wonderful we it was a little bit glitchy  

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on our end so apologies for some of those   
technical challenges that we had but I think  

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the message came still came through loud and 
clear    so thank you very much for that Sol. 

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So next I'd like to introduce Kris Sari
as I mentioned she's the President and CEO of  

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the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
and has been in this role since 2016.  

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Kris's lifelong passion is finding innovative 
ways to promote environmental stewardship  

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through community engagement and conservation 
and so thank you to her to her leadership  

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we were able to administer these mini grants this year and so Kris you know please share  

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 share your thoughts with us. Thank you Marc and 
Sol thank you very much um as well I really wish  

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I was in Hawai'i for the return of the 
of the whales to the islands I am instead  

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in Ann Arbor Michigan where we're having 
a very gray day which is kind of reflected  

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in the room that I'm in so I'm sorry that my 
background isn't as beautiful as what saw or  

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seeing those bright sunshine that I was seeing 
in some of the images from folks in Hawa'ii  

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I just really wanted to say thank you to 
everybody who's participating in the symposium  

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it is through our ability to work with 
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries  

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and truly being able to work with partners 
that we are able to achieve the mission of  

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really protecting nationally significant areas 
in our ocean for current and future generations  

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and really appreciate the opportunity 
this year in particular to work with  

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Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 
to provide small mini grants to further  

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knowledge about humpback whales so thank you very 
much for the work you're doing and the reason I  

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think this is so incredibly important is compact 
whales and a number of other whale species because  

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of the distance that they travel the depth 
their sensitivity to changes in our climate  

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to noise are really truly very important 
indicators about the health of our ocean  

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and I believe they're very important indicators 
too about our own community health as well  

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they can tell us a lot about how changes are 
impacting our ocean and also how that can have  

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impacts on us so the work that you're doing in my 
mind really contributes to a much larger effort  

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to think about how we can be stewards of our ocean 
again for current and future generations so  

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I'm really forward looking forward to listening 
into the presentations today and catching up  

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on the recording for the presentations that I
missed yesterday.  One of the things I do  

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want to mention this I just closed really briefly 
is I know there's a little bit of glitchiness  

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with Sol's opening but the images  
and the words were conveying so much meaning  

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 in on December 15th I welcome everybody to join 
us for our Blue Ocean Series which will be virtual  

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called Ola Kanaloa and we're really focusing in on 
the cultural significance and values of humpback  

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whales to native hawaiians and also the importance 
of using cultural knowledge and values in advocacy  

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scientific research and conservation of this 
amazing species. So again thank you very  

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much for all your hard work I want to thank 
ed and mark um as well for helping convene the  

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symposium sorry and Cindy as well so thank you 
and looking forward to the presentations today.

00:16:23.920 --> 00:16:29.280
Great thank you very much Kris really 
appreciate your your thoughts on on all this  

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so yeah let's let's get right into it let's 
get into our first science talk for for the day  

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and it is from our own Ed Lyman who is a natural 
resource specialist here with the Hawaiian Islands  

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Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary he also serves as 
the regional regional large whale entanglement  

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response coordinator under NOAA's marine mammal 
health and strain response program he has been  

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involved in efforts to respond study and mitigate 
whale entanglements for more than 25 years  

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he'll be speaking to us about Sanctuary 
health Sanctuary health and risk  

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assessment to monitoring efforts and 
so yeah go ahead and take it away Ed.

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Thank you for that Marc, thanks for the 
introduction aloha everyone and I'm going to go  

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ahead and put this on there we go full screen mode 
well as Marc said I'm going to give you guys a  

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quick overview highlights of the Sanctuary's 
health and risk assessment monitoring as well  

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as our response efforts or the updates there 
because there's a lot of science behind the  

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response as well and by the way this is very 
much a right from the start I'm going to say this  

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is a collaborative effort it's a team effort so 
i'm going to be highlighting and acknowledging  

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a lot of different people organizations the 
community in general throughout and one person  

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i definitely want to to acknowledge is Rachel 
Finn she's our resource protection assistant  

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a lot of times just volunteering at that role 
and then just recently helping us out  

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Alan Ligon helping us with delve a little 
deeper into the data here a data analysis  

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so and you know with the time we have I'm gonna 
hit the highlights just some some examples if  

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you will so these are basic like fluke ID's give 
you a quick update there some of the abundance  

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contributions to add to what Eden and and Dr. 
Marc Lammers mentioned yesterday I'll give you  

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a little bit on our health assessment a lot of 
its visual indicators and get into some of the  

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risk assessment as well and then at the end here 
we'll delve into some of the the tools that we  

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have especially some of the newer tools techniques 
we're using to help us gain this information.  

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Now I did say I start out pretty basic and 
I'm going to start with fluke ID's I really am  

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promoting this a lot and I know a lot of us as 
researchers use this is the catalog right now the  

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Sanctuaries catalog is that around 2500 animals 
unique ID's we added about 300 from last season  

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and this is since 2003 and we're I 
mean basically this is an example of  

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the Sanctuary contributing just like everyone 
else to the greater good in this case Happy Whale  

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it's one of those digital catalogs using 
artificial intelligence to make the matches for us  

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and of course just some examples of how it 
helps us day to day and season the season it  

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removes the duplicates it's helping Rachel do 
that rather than her looking through screens  

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it's helping us follow animals say some of the 
entanglements or shift strikes there over time  

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and there's broader examples which I 
have to tease everyone here because  

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again there's partnerships and collaborations and 
I want to have the partner the lead partner 

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give us this information at a letter date but some 
really cool matches coming up and I've hinted to  

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these in the past and of course SPLASH 2 would 
be another great example here remember SPLASH 

00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:49.280
was that Pacific wide basin-wide study and 400 
researchers and 10 different countries involved  

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they're looking at doing that again and the 
Sanctuary has a role there along with others  

00:19:53.760 --> 00:19:58.480
you know being a representative for the region 
for instance and I've got an image of a fluke up  

00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:03.360
there even the volunteers that that is one of 
the whales they've helped name they have a  

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footprint a blueprint in that regard but 
moving on I did want to say a little bit about  

00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:13.200
some additional transect efforts to what Ms. 
Eden and mark Marc may have mentioned yesterday  

00:20:14.320 --> 00:20:19.040
and this is more opportunistic in nature just  
started a couple years before they started their  

00:20:19.040 --> 00:20:26.000
dedicated transects um in response to the low 
settings we had back in the 15 2015-16 season  

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and it just complements the effort there because 
it's it's to the south and east of their transects  

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it's dedicated transects just covering the 
southeast portion of Aoao channel and Maaleaa  

00:20:36.800 --> 00:20:43.280
Bay and this just shows last season and if you 
can recall their their data from last yesterday  

00:20:43.280 --> 00:20:49.920
you'll see it pretty much matches pretty well the 
season peak being about Mid-February so there's  

00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:55.840
that but I also wanted to use this to introduce 
another idea I know the Pacific Whale Foundation  

00:20:55.840 --> 00:21:01.760
has a Great Whale Count, the Sanctuary has their 
Ocean Count this is citizen science shore based  

00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:08.000
throughout the peaks months of the breeding 
calving season and we're trying to take make  

00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:13.520
an app. to have the ocean users the people on the 
water basically do the same thing citizen science  

00:21:14.080 --> 00:21:18.080
maybe a basically if we and we're started 
this by the way and there's some data there  

00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:23.760
so but we're still we really want to get this 
going more because if if you could have half  

00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:30.160
the boats out there as in turbos mainly even 
private sector just spend one or two trips  

00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:35.760
maybe 10 or 15 minutes a week but you compile 
out put that all together and you have really  

00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:41.360
increased the scope of our effort towards 
relative abundance if you will and and yes it  

00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:46.880
it'll have some limitations but it will be good 
data so shout out for the transect study app. there  

00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:53.840
a lot of contributions but I'm going to get into 
the health and risk assessment now and again we're  

00:21:54.560 --> 00:22:00.400
we primarily went into or rely on the visual side 
here but we've done biopsy sampling and condition  

00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:05.200
analysis there we've done breath analysis in the 
past but more so we rely on the bread of butter of  

00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:10.080
just being whale doctors and looking at the visual 
and these are some examples of that and this is  

00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:14.960
where Alan Ligon is starting to quantify this 
a little bit better than we've done in the past  

00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:20.000
look at presence absence look at percent coverage 
you can see the number of images that we've  

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:25.200
collected and the video over the years so there's 
a lot of potential here and it helps us monitor  

00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:30.160
the animals both at the individual level and 
at the population level and I know this is  

00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:35.520
preliminary data but I went ahead and threw some 
numbers out here for the rake marks  Orca rake  

00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:42.240
marks about almost five percent there so far on 
us on this initial data set some of the health  

00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:48.560
indicators emaciation cyanide coverage welts 
we've I know we've talked about that in the past  

00:22:48.560 --> 00:22:54.960
the preliminary numbers there 7.3 percent okay 
and that is both surface and underwater imagery  

00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:59.600
by the way and you see some images there so again 
we'll rely on the underwater as well as above  

00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:05.840
and even drone and then on the wrist side some of 
the impacts there some of the risk factors whale  

00:23:05.840 --> 00:23:12.080
vessel contacts entanglements those the ones 
that sanctuary I would say takes a leading role  

00:23:12.080 --> 00:23:17.360
in and then also trying to collect information 
on separate calves out of habitat strandings  

00:23:17.360 --> 00:23:22.640
floaters the dead whales just for instance we do 
not take a lead role in the latter one I would  

00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:27.440
argue this the State of Hawaii Department of Land and
Natural Resources takes a lead role there so again  

00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:33.600
we have our niches we have our leads but a 
lot of people a lot of involvement and 

00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:38.560
speaking of getting that information again 
Sanctuary does have dedicated monitoring  

00:23:38.560 --> 00:23:44.960
cruises we do do that and of course our partners 
but a lot of it is optimistic it's it's the tour  

00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:52.000
boats fishermen everyone the community calling in 
those reports okay the Hui Kilo Kohola okay the  

00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:57.840
team that watches over the whales okay and of 
course the Sanctuary has a role in responding to  

00:23:57.840 --> 00:24:02.800
those reports at times if whales report is being 
hit by a boat we'll try to respond entanglement  

00:24:02.800 --> 00:24:08.080
we'll try to respond and there can have a hands-on 
response effort we'll speak to that in a moment

00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:13.680
but that information that we collect and 
I know I've talked about this before that  

00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:18.800
community-based effort  and we've been 
doing this since 2002 we compile all that  

00:24:18.800 --> 00:24:25.520
into a database and that database now is over 1100 
data points data records again it's heavy on the  

00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:30.720
ship strike and on the entanglement but we try to 
collect information as it comes to us otherwise  

00:24:31.360 --> 00:24:39.120
okay and again a big community effort a shout 
out to everyone okay and then I did circle SID: 

00:24:39.120 --> 00:24:43.040
serious engine determination because I'm 
going to give you an example of that again  

00:24:43.840 --> 00:24:50.480
and just the value of that of looking at the  
trying to better quantify the outcomes of some  

00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:56.800
of these risk factors but let's speaking of risk 
factors let's give you a little bit information on  

00:24:56.800 --> 00:25:02.240
well vessel contacts that's one of the aspects 
of the Sanctuary takes again a leading role on  

00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:09.680
here is the data um over time since 1979 all the 
way to present see generally speaking the numbers  

00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:15.200
of reports I'm going to emphasize reports 
of confirmed well vessel contacts have  

00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:20.800
increased over time there's 131 overall 
 six of them from from last season okay  

00:25:21.600 --> 00:25:26.080
you know some things I want to point out here is 
that just look at the variation there now some  

00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:30.560
of the low numbers early on could be effort we 
definitely have increased our effort and of course  

00:25:30.560 --> 00:25:34.800
there are fewer whales back then so those are just 
some of the variables but if you look at around  

00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:41.920
2012 you see a little little low point and then 
of course around 2013 14 15 a little low point in  

00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:47.440
there as well and those could be factors like 
the environment coming into play and those lower  

00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:53.360
sightings that we saw and of course more recently 
 coveted with less effort out there fewer boats  

00:25:53.360 --> 00:26:03.600
on the water in both effort and potential risk 
factors okay and over a hundred observed

00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:09.920
self-reported reports coming in that the 
vessels made contact and they reported in 27 of  

00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:16.720
just represent injuries that represented recent 
contact okay this is biased towards the cast a  

00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:21.840
little easier to make that determination and we've 
done a lot of refinement on this data set by  

00:26:21.840 --> 00:26:27.200
the way and we've added four contacts that 
represent four dependent calves the mother was  

00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:33.040
injured significantly enough that we we 
consider the calf representing an impact  

00:26:33.040 --> 00:26:39.520
there as well so and I'm trying to point out some 
of the papers and abstracts in this case for the  

00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:45.120
marine mammal biennial there and some partnerships 
involved there with many many are on board today  

00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:53.440
I kind of alluded this but it's a lot of calves 
and some adults that get that are part of the 

00:26:53.440 --> 00:26:59.280
reports there there's a predominance of those 
 this hasn't changed over the years and 

00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:04.080
let's see if I can I guess I can't it's gonna 
minimize and see the rest of my screen but  

00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:14.880
but a predominance of calves I think it's over 
50 there and so okay let's keep going on and  

00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:20.240
this is here's the serious injury determinations 
 and then this is a partnership with NOAA 

00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:24.240
Fisheries, the Pacific Islands Science Center and 
with Amanda Bradford we've been doing this for  

00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:29.680
gosh a decade now and and publishing reports 
pretty much each and every year on this data  

00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:35.520
it's basically as good as Happy Whale and and 
and Ted Cheeseman with getting us outcomes  

00:27:35.520 --> 00:27:39.680
filing these animals over time and space they're 
still not getting all the outcomes there and so  

00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:44.800
what we're doing is taking the knowns and applying 
them to the unknown so we take what we do know a  

00:27:44.800 --> 00:27:50.560
particular scenario of whales getting hit by 
this size bow with this speed involved and this  

00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:56.320
and this age class or size of animal what tends to 
happen what do we know happens in applying that to  

00:27:56.320 --> 00:28:01.120
the unknowns and what I want to do that's better 
quantification of the data set there is what it  

00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:05.680
comes down to and this is going towards another 
example of of artificial intelligence as well  

00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:12.320
modeling these okay so here is looking at that 
data set not going back quite as far back to 2007  

00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:19.120
to recent and looking at those serious injury 
determinations not just the number okay of  

00:28:19.120 --> 00:28:25.120
confirmed non-incidental reports because numbers 
don't tell us everything this is filtering through  

00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:31.920
what we thought was representing serious injuries 
okay you see average overall for per year was 2.1  

00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:39.680
you see the drop 2014 15 16 17 there that mirrors 
the environmental changes and put it that way okay  

00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:46.000
and I highlighted that okay okay gonna keep 
going on another thing that everyone asked about  

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.760
is speed so an update in that regard 83 cases 
in which speed is known or reported I've got to  

00:28:51.760 --> 00:28:57.040
emphasize I'm trying to do that reported 
average speed reported about 10.5 knots  

00:28:57.760 --> 00:29:02.960
reported speeds range everywhere from zero to 
26 knots a majority of them were reported less  

00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:09.520
or 10 knots or less and here's a number 
for you 82. 82.6 percent occurred while  

00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:14.640
the vessel was transiting again rep reported 
as such so it means around what is that 17.4  

00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:20.720
percent we're occurring around the approach or 
the the being around the animal directed approach  

00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:26.880
if you will so that'll come into play but again 
we really don't do not know the speeds involved  

00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:33.120
these are reported speeds we've got to be aware 
of that okay so with that information just and  

00:29:33.120 --> 00:29:38.160
a big shout out to Jens Currie he's the research 
representative the Sanctuary Advisor Committee and  

00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:41.760
Pacific Whale Foundation and many others 
again I'm not going to be able to  

00:29:42.320 --> 00:29:47.520
acknowledge everyone but looking at the science 
with we've joined forces with the community  

00:29:47.520 --> 00:29:52.880
in fact in the basic community and looked at 
some of this information and made recommendations  

00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:57.600
recently towards reducing vessel speeds around 
those directed approaches to six knots when you're  

00:29:57.600 --> 00:30:03.920
within 400 yards an emphasis on how many vessels 
around a whale especially calves any one time  

00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:10.560
and guidance on quantifying what is that safe 
lower speed that's safe guidance on speed maybe  

00:30:11.120 --> 00:30:16.800
putting a number out there 15 knots or less okay 
and again the emphasis on be a prudent mirror be a  

00:30:16.800 --> 00:30:24.160
prudent neighbor to our humpback whales out there 
to pull up but shifting over to entanglements now  

00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:30.080
I'm going to show you one the bar graph bar 
graph that's pretty much very similar to the  

00:30:30.080 --> 00:30:37.360
ship strike data these are confirmed reports over 
seasons on the x-axis okay in the background  

00:30:37.360 --> 00:30:42.640
you do see the initial reports location-wise 
of where the animals are reported almost  

00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:46.400
every single one of those except for maybe 
three of them are where the well was reported  

00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:52.800
not where it got entangled okay contribute to 
their size and dragging gears over long distances  

00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:58.720
about half of well exactly half now the reports 
are confirmed okay you see the values there and  

00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:04.720
that's 151 cases up to date again doing a lot 
of extra filtering and refinement of the data  

00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:09.600
set here I'll get into that a little bit more but 
again all these reports are an underestimate these  

00:31:09.600 --> 00:31:14.240
you know entangle whale is a large needle and 
a very large haystack out there and as good as  

00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:19.840
the community is we're still not finding them all 
so oh let me go back to that slide one more time  

00:31:19.840 --> 00:31:25.200
because I wanted to point out that the mirror to 
the ship strikes that you see the 12th 2012-13  

00:31:25.840 --> 00:31:31.920
low there I forgot to mention that mirrors or 
overlaps where a big El Nino was pretty big  

00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:40.000
El Nino and of course we're aware of the more 15 
16 17 18 North Pacific decadal oscillation  

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.720
the positive phase the blob and other El 
Nino there okay the environmental changes  

00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:50.000
you might say hey Ed but look there's some 
high cases there fourteen nine well I

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:55.680
will point out that we had a shift from you 
know Alaska had some low numbers with us okay  

00:31:55.680 --> 00:32:00.880
but British Columbia which we get whales from from 
the feeding grounds high latitude feeding grounds  

00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:06.400
had very high numbers like the West Coast so 
in the latter stages we were getting a lot  

00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:13.040
more whales and 10 cases reported with BC gears 
or whales likely coming from British Columbia  

00:32:13.040 --> 00:32:18.640
just an example there okay we keep going here 
let's look at the long-term monitoring here of  

00:32:18.640 --> 00:32:26.240
entanglement scar analysis I'm just adding another 
season here refinement but it goes back to 2013  

00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:31.200
I can see that what's happening here is our values 
have decreased over time this last season was just  

00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:37.520
9.7 percent and we go back and check these 
we as part of our part of our methodology we  

00:32:37.520 --> 00:32:44.160
go back and test ourselves and and and do blind 
tests and things of that nature so this is subject  

00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:49.920
subjective as is we're doing our best in this 
regard this is by basically a surface base as well  

00:32:49.920 --> 00:32:57.280
from the boat looking at the part of the body you 
see above the water okay let's keep going so now  

00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:02.960
we want to do a comparison and this will start to 
again examples of collaborations examples of other  

00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:07.920
organizations like Pacific Whale Foundation  
University of Hawaii Manoa and Hawaii Institute  

00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:12.720
of Marine Biology there of acquiring some of 
their data so to the left looking to the right  

00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:21.200
you see the overall it's now a little lower than 
20 percent looking at our surface of Sanctuary  

00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:28.720
entanglement rates okay then last season 
9.7 looking at the Sanctuary's underwater data  

00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:35.200
from 2015 to 21 is around 10.5 percent now it 
might make some sense because the values were  

00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:38.880
higher overall and remember you're looking 
at more than just the tip of the iceberg  

00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:44.080
there and then aerial Sanctuary had a couple years 
different couple efforts there and collaborations  

00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:53.040
our data shows 13.0.0 and then this is 
where we asked 
UH Manoa and again our  

00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:58.960
partners some to assist because our 
end was small and they have a value of  

00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:04.800
10.4 percent on their aerial drone footage 
assessment of entanglement rates so you get  

00:34:04.800 --> 00:34:09.680
some sense of the different methodology and 
what they might show and changes over time.  

00:34:10.640 --> 00:34:15.360
I'm gonna keep moving here speaking of drones 
again I mentioned the Sanctuary has had a couple  

00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:22.240
discrete efforts since 2016 there are some of the 
collaborators there we've worked with overall I 

00:34:22.240 --> 00:34:26.560
mean between the collaborators and what we've been 
able to do in-house I'd say on the monitoring side  

00:34:26.560 --> 00:34:31.280
on the response side especially about 35 percent 
of time at least the last five years we've been  

00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:36.880
able to use drones that's big we are trying to 
increase our footprint there greater in-house use  

00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:42.000
and I'm gonna just have another slide here that 
will speak to that try to do more visual and  

00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:47.280
health assessment there from the drones fluke 
ID's scar analysis that we mentioned maybe even  

00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:53.680
some transect studies there as well in the coming 
season make a better use of that particular tool  

00:34:55.040 --> 00:35:00.160
and then speaking of tools this is one we've 
you know this is this came from Whale Trust this  

00:35:00.160 --> 00:35:05.600
would build upon an idea they had that we're 
calling it the arm assessment recording and  

00:35:05.600 --> 00:35:10.720
monitoring device basically it is an arm off 
the off the side of the boat think of it as a  

00:35:10.720 --> 00:35:17.360
dagger board with a camera or a set of cameras and 
sensors on the the end of that that can record  

00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:23.200
the animals over time from the boat it takes 
away the human aspect of it and the whales tend  

00:35:23.200 --> 00:35:29.440
to be okay with the boats more times than not and 
less of a footprint there harassment wise and all  

00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:32.240
and it can provide everything from 
visual health and risk assessment to the  

00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:36.800
assessment of an entanglement or a shift-struck 
animal animal it's compromised to behavioral  

00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:40.000
information because you're you're getting 
more information over time it's not just  

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:45.920
that single shot so and what we've done here by 
the way is we've added to this we've put a spar  

00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:51.520
a cross member on the end of that end of the arm 
and it has a couple of laser pointers it has  

00:35:51.520 --> 00:35:57.920
some very narrow beam acoustic pingers  the 
laser pointers are going to give us scale the  

00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:04.000
painters are going to give us the orientation of 
the animal as well as the ability to do basically  

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.800
photogrammetry underwater so we're going to try to 
do more of this did some tests this last season at  

00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:13.040
the end looks like it's going to work we're going 
to delve a little deeper into this regard and  

00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:19.520
increase our imagery underwater and we hope the 
quality of it as well and I think that covered  

00:36:19.520 --> 00:36:25.280
and we can even add for maybe helping Marc and 
even acoustics things like that especially with  

00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:31.840
the entanglements other sensors things like 
that and fluke ID's I know this is really basic but  

00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:37.040
let's give you an example  in this case this is 
one competitive group that you know we spent like  

00:36:37.040 --> 00:36:42.880
45 minutes on and I think we got two of the flukes 
surface-wise from these animals during that time  

00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:49.520
frame but we got five of the flukes underwater 
so a lot of animals resting mother males in a  

00:36:49.520 --> 00:36:54.480
competitive group do not fluke readily so I'm 
hoping it'll increase our opportunity of getting  

00:36:54.480 --> 00:37:03.440
fluke ideas which is so foundational additional 
science I know Marc spoke to this yesterday about  

00:37:03.440 --> 00:37:08.080
suction cup tags I know we've been wanting to use 
them towards the compromise animals haven't been  

00:37:08.080 --> 00:37:12.880
the tool kit in that regard so we have acquired 
another one we can keep in the tool kit they can  

00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:19.120
complement Marc's work add to that and of 
course match work will help establish a great  

00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:24.160
baseline towards using it towards compromised 
animals quantifying the impacts through energetics  

00:37:24.160 --> 00:37:29.360
investigating the acoustic side are they 
calling for help we do since they're doing that  

00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:34.640
and of course that might better quantify the 
operational risk assessment us our risk assessment  

00:37:34.640 --> 00:37:39.520
towards helping these animals and of course it'll 
help it's short term but it'll give us a little  

00:37:39.520 --> 00:37:44.000
follow-up to the animals that we've cut free 
if it stays on for maybe 24 hours oh by the way  

00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:49.440
this is able to work with Jan Straylie and 
University Alaska southeast this last summer and  

00:37:49.440 --> 00:37:54.240
here we are putting on some suction cup tags that 
is not the North shore of Oahu but that is Alaska

00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:59.760
and so I'm going to start winding down 
with just our large whale entanglement response  

00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:04.800
we take a lead role in this but again 
community base a lot of people help with this  

00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:08.800
it overall it's overseen by NOAA Fisheries 
see what we're doing on time okay  

00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:15.760
and and their marine mammal health is 
training response program okay but again  

00:38:15.760 --> 00:38:21.360
partnership extends to the community in general 
this is one big partnership one big collaboration  

00:38:23.040 --> 00:38:27.280
and a very broad-based threat too I know we 
tend to focus on the animal side whether it's  

00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:33.120
individual animal welfare or the population level 
is a big threat but it affects humans there's  

00:38:33.120 --> 00:38:39.360
several aspects there as well okay so it's very 
broad-based risk factor that we're addressing here  

00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:46.480
goals will reflect that and trying to it's 
they're broad-based everything from the outreach  

00:38:46.480 --> 00:38:51.360
side increasing awareness which is key some public 
safety having the right people cut whales free  

00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:56.160
rather than having to have the well-intentioned 
public do their best job try to keep people safe  

00:38:56.160 --> 00:39:00.960
in that regard we'll try to release some whales 
this is the animal welfare side it brings in the  

00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:06.800
resource protection and of course the main goal 
here is gaining information here's the science  

00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:11.600
coming into play evaluating whether there's any 
existing mitigating measures how they're working  

00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:15.600
or just gaining information in general towards 
better understanding of threat and towards this  

00:39:15.600 --> 00:39:21.920
mitigation so I'll give you some quick examples on 
that but first our accomplishments and again our  

00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:28.080
accomplishments we've removed gear from 34 large 
whales most of them are humpback whales 40 if you  

00:39:28.080 --> 00:39:33.520
count beyond remember there's these partnerships 
with Alaska that we have and and one from Mexico  

00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:40.240
and one on the West Coast so more than 12 000 feet 
of line removed more than 70 sets of gear removed  

00:39:40.240 --> 00:39:45.840
or documented that were identified and that's just 
my segue towards gaining information so let's give  

00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:50.640
you some quick examples I know you've seen this 
before but the numbers have increased so you can  

00:39:50.640 --> 00:39:55.760
see more arrows there but and I already mentioned 
the fact that lately there's been more of those  

00:39:55.760 --> 00:40:02.320
arrows source of gear coming from British 
Columbia from the more sort of south and and  

00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:09.040
more eastern portion of the feeding grounds there 
and even see some arrows going from Hawai'i  

00:40:09.040 --> 00:40:15.040
gear carried there to to Alaska to the winter 
grounds and the longest known distance so far  

00:40:15.040 --> 00:40:21.200
straight line is just under 2 500 nautical miles 
kind of a shrimp pot gear from Wrangle Alaska

00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:28.320
and then gear types overall it's it's everything 
and anything a lot of it is fishing gear I  

00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:34.480
will admit not all of it though a lot of it's 
fixed gear here that's set and left and it's  

00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:39.680
really yeah well it gets a hint you see that much 
net gear here in Hawaii and I think that's a hint  

00:40:39.680 --> 00:40:45.280
to just how how much impact net may have 
to these animals especially in the longer  

00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:51.600
term okay we do want to look at that as 
well and you see pot gear summit local 11  

00:40:51.600 --> 00:40:57.200
some of it from Alaska 20 cases let's keep 
going though I want to give you some quick  

00:40:57.200 --> 00:41:02.080
some additional quick examples age class just 
like the ship strikes predominance of the young  

00:41:02.720 --> 00:41:09.520
some adults especially for us and some calves 
there so um over over 50 percent so mirrors the  

00:41:10.080 --> 00:41:14.320
ship strikes well some quick examples on what 
might be happening as far as climate change  

00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:20.320
and the effect there on whether it's ship strikes 
or whether it's entanglement one plot I can show  

00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:25.920
you there is before the recent environmental 
changes you saw you see under 10 percent of mouth  

00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:31.600
entanglements afterwards we're above 30 percent 
okay the end is small but it's I think it's large  

00:41:31.600 --> 00:41:37.280
enough to make some um some looks at some of 
the stuff we've also noticed gear type changes  

00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:42.080
where the gears coming from I've mentioned 
the proportional change from Alaska to British  

00:41:42.080 --> 00:41:49.120
Columbia age class involvement even shifts 
there on the number of sub-adults okay so you  

00:41:49.120 --> 00:41:53.200
know that's fast but some other you know 
some other investigations here I just wanted to  

00:41:53.760 --> 00:41:58.800
give a shout out but you know a lot of 
long-term partnerships we NOAA Fisheries and  

00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:03.440
the community up in Alaska so a lot of 
partnerships there and boy I mean I'll just  

00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:08.800
jump to i'm gonna jump down third bullet because 
there's a connection here and that is  Ryan  

00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:14.480
Walsh our Hollings intern from last summer looked 
at effort not only in Hawaii but up in Alaska as  

00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:19.520
well and effort both in reporting as well as the 
effort to save fishing effort we did a lot more  

00:42:19.520 --> 00:42:23.760
looking and refinement of the data there and the 
overlap with the animals and their distribution  

00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:29.440
that plot you're seeing is from Ryan he's 
looking at all the initial confirmed cases of  

00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:35.120
of entanglements up in Alaska okay and I'm going 
to go back to collaborations with other other  

00:42:35.120 --> 00:42:40.800
networks it's not just Alaska but Mexico raven 
the essentially the network there that's another  

00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:46.000
breeding camping ground a lot of similarities 
there and we've pursuing an MOA, I hope with them  

00:42:46.560 --> 00:42:51.600
and then a shout out to Nia O'reilly a 
Uh Hilo graduate student looking at  

00:42:51.600 --> 00:42:57.120
the socio-economic side of the entanglement 
threat here again that broad-based impact  

00:42:57.120 --> 00:43:03.440
okay I'm gonna get probably yep almost there but 
I just  some other some additional ones here  

00:43:03.440 --> 00:43:08.160
what part of the gear is it it's not just what 
the gear is but what part of it is the whale's  

00:43:08.160 --> 00:43:13.760
getting entangled in the differential impact 
of gear types I already mentioned gill net  

00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:20.240
but even so this pelagic long line the smallest 
heavy duty or strong breaking strength is very  

00:43:20.240 --> 00:43:26.960
we think very lethal to the animals okay and 
pursue investigations otherwise impact here's  

00:43:26.960 --> 00:43:32.160
another one the impacts of fat which we're seeing 
more of over time these are fish aggregating  

00:43:32.160 --> 00:43:40.640
devices as fish stocks decrease fishermen 
utilize basically debris repurposed to collect  

00:43:42.240 --> 00:43:47.200
yeah collect smaller schooling fish an 
ecosystem that will draw the larger target species  

00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:51.280
and we'll continue looking at 
entanglement threat overall  

00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:59.120
through things like the scar analysis okay and so 
you know I couldn't speak much to entanglement  

00:43:59.120 --> 00:44:04.640
threat overall and the different roles the 
community plays but one big one is what I mean  

00:44:04.640 --> 00:44:09.120
it's foundational is the role that the community 
does play in and just just a shout out here to  

00:44:09.120 --> 00:44:14.560
Nature Conservancy and to NOAA Fisheries we assist 
you with this but an online course I mean we can  

00:44:14.560 --> 00:44:21.920
put this on the in the chat box there it'll 
tell us more it's like 30 minutes and we re-review  

00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:27.440
that role the community plays in helping us report 
document assess uh the entangled whales out there  

00:44:29.040 --> 00:44:33.120
and so in summary Sanctuary will continue 
monitoring the whales especially important  

00:44:33.120 --> 00:44:38.560
with recent changes environmental changes out 
there we've got a moving target we'll develop  

00:44:38.560 --> 00:44:43.440
keep developing the many partnerships including 
continue to work with the on water community  

00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:48.080
we have that broad fluke print we go 
you know we focus on the central waters but  

00:44:48.080 --> 00:44:52.720
we go beyond too as as appropriate to gain 
information and share that information   

00:44:52.720 --> 00:44:57.920
and and increase those collaborations continue to 
proc protect the humpback whales and their habitat  

00:44:57.920 --> 00:45:04.000
which is the Sanctuary's mission statement so in 
ending I just want to acknowledge a lot I mean  

00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:08.640
hopefully I've not missed I've had a group in some 
cases but there is a lot of agency organizations  

00:45:08.640 --> 00:45:16.160
NGO's community groups out there okay that 
are part of this effort want to thank them big  

00:45:16.160 --> 00:45:22.160
mahalo and then gonna switch to another side here 
just the team just thank the teams the various  

00:45:22.160 --> 00:45:28.880
teams transact team and the covet Hawaii risk 
assessment team from last season big mahalo there  

00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:35.120
and they involvement here and funding 
and boy I'm not even covering the incon here  

00:45:35.120 --> 00:45:40.480
but our permits we work under and some of 
the more recent funding um avenues here and  

00:45:41.600 --> 00:45:44.880
you can see there i want to acknowledge 
them they're very very important here  

00:45:45.440 --> 00:45:50.000
okay and of course office of National Marine 
Sanctuaries I put them right at the bottom there  

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:56.320
they do a lot as well big footprint footprint 
so mahalo and just want to say Sanctuary  

00:45:56.320 --> 00:46:00.000
is working with our partners and agencies 
and community to generate to unravel the  

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.640
unknowns and where possible to gain additional 
information respond and protect humpback whales  

00:46:04.640 --> 00:46:10.240
which is you know a very important biologically 
ecological cultural socioeconomic important  

00:46:10.240 --> 00:46:16.880
animal out there it's part of our system our in 
all regards mahalo and not too bad thank you guys

00:46:22.480 --> 00:46:26.800
Okay thank you Ed that's always so awesome 
to see all the things that you're doing  

00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.920
to help understand this or 
help us understand the various  

00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:34.560
threats that humpback whales are facing with 
with all your your collaborators and colleagues.  

00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:40.960
So we do have a few minutes about three or 
four minutes though we could take a couple of  

00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:46.400
questions if there are some Cindy do you see 
any questions in the chat for Ed at this time  

00:46:47.520 --> 00:46:52.800
yes we did get a few questions and just friendly 
reminder feel free to submit more questions that  

00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:57.360
you may have for any of our presenters in 
the chat box if we are unable to get to your  

00:46:57.360 --> 00:47:03.120
question don't worry we will save them and we 
can send them out to the presenters to get an  

00:47:03.120 --> 00:47:09.600
answer for your question in a future email via 
the email address that you registered with but for  

00:47:09.600 --> 00:47:15.600
Ed so one question was about transects on 
the water and how exactly are they done

00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:24.640
okay they're they by the way they they run from 
they're very optimistic they're basically as we  

00:47:24.640 --> 00:47:30.000
go out to do our health and risk assessment we've 
been doing a pair more recently a pair of transect  

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.120
legs that run out of Maaleaa harbor and around the 
corner another leg goes around the corner into the  

00:47:35.120 --> 00:47:39.920
house so we're just trying to add on um they're 
they're done at a slightly different speed than  

00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:44.800
the 10 knots that mark and even are doing because 
at the time we tried to mirror what Pacific Whale  

00:47:44.800 --> 00:47:49.840
Foundation was doing they had been doing transects 
and they were at that time we're doing 14 knots  

00:47:49.840 --> 00:47:55.280
we're trying to again once again build upon an 
existing data set trying to compromise there  

00:47:55.280 --> 00:48:01.840
so 14 knots to observers very standard fare 
they're trained and you know we do this   

00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:10.080
standard what do I say checks of 
distances and everything and and collect those  

00:48:10.080 --> 00:48:15.600
sightings over a set period of time on those days 
we're going out hopefully I answered the question.

00:48:19.200 --> 00:48:27.840
Thank you Ed. Awesome  so we do have a few 
other questions coming in but I think on time  

00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:33.520
wise maybe we should just move on to our next 
presenter and we'll save your questions for the  

00:48:33.520 --> 00:48:41.920
later discussion period sounds good thank 
you Cindy okay so our next presenter is  

00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:49.840
my good friend and colleague Dr Adam Pack who is a 
full professor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo  

00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:55.120
and the founder and director of the UH Hilo 
Marine Mammal Laboratory and co-founder and  

00:48:55.120 --> 00:49:00.720
president of the Dolphin Institute he has been 
conducting humpback whale research in Hawaii for  

00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:07.200
over 25 years and is and in southeast Alaska 
since 2007. his research findings have been  

00:49:07.200 --> 00:49:14.000
widely published and have been featured in a 
variety of documentary films Dr Pack also  

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.560
previously served as the chair of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Council  

00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:24.480
and his presentation today is titled are the 
pressures of humpback whale motherhood in Hawaiian  

00:49:24.480 --> 00:49:32.320
waters reflected in stress-related steroid hormone 
concentrations so Adam go ahead and take it away.

00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:38.560
Thank you Marc appreciate it aloha everybody

00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:51.680
I'm delighted to be here to be speaking 
to you today about a project that is very  

00:49:51.680 --> 00:49:58.240
broad-based but the Sanctuary has helped us 
with some funding to focus on one of the questions  

00:49:58.240 --> 00:50:03.600
are the pressures of humpback whale motherhood 
in Hawaiian waters reflected in stress-related  

00:50:03.600 --> 00:50:09.040
steroid hormone concentrations and I'd 
like to acknowledge uh all these people  

00:50:09.040 --> 00:50:14.560
that you see on the screen here and their 
organizations this is a very large scale  

00:50:14.560 --> 00:50:20.320
effort involving researchers not only 
from the Hawaiian islands but also the  

00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:26.800
Alaska Whale Foundation and University of Alaska 
Fairbanks and I'm very grateful to be part of this  

00:50:26.800 --> 00:50:40.320
very talented group of people and also great 
grateful to be um sponsored by the Sanctuary

00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:45.840
since this in cessation of 20th century 
commercial whaling there has been an  

00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:54.160
incredible rebound of north Pacific humpback 
whale abundance uh on on the order of many fold so  

00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:01.120
uh from 1500 to estimated 2 000 
in the 1970s all the way up to  

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:09.440
the numbers from the SPLASH project in 2006 of 
over 20 000 humpback whales in the north Pacific  

00:51:09.440 --> 00:51:14.400
and this is mirrored by the increase that 
we see in what's been termed the distinct  

00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:22.560
population segment of Hawaii where in the 1970s it 
was estimated that there were less than a thousand  

00:51:22.560 --> 00:51:32.320
whales migrating to Hawaii and compare that to 
in 2006 over 10 000 so an incredible rebound  

00:51:34.080 --> 00:51:40.960
coupled with a six percent annual 
increase in the abundance of the whales  

00:51:40.960 --> 00:51:48.400
this led NOAA in 2016 to consider and 
eventually to delist the Hawaii distinct  

00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:54.640
population segment from its endangered 
status however ironically in that same year  

00:51:56.240 --> 00:52:02.960
in Hawaii mariners out of sea well-watched 
boats and researchers were puzzled by the  

00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:09.440
fact that it appeared compared to earlier years 
that there were less whales present in that year  

00:52:11.040 --> 00:52:16.800
there were debates about whether the whales were 
coming down slower that year there's usually a  

00:52:17.520 --> 00:52:25.360
plus or minus two week um you know influx of the 
whales maybe that was it but nonetheless over  

00:52:25.360 --> 00:52:33.040
the course of the season definitely people were 
concerned about less whales and less calves even  

00:52:33.040 --> 00:52:39.520
in the Sanctuary's own great whale count there 
are approximately half the number of whales in  

00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:49.200
2016 than were counted in February of 2015 that 
you see here and follow-up scientific studies  

00:52:49.840 --> 00:52:55.360
by some of the people that you've heard 
speaking here confirmed that indeed  

00:52:56.720 --> 00:53:06.080
there were less whales coming down in 2016 this 
actually could be dated back to 2013 and in our  

00:53:06.080 --> 00:53:13.920
um on the feeding grounds our collaborators up 
there there such as Chris Gabriel and Jan Straley  

00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:19.840
were noticing many skinny whales in those 
years hardly any calves it was a big concern  

00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:26.960
so what happened well I think as you heard 
yesterday there were three warming events  

00:53:26.960 --> 00:53:35.920
that kind of coincided together one was a an El 
Nino a natural warming event and the second  

00:53:35.920 --> 00:53:43.360
also natural negative Pacific decadal oscillation 
a little bit of a longer warming event than the  

00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:50.240
El Nino but the third one was this marine heat 
wave which actually could be traced back to 2013  

00:53:51.040 --> 00:53:56.160
fondly known as the blob this was an 
increase in sea surface temperatures  

00:53:56.160 --> 00:54:01.680
a decrease in surface winds resulting in a 
decrease in the what's very important this  

00:54:01.680 --> 00:54:07.920
upwelling of cold and warm water mixing 
as a consequence less nutrient-rich water  

00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:14.560
and as a further consequence reduc reduced 
phytoplankton and zooplankton in the marine  

00:54:14.560 --> 00:54:21.200
environment leading to problems for those fish 
stocks that and marine mammals that feed on  

00:54:21.920 --> 00:54:26.320
those  critters and so this 
affected the whales as well

00:54:28.560 --> 00:54:36.240
and it was such a concern that in 2018 uh 
Marc Lammers and Ed Lyman brought together  

00:54:36.240 --> 00:54:44.080
researchers and and  agency representatives 
to the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National  

00:54:44.080 --> 00:54:50.880
Marine Sanctuary to discuss these trends 
in humpback whale abundance distribution and  

00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:57.760
health in Hawaii and Alaska in relation to 
these climate events and as part of this 

00:54:59.520 --> 00:55:07.040
as part of this effort we identified different 
priorities where we saw knowledge gaps and the  

00:55:07.040 --> 00:55:13.200
priorities in terms of research effort priority 
one was the distribution of whales but priority  

00:55:13.200 --> 00:55:18.960
two in terms of a knowledge gap was population 
health including the collection of blubber  

00:55:18.960 --> 00:55:25.280
for stress hormone biomarker analysis in 
conjunction with unmanned aerial vehicle  

00:55:25.280 --> 00:55:33.680
UAV morphometrics basically drone body condition 
and this led us to consider the current study  

00:55:33.680 --> 00:55:38.000
we're interested in examining stress 
hormone biomarker concentrations  

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:44.400
in conjunction with drone measured body condition 
in humpback whale mothers in Hawaiian waters

00:55:46.640 --> 00:55:54.320
and this is part of a much larger effort that 
Martin yet talked about yesterday  in which  

00:55:54.320 --> 00:55:58.720
we're looking at all these different types of 
whales and different age classes across the  

00:55:58.720 --> 00:56:04.720
season but our focus here was on mothers because 
humpback whale mothers arguably experience some  

00:56:04.720 --> 00:56:11.120
of the greatest natural stress in the breeding 
grounds for example like other adults mothers  

00:56:11.120 --> 00:56:17.760
fast and they've got to rely on metabolized 
fat that they've accumulated from feeding  

00:56:18.640 --> 00:56:23.120
over the summer months in Alaska for their 
own energy needs but for mothers they  

00:56:23.120 --> 00:56:28.560
also have to rely on that for their the needs 
of their calf the energy needs of their calf  

00:56:29.600 --> 00:56:34.480
because they have a calf mothers have an 
extended residency period in the Hawaiian  

00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:40.080
islands while they're fasting which we've 
documented can last as long as 51 days  

00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:47.120
and we also know from some of our earlier work 
that mothers tend to segregate themselves and  

00:56:47.120 --> 00:56:55.440
their calves into shallow water to avoid male 
harassment let's take a look at that last item for  

00:56:55.440 --> 00:57:03.200
a second so we know from our years of work in the 
Hawaiian islands that females without calf have a  

00:57:03.200 --> 00:57:09.760
much higher reproductive potential than females 
with calf okay and so that male that you see on  

00:57:09.760 --> 00:57:16.320
the right hand side there that in the singing 
posture those males tend to gravitate towards  

00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:22.480
these females without calf because basically they 
have a greater chance of ovulating but nonetheless  

00:57:23.600 --> 00:57:29.680
some males prospect for mating opportunities among 
mothers and that's what you see here there's a  

00:57:29.680 --> 00:57:37.760
mother and calf and a single escort  basically 
checking out that mom to see if she's ovulating  

00:57:38.640 --> 00:57:46.960
now when there are more than one escorts this can 
lead to competition between males over that mother  

00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:54.240
that can be costly here you see two males that are 
engaged in a physical contest competition and that  

00:57:55.200 --> 00:58:01.120
red marking there are basically raw patches in 
the rostral tubercle so these can lead to injuries  

00:58:02.720 --> 00:58:10.560
in terms of the cost to mothers this is twofold 
one is that a very important mother calf bond  

00:58:11.200 --> 00:58:17.200
this is an example here a video i took 
several years ago of a mom calf and there  

00:58:17.200 --> 00:58:25.120
was a single escort there but along the way 
two adult males came in kicked the single escort  

00:58:25.120 --> 00:58:32.880
out and then straw started trying to mount the 
mother the  calf ended up being separated by  

00:58:32.880 --> 00:58:38.880
the mother for a considerable amount of time and 
ultimately after being pursued by these whales she  

00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:45.200
was able to pick up that calf so let's just take a 
look at the beginning of this with your mother it  

00:58:45.200 --> 00:58:51.600
has the white on her pectoral fins towards the 
top and you'll see the beginning of this video  

00:58:52.480 --> 00:58:57.280
there's the mom there's the two males there's 
one male coming up to mount her you can see his  

00:58:57.280 --> 00:59:05.280
penis extruded she's trying to evade that he's 
nonetheless wrapping his pectoral fin around her  

00:59:05.280 --> 00:59:13.120
and that pursuit happened for a variety of minutes 
the cap you don't see in that video normally  

00:59:13.120 --> 00:59:18.640
a calf is close to the mom that calf at that 
point was circling our boat and producing a lot  

00:59:18.640 --> 00:59:25.280
of contact calls eventually the mother came and 
picked up the cap so there are costs to the mother  

00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:34.000
calf bond with in terms of male harassment another 
has to do with the expenditure of energy during  

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:42.320
high-speed competition so if a mother's got two or 
more escorts with her their speed may increase  

00:59:42.320 --> 00:59:47.920
and this may cause unnecessary expenditure of 
energy that really she should be reserving for  

00:59:47.920 --> 00:59:54.400
herself and her calf the growth of her calf this 
is a quick video just to show you the speed  

00:59:54.400 --> 00:59:59.760
of these animals moving along in a competitive 
group this is our work with National Geographic's  

00:59:59.760 --> 01:00:05.440
remote imaging department putting critter cam on 
the back of a humpback whale and this happens to  

01:00:05.440 --> 01:00:13.840
be a backward facing camera which just shows 
you the group of whales all trekking along

01:00:28.720 --> 01:00:35.120
in fact we wanted to take a deeper look at this 
swimming speed of calf pods and so here's our on  

01:00:35.120 --> 01:00:41.600
the left hand side you see our shore station 
that's a theodolite  which gives elevation in  

01:00:41.600 --> 01:00:48.240
azimuth and allows us to pinpoint  in space 
and time the location of a mother calf group  

01:00:48.240 --> 01:00:54.160
and then if we fix that pod several times we 
can calculate the speed as they're moving and  

01:00:54.160 --> 01:00:59.200
on the right hand side what you see is a 
positive correlation between the number of  

01:00:59.200 --> 01:01:06.000
escorts in calf pods and the swimming speed the 
median swimming speed and there's a it increases  

01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:14.000
basically that swimming speed as you get more 
and more escorts which is a form of harassment

01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:22.560
 we also found that as the number of escorts 
increased in calf pods the median depth also  

01:01:22.560 --> 01:01:28.400
increases so they're found in deeper water 
when they're moving fast and as a consequence  

01:01:28.400 --> 01:01:34.960
what we found is that mothers tend to prefer so 
these are calf pods tend to prefer these shallow  

01:01:34.960 --> 01:01:41.120
waters compared to non-calf pods in order to avoid 
these energetically costly associations with males  

01:01:42.720 --> 01:01:49.760
so given in its totality these energetic related 
pressures on mothers and that a healthy mother  

01:01:49.760 --> 01:01:56.560
is indeed key for ensuring the health and success 
of her calf we deemed it a priority first to start  

01:01:56.560 --> 01:02:02.400
trying to understand the natural stress response 
of mothers and how this is related to their body  

01:02:02.400 --> 01:02:09.840
conditions the area that we're working is the um 
four island region the Maui Nui region between  

01:02:09.840 --> 01:02:17.120
Maui Moloka'i Lanai and Kaho'olawe this area 
for years has boasted the greatest density  

01:02:17.120 --> 01:02:22.080
of humpback whales in the Hawaiian islands 
as well as the greatest density of calves  

01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:30.640
and there is three streams of data that  
encompass this effort so the first has to do  

01:02:30.640 --> 01:02:38.560
with these biomarkers from 2004 to present time 
we've been studying steroid hormone concentrations  

01:02:38.560 --> 01:02:43.120
and humpback whales to learn about their 
reproductive and physical health and behavior  

01:02:43.680 --> 01:02:50.640
 so here you see on the left hand side i'm on 
the Sanctuary boat there I've got a crossbow this  

01:02:50.640 --> 01:03:00.000
is a fixed with a dart with a stainless steel 
tip and the idea is to fire this dart bounces off  

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:06.000
the whale and extracts a very small piece of skin 
and blubber about the size of a pencil eraser  

01:03:06.560 --> 01:03:12.960
and so for years we've been gathering these and 
so we can have a large enough sample size and our  

01:03:12.960 --> 01:03:19.120
first studies looked at male testosterone 
and female progesterone and what we found  

01:03:19.120 --> 01:03:27.520
and this also engaged collaborative researchers 
from Alaska was that testosterone concentrations  

01:03:27.520 --> 01:03:34.160
in males were on average greater than in Alaska 
as one might expect because of course this is the  

01:03:34.160 --> 01:03:40.000
breeding grounds of those of the feeding grounds 
we also found seasonal variability in testosterone  

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:46.000
on average with the highest occurring in the 
winter and spring again during the breeding season  

01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:54.880
and the lowest in the summer feeding season but 
a nice ramp up in the fall now testosterone that  

01:03:54.880 --> 01:04:00.960
ramp up is going to precede the production of of 
spermatogenesis in the production of sperm which  

01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:07.600
of course is critical for mating so there's this 
uh lag there where you see testosterone increase  

01:04:07.600 --> 01:04:15.280
followed by the production of sperm and when 
we just look at the breeding season in Hawaii  

01:04:15.280 --> 01:04:21.120
what we see is that humpback whales are 
what called capital breeders there's a at  

01:04:21.120 --> 01:04:26.480
the beginning of this season there's very high 
testosterone and then it tends to decrease on  

01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:32.880
average over the course of the season we see this 
overall here's where you'd expect the height of  

01:04:33.760 --> 01:04:38.640
spermatogenesis and the production of sperm 
because this is where the majority of whales are  

01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:45.040
coming February and March and this on the right 
is on the individual basis so these are four males  

01:04:45.040 --> 01:04:50.640
that were biopsied twice and you can see that 
the second which occurred later in the season  

01:04:50.640 --> 01:04:57.680
is considerably lower turning our attention now to 
progesterone in females progesterone concentration  

01:04:58.240 --> 01:05:02.480
on average appears to increase 
over the season as we would expect  

01:05:03.280 --> 01:05:08.880
high progesterone may be indicative of course of 
not just ovulation but of a pregnant female and  

01:05:08.880 --> 01:05:17.920
so we would expect that over time when we look 
specifically at females with 10 nanograms or  

01:05:17.920 --> 01:05:24.720
greater progesterone concentration which we've 
deemed indicative using this enzo assay of  

01:05:24.720 --> 01:05:30.000
pregnancy we see that the percent of females 
with progesterone concentration in indicating  

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:35.840
likely pregnancy increases over the season as one 
would expect more females are getting pregnant  

01:05:36.720 --> 01:05:43.040
when we take those out of the mix very 
nicely what we see is females with  

01:05:43.040 --> 01:05:50.800
elevated progesterone that are not pregnant occur 
right there in February March that's the peak  

01:05:50.800 --> 01:05:55.760
we know of humpback whale season when the 
majority of whales are down here and when there's  

01:05:55.760 --> 01:06:01.920
the majority of aggression that goes back to work 
from Scott Baker and Lou Herman back in the 1980s  

01:06:02.880 --> 01:06:10.400
and in fact if we look at what groups progesterone 
in females is elevated in it's these competitive  

01:06:10.400 --> 01:06:15.040
groups where the males are competing over 
female compared to the non-competitive  

01:06:16.880 --> 01:06:21.440
so now moving on to stress stress 
level is determined by measuring  

01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:26.880
steroid hormone concentrations related to what 
we call the stress response and there are two  

01:06:26.880 --> 01:06:32.400
types of stress hormones we were interested in 
collectively called the glucocorticoids cortisol  

01:06:32.960 --> 01:06:39.440
which tends to be a good indicator in female 
humpback whales and corticosterone which seems  

01:06:39.440 --> 01:06:45.120
to be a good indicator in males these are both 
produced in mammals in response to stressors  

01:06:45.120 --> 01:06:50.480
how does that stress response work 
well when you have a stressor this  

01:06:50.480 --> 01:06:56.240
activates what's called the HPA axis in all 
mammals the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal  

01:06:56.960 --> 01:07:04.000
HPA axis is triggered this in turn triggers the 
adrenal glands to release these glucocorticoids  

01:07:04.640 --> 01:07:10.400
cortisol and corticosterone and this in turn 
does things like alter behavior increase blood  

01:07:10.400 --> 01:07:16.000
glucose inhibit growth and reproduction 
and suppress the immune system however  

01:07:16.880 --> 01:07:25.120
there is a negative feedback loop that you see 
right here which basically moderates that release  

01:07:25.120 --> 01:07:30.560
so if you have a short term stressor you 
may have an initial release but very quickly  

01:07:30.560 --> 01:07:34.960
it suppresses that because the stressor's 
over with however when you've got  

01:07:34.960 --> 01:07:41.360
chronic stress this leads to chronic elevations 
of glucocorticoids that can be detrimental to  

01:07:41.360 --> 01:07:47.280
endocrine function and health and so we are 
interested in looking at short-term stress  

01:07:47.280 --> 01:07:54.560
and potential long-term stress in humpback whale 
mothers measuring cortisol and cortisone koster

01:07:57.600 --> 01:08:03.200
concentrations of course they can be measured 
in blood even in saliva but that's impractical  

01:08:03.200 --> 01:08:09.920
for humpback whales these glucocorticoids 
can accumulate however in blubber over the  

01:08:09.920 --> 01:08:18.560
course of hours which is nice because it actually 
lends to the examination of long-term stressors  

01:08:18.560 --> 01:08:24.000
rather than just a brief short-term stressor 
and so this can be measured in the blubber  

01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:30.000
using our biopsy sampling technique so here 
you're going to see the technique in action  

01:08:30.880 --> 01:08:36.400
the arrow is going to be released the sterile 
tip's going to touch the whale come off with  

01:08:36.400 --> 01:08:42.720
a small sample and importantly this person on 
the right is documenting everything including  

01:08:42.720 --> 01:08:49.200
the biopsy sampling but also getting ready for 
a fluke photograph afterwards let's take a look

01:08:51.600 --> 01:08:53.520
there's the sample nice one

01:08:57.440 --> 01:09:05.840
and the photographer's 
getting ready for a fluke ID

01:09:06.400 --> 01:09:14.720
now uh those fluke ids are critical to our efforts 
because they are the backbone of so many studies

01:09:18.800 --> 01:09:24.560
tail flukes as you know the ventral surface are 
unique to each whale they can range in coloration  

01:09:24.560 --> 01:09:31.040
patterns white and black from all black to all 
right and combined with the serrations on  

01:09:31.040 --> 01:09:37.520
the trailing edge which are also unique to these 
whales can help to identify individuals our own  

01:09:37.520 --> 01:09:44.640
archival photographic catalog which was started 
by my mentor Lou Herman back in the early 1970s  

01:09:44.640 --> 01:09:52.640
now numbers over 25 000 photographic observations 
of more than 5 000 individuals and so working  

01:09:52.640 --> 01:09:57.920
together with our catalog Happy Whale as 
Ed Lyman just mentioned and our partners at  

01:09:57.920 --> 01:10:03.200
Pacific Whale Foundation and these others 
we can start finding matches like you see  

01:10:03.200 --> 01:10:10.480
here this is a this whale was cited in 1996 and 
again much earlier in 1980 and they can help us  

01:10:10.480 --> 01:10:15.920
to generate life histories of the whales this 
whale happens to be one we've been following  

01:10:15.920 --> 01:10:20.800
for over 30 years and now with the catalog 
we've been following whales for over 40 years  

01:10:21.360 --> 01:10:26.800
and some of these whales we've seen as calves 
and that's key to determining their exact  

01:10:26.800 --> 01:10:33.680
age or their minimum age for example in a 
recent study by Kelly Cates and our group  

01:10:33.680 --> 01:10:41.520
we found that corticosterone peaks in adult males 
that's stress hormone from 15 to 25 years of age  

01:10:41.520 --> 01:10:46.800
and this happens to overlap the peak range 
of lifetime testosterone concentration in  

01:10:46.800 --> 01:10:52.400
males those are the first two data streams 
the third data stream is body condition  

01:10:54.320 --> 01:11:01.120
early on in the 2000s our own group developed 
a technology called underwater videogrammetry  

01:11:01.120 --> 01:11:06.800
for measuring humpback whale body length at sea 
while recording behavior and sex and this involved  

01:11:06.800 --> 01:11:14.080
a snorkeler at the surface with a video camera 
and also using a high frequency sonar device  

01:11:14.080 --> 01:11:17.680
basically a fish finder to measure the 
distance from the camera to the whale  

01:11:18.320 --> 01:11:24.240
so the snorkeler attains lateral views of 
 the body happens to be a mother calf here  

01:11:25.440 --> 01:11:29.840
gets a distance which is critical to 
measuring the length of that mother  

01:11:30.560 --> 01:11:37.680
and then offline measures the image length 
in pixels on a computer and with all that  

01:11:37.680 --> 01:11:43.600
information can determine the true length of 
the whales with little error in the measurement  

01:11:45.600 --> 01:11:52.480
what we found through underwater videogrammetry 
were several things one that larger females  

01:11:52.480 --> 01:12:00.560
tended to attract greater numbers of escorts than 
smaller females so size for females was important  

01:12:00.560 --> 01:12:07.120
and mattered we also found that larger mothers 
tended to produce larger calves so you've got  

01:12:07.120 --> 01:12:13.360
mother length on the X axis here calf length 
and the Y and a nice positive linear correlation  

01:12:14.720 --> 01:12:20.720
and additionally we found that calf size 
significantly increases across the breeding season  

01:12:21.360 --> 01:12:28.080
but also that small perhaps newly born calves 
occur throughout so you this is called ordinal  

01:12:28.080 --> 01:12:33.760
date here this is basically January first is 
one January second is two so all these numbers  

01:12:33.760 --> 01:12:40.160
represent the season and here's calf length in 
meters and what you see is a correlation here but  

01:12:40.160 --> 01:12:48.160
also you've got these very small calves which are 
in line with newly born calves across the season  

01:12:49.520 --> 01:12:54.800
the current study is not using underwater 
videogrammetry we've moved into the modern age  

01:12:54.800 --> 01:13:00.160
we are using a drone like you see 
here there's Stephanie Stack from  

01:13:00.160 --> 01:13:04.560
the Whale Foundation catching our 
drone and Martin is controlling it  

01:13:04.560 --> 01:13:10.080
and this will allow us not just to get body 
link but the full body condition of a will  

01:13:10.080 --> 01:13:17.840
including whether it's healthy or not and 
you see some of these measurements here

01:13:19.120 --> 01:13:24.720
so the current objectives were to assess is stress 
significantly greater in mothers of newly born  

01:13:24.720 --> 01:13:30.400
calves at the end of the breeding season compared 
to the beginning to trends and concentrations of  

01:13:30.400 --> 01:13:35.280
stress hormones and mothers parallel trends 
and body conditions of the same whales  

01:13:35.280 --> 01:13:39.520
are stress hormone concentrations in 
mothers related to the number of escorts  

01:13:40.320 --> 01:13:44.480
and are there significant differences 
in stress hormone concentrations in  

01:13:44.480 --> 01:13:48.880
mothers of newly born calves versus 
mothers of yearlings prior to weaning  

01:13:49.680 --> 01:13:55.040
and so these are just some preliminary results 
I wanted to give you a flavor the grant just  

01:13:55.040 --> 01:14:02.160
came through about a month or so ago and so 
 for this analysis we so far have collected  

01:14:02.160 --> 01:14:10.960
45 biopsy samples from mothers and this includes 
some uh two yearlings and you see 11 in January  

01:14:10.960 --> 01:14:18.960
a 34 in March and varying with numbers of escorts 
allowing us to make some important comparisons an  

01:14:18.960 --> 01:14:24.240
important point part of this is that with the 
fluke matching we found that all the pods that  

01:14:24.240 --> 01:14:30.480
were biopsy sampled contain different mothers so 
in this data set we did not have mothers that were  

01:14:30.480 --> 01:14:36.400
measured in January and then again measured in 
March hopefully that will occur this coming  

01:14:36.400 --> 01:14:42.880
season but with the data set we had we found no 
significant difference in cortisol concentration  

01:14:42.880 --> 01:14:50.800
of mothers with varying number of escorts remember 
that uh that was deemed because of the speed with  

01:14:50.800 --> 01:14:57.440
which the whales were moving a form of potential 
uh harassment to mothers and yet that appears  

01:14:57.440 --> 01:15:01.680
just to be a short-term harassment because we 
don't see any significant difference among these  

01:15:03.440 --> 01:15:09.040
if we look further we see that mothers in 
January have a greater cortisol concentration  

01:15:09.040 --> 01:15:17.840
on average than mothers in March now remember 
the mothers two uh calves of the year are in blue  

01:15:17.840 --> 01:15:21.760
these are different mothers so down 
here this isn't the same mother is this  

01:15:22.560 --> 01:15:29.360
this is a mom to the yearling the three 
that we have and importantly it's elevated so  

01:15:29.360 --> 01:15:38.240
that is a significant stress on moms what's 
going on with these January and March mothers  

01:15:38.240 --> 01:15:42.880
that looks a little strange because what we 
would expect of course is mothers at the end of  

01:15:42.880 --> 01:15:48.400
the season to have elevated cortisol because of 
all the time they've been spending down there  

01:15:48.400 --> 01:15:54.960
so we wanted to take a little bit of a closer look 
and so here's just the mothers plotted against  

01:15:54.960 --> 01:16:00.400
calves of the year here are the January ones 
this is cortisol on the Y-axis here's day of  

01:16:00.400 --> 01:16:06.640
the year so this is going across the season 
and what you notice in March is two clusters  

01:16:08.080 --> 01:16:15.520
and that's interesting this cluster 
may coincide with the females   

01:16:16.160 --> 01:16:24.160
mothers basically coming down recently in other 
words that because we didn't find any matches  

01:16:24.160 --> 01:16:32.720
these may represent mothers that have just newly 
arrived in March and therefore have not been  

01:16:32.720 --> 01:16:38.000
down for a very long time in the breeding 
grounds fasting what about these whales here  

01:16:38.000 --> 01:16:45.200
these three females wanted to take a closer 
look at them so here you have a plot and   

01:16:46.160 --> 01:16:53.120
thanks to Lars Bider and Martin we were able 
to get the measurements from them of two  

01:16:54.000 --> 01:17:01.200
 newly born calves so we've got calf body length 
here and these different rolls here so about  

01:17:01.200 --> 01:17:08.240
three and a half to three point nine meters which 
fits with our videogrammetry work here are the  

01:17:08.240 --> 01:17:14.400
mothers to these  three calves we were talking 
about here's the mother cortisol all elevated  

01:17:14.400 --> 01:17:21.760
for those three and here's the calf lengths notice 
these three are much greater than these newly ones  

01:17:21.760 --> 01:17:27.920
that were deemed newly born that indirectly 
may be an indicator that those mothers have  

01:17:27.920 --> 01:17:34.480
actually been down in the breeding grounds for a 
long period of time and some suggestive evidence  

01:17:35.440 --> 01:17:41.040
that fasting over that residency that 
long residency may lead to elevated  

01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:48.160
cortisol concentration in mothers so to summarize 
the preliminary data we found the number of  

01:17:48.160 --> 01:17:53.600
escorts with a mom calf pair may be a short-term 
stressor we didn't find a significant difference  

01:17:53.600 --> 01:17:59.520
in cortisol concentration with numbers of calf 
the numbers of escorts we found that cortisol  

01:17:59.520 --> 01:18:06.000
concentration in moms to yearlings may represent a 
significant stress and that's interesting because  

01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:12.720
of the data coming out of Martin PhD work 
which is showing that moms to yearlings actually  

01:18:12.720 --> 01:18:17.200
are not in that great shape because they've 
been offloading that energy to their calves  

01:18:18.480 --> 01:18:23.680
since they were born including up on the 
feeding grounds and then we found that  

01:18:23.680 --> 01:18:30.480
cortisol concentration was lower on average for 
moms mid-season compared to early season but  

01:18:30.480 --> 01:18:37.440
this appears to represent lower cortisol in moms 
perhaps of recently born calves and this other  

01:18:37.440 --> 01:18:44.800
group of higher cortisol higher than any of the 
other in the data set of moms that combined with  

01:18:44.800 --> 01:18:51.760
the calf size seems to suggest that those moms have 
been here for a longer period of time so perhaps  

01:18:51.760 --> 01:18:58.080
a more sustained level of stress in moms over 
the course of the season while they're fasting  

01:18:59.040 --> 01:19:05.760
now ultimately why is this important to establish 
baseline stress levels in mothers well aside from  

01:19:05.760 --> 01:19:11.760
the climatic events that I talked about earlier 
humpback whales in general are subject to a  

01:19:11.760 --> 01:19:17.200
variety of stressors even though they've been 
recovered Ed Lyman talked about some of these  

01:19:17.200 --> 01:19:24.640
entanglement vessel strikes and even human-made 
noise it's important therefore if we're going to  

01:19:24.640 --> 01:19:30.000
try to understand the stress that these whales 
are under from these anthropogenic effects  

01:19:30.720 --> 01:19:37.280
that or even the climatic events that we are 
able to first establish a baseline of natural  

01:19:37.280 --> 01:19:43.440
stress in these animals under their normal 
conditions to give this some perspective at  

01:19:43.440 --> 01:19:50.800
the end here in addition to the mothers we 
also biopsy sampled two health compromised  

01:19:50.800 --> 01:19:59.520
adult non-mother females from 2021. the first 
January 15th this was a female covered in whale  

01:19:59.520 --> 01:20:08.560
lice and moving very slowly and emaciated and you 
see here here on the left the carpet of whale lice  

01:20:08.560 --> 01:20:14.000
and on the right here is a highly emaciated 
you can see the dent here and you can see  

01:20:14.000 --> 01:20:18.080
that the bones are not protruding but 
there's like hardly any fat on this whale  

01:20:18.640 --> 01:20:24.800
this was a a female that had been entangled Ed 
Lyman was involved with this Rachel Cartwright saw  

01:20:24.800 --> 01:20:31.840
it earlier highly emaciated and when we saw it in 
Maaleaa Bay it had several tiger sharks around it  

01:20:33.360 --> 01:20:38.800
well this is right off the press a couple of 
days ago but when we looked at the cortisol  

01:20:38.800 --> 01:20:45.200
concentrations of what we know are health 
compromised females we found this here are  

01:20:45.200 --> 01:20:54.720
the two adult female health compromised their 
magnitudes of uh order higher in cortisol stress  

01:20:54.720 --> 01:21:00.240
hormone concentration than those mothers to calves 
on average or the mothers to yearling and the  

01:21:00.240 --> 01:21:07.200
entangled female was up at 10 so this is a median 
cortisol here was up at 10 and the carpeted whale  

01:21:07.200 --> 01:21:14.400
and whale ice was about five and so that's the 
median of that but it goes to show you that this  

01:21:14.400 --> 01:21:22.720
data is very rich and it can help us to really 
understand how what normal baseline stress is as  

01:21:22.720 --> 01:21:30.640
well as what it is when whales are highly stressed 
and compromised through all of these studies  

01:21:30.640 --> 01:21:37.440
the goal is to promote a healthy population of 
humpback whales for the whales themselves and for  

01:21:37.440 --> 01:21:43.200
future generations they can enjoy the whales and 
protect them in these waters that we call home  

01:21:44.800 --> 01:21:50.560
and with that I will say mahalo thanks to all 
of my collaborators thanks to the Sanctuary  

01:21:50.560 --> 01:21:57.360
for providing the initial funding that was 
important to getting these data analyzed mahalo.

01:22:03.600 --> 01:22:09.440
Thank you Adam. That was that was amazing 
boy it really highlights some of the the  

01:22:09.440 --> 01:22:17.200
challenges that these these female you 
know these these whale mothers are facing so 

01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:22.000
I look forward to hopefully having some more 
discussion about this and answering some questions  

01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:26.160
about it but in the interest of time right 
now we'll just kind of transition to the next  

01:22:26.800 --> 01:22:34.080
presentation and so if folks can please put 
any questions they have in the chat for for Adam  

01:22:34.640 --> 01:22:39.680
we will we will answer them um you know you'll 
ask on them when we get to our discussion section.  

01:22:40.880 --> 01:22:48.800
So the next speaker is our next presenter 
is Haley Rob who grew up here in Maui and has  

01:22:48.800 --> 01:22:52.480
been involved with Whale Trust since 
she was in elementary school student  

01:22:52.480 --> 01:22:58.480
when she attended Whale Trust's keiki 
program she has been a research assistant  

01:22:58.480 --> 01:23:03.520
for them since completing her undergraduate 
degree at the University of Victoria in 2018  

01:23:04.160 --> 01:23:07.440
and she is now a PhD student at the 
University of California Santa Cruz.  

01:23:08.400 --> 01:23:12.560
Haley will be collaborating with Whale Trust 
for her PhD dissertation which will focus on  

01:23:12.560 --> 01:23:18.160
reproductive behavior and physiology of humpbacks 
here in Hawaii. Unfortunately Haley could not join  

01:23:18.160 --> 01:23:22.720
us in person today due to the scheduling 
conflict but she has agreed to share a  

01:23:22.720 --> 01:23:28.160
pre-recorded presentation titled assessing female 
humpback whale reproductive status condition  

01:23:28.160 --> 01:23:34.320
and behavior in Hawaii.  So Cindy if you 
could please play Haley's presentation  

01:23:36.000 --> 01:23:41.440
yes and just a quick note for folks if 
the video shows up and you're not seeing  

01:23:41.440 --> 01:23:46.320
anything it might be a new window that go 
to webinar opened up so you might have to  

01:23:47.680 --> 01:23:52.480
minimize some front word windows that 
you may have to see the video so just a

01:23:54.560 --> 01:24:01.840
side note but all right I am 
going to show Haley's presentation.

01:24:07.280 --> 01:24:12.480
Aloha everyone my name is Haley Robb and 
I am a PhD student at the University of  

01:24:12.480 --> 01:24:19.200
California Santa Cruz in the Costa lab I am 
also a research associate for Whale Trust  

01:24:19.200 --> 01:24:24.160
and have been working for them since I was a 
high school student so today I'm going to talk  

01:24:24.160 --> 01:24:30.160
about some of the ongoing efforts and research 
conducted by Whale Trust and Dr Megan Jones Gray  

01:24:30.160 --> 01:24:34.800
and how that's going to contribute to my PhD
dissertation as well as what that's going to  

01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:40.160
look like for our upcoming field season I would 
first like to apologize that unfortunately we  

01:24:40.160 --> 01:24:45.920
are not able to provide this talk live both 
Megan and I had obligations during this time  

01:24:45.920 --> 01:24:50.000
but i would like to thank the Sanctuary 
for the opportunity to still participate  

01:24:50.560 --> 01:24:57.840
as well as for the grant that we received that 
will be contributing to our upcoming field season

01:25:02.560 --> 01:25:07.760
just to provide a little background on who 
we are and the work that we do Whale Trust  

01:25:07.760 --> 01:25:13.760
is a small non-profit that was established 20 
years ago with the mission to conduct support  

01:25:13.760 --> 01:25:19.760
and promote scientific research and education 
programs on whales and the marine environment

01:25:22.800 --> 01:25:26.880
Whale Trust's research initiatives 
have focused on the natural behavior  

01:25:26.880 --> 01:25:30.880
and communication of humpback whales 
within the breeding grounds here in Hawaii  

01:25:31.600 --> 01:25:35.920
more specifically research has focused 
on understanding the social function of  

01:25:35.920 --> 01:25:41.040
humpback whale song and the nature of male and 
female interactions on the breeding grounds  

01:25:42.400 --> 01:25:46.960
through our research on humpback whale song 
whale trust discovered that singing males  

01:25:46.960 --> 01:25:52.640
attracted other males leading us to ask what 
role do females play on the breeding grounds  

01:25:52.640 --> 01:25:57.920
and how might female reproductive status 
or where she is in her reproductive cycle  

01:25:58.560 --> 01:26:05.520
influence male and female interactions for 
instance do males and females behavior towards  

01:26:05.520 --> 01:26:10.960
each other differ based on whether a female 
is already pregnant and ready to give birth  

01:26:10.960 --> 01:26:17.600
or if she is trying to become pregnant previous 
research by Whale Trust has shown that female  

01:26:17.600 --> 01:26:23.520
reproductive status is an important driver 
of these dynamics but we were limited in what  

01:26:23.520 --> 01:26:28.480
we could say about female reproductive status 
other than the presence or an absence of a calf

01:26:33.680 --> 01:26:37.760
for this project we are interested 
in understanding the drivers behind  

01:26:37.760 --> 01:26:44.720
female behavior and group dynamics particularly 
we are interested in if hormone concentrations  

01:26:44.720 --> 01:26:48.000
can be used to infer reproductive state of females  

01:26:48.000 --> 01:26:52.560
within the breeding grounds and beyond 
that we are hoping to then correlate this  

01:26:52.560 --> 01:26:57.520
information with the types of behaviors and 
groupings that we commonly see in here in Hawaii

01:27:01.840 --> 01:27:08.720
so why are we interested in hormones hormones are 
chemical messengers that the body uses to regulate  

01:27:08.720 --> 01:27:16.000
certain biological and behavioral responses they 
are important in growth development metabolism  

01:27:16.720 --> 01:27:23.760
behavior and mood so in order to more accurately 
assess female reproductive status and condition  

01:27:23.760 --> 01:27:28.640
we decided to take a closer look at 
the hormone profiles of humpback whales

01:27:31.760 --> 01:27:38.240
in particular steroid sex hormones such 
as progesterone estrogens and androgens  

01:27:38.240 --> 01:27:43.760
play a very important role in regulating the 
reproductive cycle because of the role they play  

01:27:43.760 --> 01:27:49.040
in reproduction these steroid sex hormones 
will fluctuate within the body over time  

01:27:49.040 --> 01:27:54.160
and depending on the reproductive status of 
the individual there are several hormones that  

01:27:54.160 --> 01:28:00.320
play important roles in female reproduction 
including progesterone estrogens like estriol  

01:28:00.320 --> 01:28:07.360
estradiol and estrone and androgens like 
androstenedione and testosterone and it is our  

01:28:07.360 --> 01:28:12.480
goal to be able to detect the differences in these 
levels across females during the breeding season  

01:28:13.600 --> 01:28:20.000
additionally cortisol is an important indicator 
of stress levels so cortisol will provide us a  

01:28:20.000 --> 01:28:27.840
valuable indicator of stress of the animal 
and how might it affect reproductive success

01:28:31.520 --> 01:28:37.840
previous studies on hormone profiles of pregnant 
humpback females have shown that over the course  

01:28:37.840 --> 01:28:45.120
of the pregnancy progesterone levels will increase 
steadily so progesterone levels have been useful  

01:28:45.120 --> 01:28:50.160
for determining pregnancy status within the 
feeding grounds of the Antarctic compact whales

01:28:53.840 --> 01:28:59.200
a study conducted in Australia during the breeding 
season suggested that progesterone levels may  

01:28:59.200 --> 01:29:04.800
drop near the end of pregnancy and levels of 
androstenedione and testosterone will spike  

01:29:05.520 --> 01:29:11.200
therefore in the breeding grounds where we 
have females in various reproductive states  

01:29:11.200 --> 01:29:17.120
such as newly pregnant females or females about to 
give birth and females that are not yet pregnant  

01:29:17.120 --> 01:29:21.440
it is important for us to understand how these 
various reproductive hormones will fluctuate  

01:29:21.440 --> 01:29:27.200
naturally within the population and over time 
and throughout these various reproductive states

01:29:32.560 --> 01:29:37.680
our specific objectives for this study are 
to assess the differences in the accumulation  

01:29:37.680 --> 01:29:42.160
of steroid reproductive hormones and 
stress hormones in humpback whales in  

01:29:42.160 --> 01:29:49.520
hawaii we will be quantifying the levels of six 
reproductive hormones which includes progesterone  

01:29:49.520 --> 01:29:57.440
estrogens and androgens and we will also quantify 
cortisol levels we will then cross validate this  

01:29:57.440 --> 01:30:02.400
data with morphometric measurements including 
the total size and the girth of the whale  

01:30:03.840 --> 01:30:08.480
morphometric data will be useful for 
correlating differences in hormone levels  

01:30:08.480 --> 01:30:14.720
with the size and the condition of the individual 
additionally we will also look at the citing  

01:30:14.720 --> 01:30:20.400
history of the individuals we've sampled this 
will include comparing our whale ID's with those  

01:30:20.400 --> 01:30:25.920
of other researchers to get more information 
on the individuals including the minimum age  

01:30:25.920 --> 01:30:32.240
and how often a female may have produced a calf 
this will also be useful in the future by keeping  

01:30:32.240 --> 01:30:37.360
track of the whales we have already sampled to see 
if they return the following season with a calf

01:30:42.960 --> 01:30:47.840
in Hawaii as I am sure some of you are 
aware we can see various groupings and  

01:30:47.840 --> 01:30:53.920
activity of humpbacks some of the common 
groups we observe here are male and female  

01:30:53.920 --> 01:31:00.320
pairs which we refer to males in groups as 
escorts these pairs tend to rest just below  

01:31:00.320 --> 01:31:06.160
the surface for extended periods of times 
so we refer to them as breath holders or BH  

01:31:06.160 --> 01:31:13.200
for short females can also be present with 
multiple male escorts and in these groups they  

01:31:13.200 --> 01:31:19.920
tend to be more active or competitive so we refer 
to them as surface active groups or SAGs for short  

01:31:20.480 --> 01:31:25.680
but you might be more familiar with them 
with the term competitive groups or comp pods

01:31:27.920 --> 01:31:32.800
we also have females or cows with their 
calf so these are considered cow calf groups  

01:31:33.600 --> 01:31:37.440
we can also have a cow and a 
calf accompanied by a male escort

01:31:39.600 --> 01:31:42.560
we also see surface active groups that have a cow  

01:31:42.560 --> 01:31:46.320
and a calf present in them so 
we refer to these as seg calves

01:31:52.480 --> 01:31:56.160
other groups that may be common 
but not necessarily involve  

01:31:56.160 --> 01:32:00.960
females are lone whales so it's just 
a single whale out there on its own  

01:32:02.720 --> 01:32:06.560
we also of course have singers 
which we know to be males

01:32:09.040 --> 01:32:14.720
and we have pairs but they can may not be 
displaying that typical breath holding patterns  

01:32:15.280 --> 01:32:20.480
that we see when it's a male and a female so they 
could be a male and female or they could both be  

01:32:20.480 --> 01:32:27.520
males so we're not entirely sure they just get the 
term pear we also see trios which just typically  

01:32:27.520 --> 01:32:32.000
describes a group of three whales where there 
may or may not be a female present within them

01:32:36.560 --> 01:32:43.120
over the last five to ten years whale trust has 
been collecting biopsy samples of humpbacks in  

01:32:43.120 --> 01:32:48.080
these different social groups which are currently 
archived at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center  

01:32:48.080 --> 01:32:54.320
with Dr Nick Keller we were hoping to run our 
initial analysis to get a better understanding  

01:32:54.320 --> 01:32:59.440
of the detectability of these hormones and the 
potential range of concentrations present within  

01:32:59.440 --> 01:33:05.600
the breeding grounds unfortunately due to the 
coven 19 pandemic the Southwest Fishery Science  

01:33:05.600 --> 01:33:11.040
Center has been shut down but we are anticipating 
the lab will be open this Fall and we hope that  

01:33:11.040 --> 01:33:16.960
the initial results of this study will be used as 
a foundation to establish a specific direction for  

01:33:16.960 --> 01:33:23.920
my PhD dissertation more specifically it will help 
us determine what groups we need to focus in on  

01:33:23.920 --> 01:33:29.760
and how much data is required to make meaningful 
conclusions the graph here just describes the  

01:33:29.760 --> 01:33:35.840
number of biopsy blubber samples we have collected 
within Hawaii organized by their group type  

01:33:37.680 --> 01:33:42.560
for Hawaii we have a total of 73 
biopsy samples collected so far

01:33:45.760 --> 01:33:53.680
in addition to the 73 samples by whale trust has 
collected in Hawaii we have also 22 biopsy samples  

01:33:53.680 --> 01:33:59.760
obtained from the feeding grounds in the north 
pacific this will serve as a useful comparison  

01:33:59.760 --> 01:34:05.600
to our Hawaii samples as we would expect to see 
differences in reproductive hormones between the  

01:34:05.600 --> 01:34:11.360
breeding grounds and the feeding grounds after 
leaving the breeding grounds here in Hawaii they  

01:34:11.360 --> 01:34:17.280
return to the northern feeding grounds to restore 
their fat reserves this is particularly important  

01:34:17.280 --> 01:34:22.640
for newly pregnant females and new mothers that 
are provisioning their calves so as hormones such  

01:34:22.640 --> 01:34:28.080
as progesterone build or fluctuate over the 
course of a pregnancy their hormone profiles  

01:34:28.080 --> 01:34:34.160
will look different from when they are here to 
when they are in the northern feeding grounds  

01:34:35.840 --> 01:34:41.760
as every species has a unique hormone profile 
it is important for us to understand how these  

01:34:41.760 --> 01:34:50.400
hormones will fluctuate naturally over space and 
time this season will serve as a pilot study or  

01:34:50.400 --> 01:34:55.680
preliminary investigation for my PhD work 
that will be continuing over the next few  

01:34:55.680 --> 01:35:02.960
years the aim of this field season is to collect 
multiple sources of information on an individual  

01:35:02.960 --> 01:35:09.600
to get a more complete picture of the physiology 
and behavioral differences across individuals the  

01:35:09.600 --> 01:35:14.880
information we hope to collect will consist 
of biopsy samples for hormone analyses  

01:35:15.680 --> 01:35:22.400
body size and girth measurements behavioral 
observations and ids of the individuals  

01:35:23.520 --> 01:35:29.280
at this point we are trying to focus on females 
that may be in different reproductive states  

01:35:29.280 --> 01:35:31.680
so we will sample females across multiple group  

01:35:31.680 --> 01:35:36.160
types and roles to capture the variability 
among females within these different roles

01:35:39.760 --> 01:35:44.640
for any large free-ranging whale researchers 
need to be a little more creative with how  

01:35:44.640 --> 01:35:50.160
they can gather certain data although a sample 
of blood or urine would be ideal for determining  

01:35:50.160 --> 01:35:56.160
hormone levels there is no way for us to get 
those materials instead researchers have been  

01:35:56.160 --> 01:36:00.720
collecting biopsy blubber samples for the 
last couple decades which we are then able  

01:36:00.720 --> 01:36:07.200
to extract our hormones from blubber samples 
are collected using a dart with a hollow tip  

01:36:07.200 --> 01:36:12.480
which you can see from this image here the dart 
is released from a crossbow and aimed at the  

01:36:12.480 --> 01:36:18.400
thick part of the blubber which occurs just below 
the dorsal fin the dart bounces off the whale and  

01:36:18.400 --> 01:36:25.760
takes a small sample of blubber and skin about 
an inch deep and biopsy sampling is a common and  

01:36:25.760 --> 01:36:30.640
reliable method for obtaining blubber samples 
which is why it is still predominantly used  

01:36:32.640 --> 01:36:38.240
a review of these methods published in 2011 
found the techniques to have benign effects  

01:36:38.240 --> 01:36:44.960
on the animals with only minor and short-lived 
responses typically when we are planning to  

01:36:44.960 --> 01:36:50.000
collect a sample we will only approach the 
individual after a certain period of time  

01:36:50.000 --> 01:36:55.360
to allow it to become habituated to our presence 
and we will proceed only if we deem it appropriate

01:37:01.600 --> 01:37:08.480
once the blubber has been obtained the first 
step is to extract the lipid out of the blubber  

01:37:08.480 --> 01:37:14.000
which is where the hormones are stored this 
is done in a lab using a series of steps that  

01:37:14.000 --> 01:37:19.840
involve essentially blending the blubber and using 
chemicals to pull out the lipid or fat solution  

01:37:21.360 --> 01:37:26.800
once we have pulled the hormone out of the 
sample we need to measure the concentration  

01:37:27.600 --> 01:37:33.840
to do this we will use what's called an 
enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay or ELISA  

01:37:34.720 --> 01:37:40.480
and for this step we place our samples in a test 
tube that contains a known amount of antibody to  

01:37:40.480 --> 01:37:46.720
the hormone of interest the antibody will change 
colors once it binds to the antigen of the hormone  

01:37:47.600 --> 01:37:52.400
so by measuring the concentration of the color 
of the sample we can quantitatively measure the  

01:37:52.400 --> 01:37:57.600
amount of hormones we can then repeat this for 
each of the hormones that we would like to measure

01:38:00.960 --> 01:38:05.840
just as researchers had to be creative with 
the methods to obtain biological samples of  

01:38:05.840 --> 01:38:11.440
free-ranging cetaceans we have also had to 
be creative with how we obtain accurate body  

01:38:11.440 --> 01:38:16.960
measurements unfortunately it is not so easy 
to just park your boat alongside a whale and  

01:38:16.960 --> 01:38:23.200
take out a tape measure instead researchers 
have used techniques called photogrammetry  

01:38:23.200 --> 01:38:28.400
which allows us to make measurements from 
images however there is certain information  

01:38:28.400 --> 01:38:33.360
that is required in order to make these 
measurements in order to determine size  

01:38:33.360 --> 01:38:37.760
for instance you need information on the 
distance you are away from your subject  

01:38:38.320 --> 01:38:45.440
the angle of the image and then the lens focal 
length of the camera using these known variables  

01:38:45.440 --> 01:38:51.200
you can determine the size of an object within a 
photo measurements have been obtained in numerous  

01:38:51.200 --> 01:38:58.000
ways in the past such as via helicopter or boat 
surveys but now with unmanned aerial vehicles  

01:38:58.000 --> 01:39:05.520
or UAV's it makes obtaining these measurements far 
more efficient however they do require an accurate  

01:39:05.520 --> 01:39:10.640
altimeter because the distance from the camera 
to the object is important in the calculations  

01:39:11.520 --> 01:39:15.760
so part of this season's goal is to 
incorporate uavs for measurement data

01:39:19.760 --> 01:39:24.400
for our purposes we are interested 
primarily in the total body length or  

01:39:24.400 --> 01:39:29.840
girth or the widest part of the animal having 
these measurements will provide an important  

01:39:29.840 --> 01:39:36.640
validation for our hormone work it will allow us 
to determine how and if hormone levels will vary  

01:39:36.640 --> 01:39:43.360
with size and condition of the animal for instance 
in late term pregnant females they might on  

01:39:43.360 --> 01:39:48.000
average have a wider girth which we can 
then use to compare to hormone levels  

01:39:48.880 --> 01:39:54.960
additionally malnourished or skinnier whales in 
poorer body condition may be under more stress  

01:39:54.960 --> 01:40:01.120
which can also be reflected in their hormone 
profiles photogrammetry has been increasingly  

01:40:01.120 --> 01:40:05.760
used in other studies of free-ranging cetaceans 
and i am sure you will have heard from other  

01:40:05.760 --> 01:40:12.080
researchers at this symposium as it is a useful 
tool for physiological and ecological studies

01:40:16.720 --> 01:40:22.960
in addition to morphometric data individual 
identification of whales is an important source  

01:40:22.960 --> 01:40:28.960
of information especially now with the advent 
of matching technology such as Happy Whale  

01:40:28.960 --> 01:40:35.360
this allows researchers to compare individuals 
across locations automatically previously we would  

01:40:35.360 --> 01:40:41.520
have to id whales manually looking at one photo 
of a fluke and comparing it to catalogs of others  

01:40:42.400 --> 01:40:48.320
so this has created and expanded our ability 
to collaborate with other researchers  

01:40:48.320 --> 01:40:52.720
and we are now more readily able to determine 
who these whales are and where they might spend  

01:40:52.720 --> 01:40:57.760
their time when they're not here we can also 
determine things like age and how often a  

01:40:57.760 --> 01:41:03.840
female has produced a calf and it also allows 
us to track these individuals into the future

01:41:05.600 --> 01:41:09.120
as we are interested in the drivers 
of behavior on the breeding grounds  

01:41:09.120 --> 01:41:13.280
an important component of this study is 
the collection of behavioral observations  

01:41:14.080 --> 01:41:18.320
these will involve focal follows which 
means we will stay with a group or an  

01:41:18.320 --> 01:41:23.280
individual for a determined period of 
time and record observations of the whale  

01:41:24.560 --> 01:41:28.720
information we're interested in recording 
includes the group type and size  

01:41:29.600 --> 01:41:35.600
the role of the individual within that group the 
group behavior and this can include things like  

01:41:35.600 --> 01:41:43.040
if the female is being chased by a male or not as 
well as if competitive behavior is being displayed  

01:41:43.040 --> 01:41:49.760
and if a group is resting or other notes about 
what the whale is doing we also record information  

01:41:49.760 --> 01:41:54.720
on the movement of the whales by taking GPS 
waypoints on regular intervals which can tell  

01:41:54.720 --> 01:42:00.960
us how fast or slow they are moving as well as how 
their movement may respond to other nearby groups

01:42:05.680 --> 01:42:10.400
we will be collecting our data in the 
field starting this month and continuing  

01:42:10.400 --> 01:42:15.360
throughout March after which I personally 
will have to return to the University of  

01:42:15.360 --> 01:42:21.200
California Santa Cruz to begin my lab work 
and analyzing the biopsy samples for hormones  

01:42:21.760 --> 01:42:27.200
as well as integrating this information with the 
body measurement data we've obtained as well as  

01:42:27.200 --> 01:42:33.280
correlating that with behavior in our sightings 
history and that will continue throughout the fall

01:42:39.360 --> 01:42:43.920
this study has important implications for 
the population demographics of the North  

01:42:43.920 --> 01:42:49.200
Pacific humpback whale by understanding 
the role that hormones play in regulating  

01:42:49.200 --> 01:42:54.560
reproductive health and condition and 
how that influences their behavior it  

01:42:54.560 --> 01:42:59.120
will increase our understanding of what 
we are seeing here on the breeding grounds.

01:43:03.440 --> 01:43:08.240
I would like to thank the Sanctuary for their 
contribution to this ongoing and expanding  

01:43:08.240 --> 01:43:13.520
research that  Whale Trust has been involved with 
in funding over the years and in the upcoming  

01:43:13.520 --> 01:43:20.080
years as this work continues and contributes to my 
doctoral work I feel very grateful to be a part of  

01:43:20.080 --> 01:43:25.840
and supported by this community and I look forward 
to further opportunities to present our work with  

01:43:25.840 --> 01:43:32.000
all of you I would be happy to follow up with 
any questions through email I encourage you to  

01:43:32.000 --> 01:43:38.560
reach out to myself or to Megan if you have any 
further follow-up questions and mahalo and aloha.

01:43:45.360 --> 01:43:51.760
Okay well that was another another wonderful 
presentation and I think it really  

01:43:51.760 --> 01:43:57.600
highlights the the power of you know biopsy 
sampling and hormone analysis and as well as  

01:43:57.600 --> 01:44:03.680
some of these other tools that are so widely being 
used like you know drones and and photo ID and   

01:44:04.240 --> 01:44:08.720
it also you know highlights the fact that you know 
there there's some efforts that are happening that  

01:44:08.720 --> 01:44:13.520
have been you know going on for for decades in 
many cases like you you heard from from Adam  

01:44:13.520 --> 01:44:17.760
you know whereas some others are just 
beginning by you know PhD students basically  

01:44:17.760 --> 01:44:23.920
the next generation and and you know these 
foundation mini grants that were awarded this  

01:44:23.920 --> 01:44:28.400
earlier this year we're really aimed 
to support both of these types of efforts  

01:44:29.040 --> 01:44:33.840
and so you know we want to you know support of 
course you know the excellent work that that has  

01:44:33.840 --> 01:44:38.000
been going on for some time but we also want to 
bring along the next generation and so that was  

01:44:38.000 --> 01:44:42.400
you know those are both you know equally important 
objectives as part of these these mini grants  

01:44:43.200 --> 01:44:48.800
so of course Haley is not here to answer 
any any questions um so we'll just transition  

01:44:48.800 --> 01:44:57.520
right into our final speaker another VIP of 
ours Jeannine Rosa who is an aquatic ecologist  

01:44:58.160 --> 01:45:01.840
and she currently works for the Department of Land 
and Natural Resources with the State of Hawaii  

01:45:02.400 --> 01:45:09.360
and is the sanctuary's sanctuary state 
co-manager so Jeannine do you want to share  

01:45:09.360 --> 01:45:14.880
some some kind of concluding thoughts about the 
symposium these two days of presentations and  

01:45:15.760 --> 01:45:18.560
before we kind of get into 
our final discussion period

01:45:21.120 --> 01:45:28.640
that sounds good trying to get my camera on here 
we go  aloha all just a couple of comments here  

01:45:28.640 --> 01:45:34.080
the folks asked me to make some concluding 
remarks and it's been really wonderful to sit  

01:45:34.080 --> 01:45:42.880
in on all these talks Mark Lammers often 
uses the analogy that humpback whales are  

01:45:44.000 --> 01:45:50.320
you know the canary in the coal mine for us 
because of their life history um you know they  

01:45:50.320 --> 01:45:55.920
are affected by so many of the problems that 
we humans have created in the marine ecosystem  

01:45:56.560 --> 01:46:02.400
you know for example on their long migrations you 
know they end up in coming to Hawaii covered in  

01:46:02.400 --> 01:46:08.160
marine debris that Ed and his team work so hard to 
you know find those animals and and help free them  

01:46:08.160 --> 01:46:14.080
from that those entanglements you know they 
deal with vessel collisions in shipping lanes  

01:46:14.080 --> 01:46:20.320
 they've got ocean noise to deal with infecting 
their communication heavy metal pollution to name  

01:46:20.320 --> 01:46:26.080
a few and of course the biggie you know climate 
change affecting increasing ocean temperatures and  

01:46:26.080 --> 01:46:31.600
affecting their food supplies being able to both 
find and eat enough food for their long journeys  

01:46:33.040 --> 01:46:40.480
so you know we are fortunate to have this really 
tight team of tight-knit community of researchers  

01:46:40.480 --> 01:46:47.680
working on humpback whales and I so appreciate 
and aloha all of you and I think that um you know  

01:46:47.680 --> 01:46:53.520
coming from all the different perspectives profit 
organizations universities state organizations  

01:46:53.520 --> 01:47:01.440
federal organizations that's really critical to 
have that breadth of perspective and um i can't  

01:47:01.440 --> 01:47:08.400
think of the word you know just they all bring 
a richness to what it is we're trying to do and I  

01:47:08.400 --> 01:47:14.880
I also feel like it's important for us to bring an 
even larger perspective in in order to solve these  

01:47:14.880 --> 01:47:21.360
problems because they are huge and I'm thinking 
about you know community and government about  

01:47:21.360 --> 01:47:26.080
local and global perspectives I  know that many 
of these researchers have partners in countries  

01:47:26.080 --> 01:47:31.520
all over the world as well and indigenous and 
western is absolutely critical to have these very  

01:47:31.520 --> 01:47:38.320
different perspectives helping us solve these 
problems for wales as Uncle Sol explained 

01:47:39.680 --> 01:47:45.360
the the humpback whales are more than 
just animals you know for some they are  

01:47:45.360 --> 01:47:51.200
the living embodiment you know the god Kanaloa 
and certainly for all of us they are teaching  

01:47:51.200 --> 01:47:56.720
us how changes in the environment are affecting 
the entire marine ecosystem and ultimately us  

01:47:57.680 --> 01:48:04.320
so mahalo mahalo nui thank you so much 
for attending learning asking questions  

01:48:04.320 --> 01:48:10.640
and for being part of this research collaborative 
hiki no you can do it that is all for me

01:48:14.160 --> 01:48:17.840
great thank you Jeannine appreciate 
your your thoughts on all this  

01:48:18.480 --> 01:48:25.600
 okay so we are in the final 
stretch of our two-day symposium and  

01:48:25.600 --> 01:48:31.760
we basically have some time to to kind of drill 
into some of these presentations a little bit more  

01:48:31.760 --> 01:48:39.200
ask questions  and have any kind of discussions 
um that you know that that we'd like to have so   

01:48:39.200 --> 01:48:43.920
Cindy can we go back to any questions that 
maybe were left unanswered from earlier  

01:48:45.760 --> 01:48:52.240
yes so we did have a few other questions 
and this is from Ed's presentation time  

01:48:52.800 --> 01:48:58.800
kind of another connection to the transects 
app folks are kind of wondering where they can  

01:48:58.800 --> 01:49:05.200
get more information on the transits app 
as well as is this only for Hawaiian waters

01:49:07.360 --> 01:49:14.400
yeah thanks Cindy an excellent question um and 
for now it is I mean boy we would love it if we  

01:49:14.400 --> 01:49:20.800
could get 20 30 40 boats out there throughout 
the main Hawaiian islands using the savanna  

01:49:20.800 --> 01:49:26.320
maybe they should be thinking bigger broader 
 right now I think it's I think we've had like  

01:49:26.320 --> 01:49:32.960
five or six different boats but it's basically  
right now it's it's heavy on the iphone side  

01:49:32.960 --> 01:49:38.720
the mac ios  we're trying to look 
into the android side as well   

01:49:39.520 --> 01:49:46.480
and it's it's basically just a simple 
two-step app that people can download and and  

01:49:46.480 --> 01:49:49.920
the thing I didn't mention too is it 
can be shared right back with the with  

01:49:49.920 --> 01:49:57.200
the community as well that information it's 
not proprietary in that regard and see what  

01:49:58.240 --> 01:50:03.920
hopefully I've done a good job of asking as far as 
information I would say email me how's that I mean  

01:50:03.920 --> 01:50:10.160
I we have a little one pager I can send out to you 
that acts like a background as well as the initial  

01:50:10.720 --> 01:50:17.680
instruction manual so email me and I'll 
send the information out and boy whoever  

01:50:17.680 --> 01:50:21.280
asked that one thank you very much because 
we're excited to see if we can get this up  

01:50:21.280 --> 01:50:24.960
and rolling and what a community-based 
effort it would be if we could get it  

01:50:24.960 --> 01:50:33.440
going so at a broader scale thank you thanks Ed 
and another question regarding entanglements 

01:50:34.800 --> 01:50:42.240
one question posed I understand much of the gear 
comes from areas remote to Hawaii that said what  

01:50:42.240 --> 01:50:48.320
measures are the state of Hawaii and the federal 
government taking to reduce ghost fishing gear and  

01:50:48.320 --> 01:50:56.720
other entanglement risks of the Kohola in Hawaiian 
waters okay um the first part of that is  

01:50:56.720 --> 01:51:02.400
gear is coming from everywhere I've mentioned 
I've mentioned the broad range from a feeding  

01:51:02.400 --> 01:51:08.080
ground whether it's British Columbia or Alaska
there is the local gear the local footprint there  

01:51:08.080 --> 01:51:16.000
as well  and it's been just about everything 
there as well  and as far as you know that  

01:51:16.000 --> 01:51:22.480
that footprint sort of uh be careful here I 
mean you only know what you get reports on okay  

01:51:22.480 --> 01:51:28.160
you don't have the full picture we're trying to 
get the full picture as much as we can  but  

01:51:28.160 --> 01:51:36.960
we don't have it and with the information we have 
it's boy I don't want to put this that we don't  

01:51:36.960 --> 01:51:42.800
know the exact threat level on the local side 
we are working with Fisheries in that regard  

01:51:43.440 --> 01:51:49.280
and as far as what's being done I think the big 
thing is removing gear I mean the marine debris  

01:51:49.280 --> 01:51:54.480
program removes gear we remove gear I mean I think 
I'm looking at the picture image of Marc, I know  

01:51:54.480 --> 01:52:00.080
when we're out in the water and I can say this for 
everyone here for Adam and others on the water  

01:52:00.080 --> 01:52:05.760
we come across marine debris we're getting we're 
removing another water as best we can we've  

01:52:05.760 --> 01:52:15.840
assisted that regard and there are larger programs 
as well that do that so those are some examples

01:52:17.120 --> 01:52:28.800
thank you Ed and then another question 
so I this might be for Adam I'm not too sure  

01:52:28.800 --> 01:52:34.800
but are the biopsy samples obtained 
during SPLASH being used more recently  

01:52:34.800 --> 01:52:40.480
to analyze their hormone levels to boost 
the sample sizes from Whale Trust or UH Hilo

01:52:42.560 --> 01:52:51.920
Hi that's a great question can 
you hear me yes yeah we are actively  

01:52:51.920 --> 01:53:00.880
we've been using the biopsy samples from 
SPLASH one which are a a a gold mine really  

01:53:00.880 --> 01:53:10.720
 that was our own efforts there yielded 
several hundred biopsy samples the Sanctuary also  

01:53:10.720 --> 01:53:14.560
had biopsies from areas that we don't 
normally get to like Penguin bank  

01:53:15.360 --> 01:53:24.480
and so the study that I presented on the male 
testosterone and some of the progesterone work is  

01:53:24.480 --> 01:53:37.760
based on on analyzing a a sampling of those 
uh 2004-2006 biopsies um there are still more at  

01:53:37.760 --> 01:53:44.320
Southwest from our collective efforts and I'm 
actually engaged right now with them to try and  

01:53:45.280 --> 01:53:56.320
boost those sample sizes in 2021 this 
past year in conjunction with the drone body  

01:53:56.320 --> 01:54:02.000
conditions that Martin and Lars and our partners 
of Pacific Whale Foundation were able to get  

01:54:03.200 --> 01:54:10.160
we collected 160 biopsy samples we'll be out 
there again this year and that is to boost  

01:54:10.160 --> 01:54:17.920
these collectively these sample numbers 
because when you if you looked at Haley's  

01:54:17.920 --> 01:54:24.320
breakdown which was kind of nice you know 
you've got all these different social roles  

01:54:24.320 --> 01:54:31.840
and  behavioral groupings of humpback whales 
and so as you start looking at the whales in  

01:54:31.840 --> 01:54:37.520
these different roles different reproductive 
conditions different age classes  you need  

01:54:37.520 --> 01:54:45.520
to have large sample sizes in order to really make 
meaningful analyses and so that is a major goal   

01:54:47.440 --> 01:54:54.880
there's a lot of information we can get from the 
biopsy samples which is not just steroid hormones  

01:54:54.880 --> 01:55:01.040
we can look at adipose tissue which I think Martin 
may have talked about to look at fat cells and  

01:55:02.320 --> 01:55:13.680
and whether we see in emaciated whales a a 
physical  example of that we can also look  

01:55:13.680 --> 01:55:23.200
at PCBs and other contaminant levels in 
the whales to see how healthy they are in that way  

01:55:23.200 --> 01:55:28.720
so there's a lot of information that a single 
biopsy sample can get us and certainly in  

01:55:28.720 --> 01:55:34.800
conjunction with the morphometrics it really 
opens up a world about behavior and health

01:55:39.440 --> 01:55:40.800
awesome thank you Adam

01:55:43.840 --> 01:55:50.880
and I believe you might recall Shannon Atkinson 
has added a few more information in the question  

01:55:50.880 --> 01:55:57.680
box that I'll share with the um audience but to 
add what to Adams has said we are able to get ONR  

01:55:57.680 --> 01:56:04.960
funding to analyze over 500 SPLASH samples and we 
have two students getting their PhDs from those  

01:56:06.160 --> 01:56:13.840
and four manuscripts published so far so more 
work going on that and as for other questions  

01:56:13.840 --> 01:56:18.080
Adam you had something to add I was just going to 
say Shannon you might have seen her name in there  

01:56:18.080 --> 01:56:24.640
Shannon Atkinson she's one of our collaborators 
her laboratory does the analysis of our  

01:56:24.640 --> 01:56:28.880
SPLASH samples and the samples we're 
collecting now for steroid hormones

01:56:31.600 --> 01:56:40.400
awesome thank you so there have been several 
requests for links and to resources including  

01:56:40.400 --> 01:56:46.880
papers that all presenters have kind of mentioned 
in their presentations so I'm hoping that  

01:56:46.880 --> 01:56:51.760
we can connect and get all those links 
and we'll send it out to the audience  

01:56:51.760 --> 01:56:58.480
so that they can see it and have it as 
well  to read and forward on to folks if  

01:56:58.480 --> 01:57:03.520
all presenters are good with that we'll work on 
getting that to you attendees within the next  

01:57:03.520 --> 01:57:09.840
week and this will be compiled from both days 
and let's see if there are further questions

01:57:12.560 --> 01:57:20.480
 one question is kind of going back to 
entanglement I know this is a big topic but Ed  

01:57:20.480 --> 01:57:27.440
folks are kind of wondering how the entangled gear 
is removed and I know they're kind of interested  

01:57:27.440 --> 01:57:34.800
to see how they can get involved as well and 
we did for the entanglement response level one  

01:57:34.800 --> 01:57:41.040
training set but if you could kind of elaborate 
more on the entitlement process yeah that's a key  

01:57:41.040 --> 01:57:48.720
step that online training again a great resource 
 as far as how we remove the gear it it varies  

01:57:48.720 --> 01:57:53.120
it depends on your patient if we go with the 
analogy of the they are patient we're the whale  

01:57:53.120 --> 01:58:01.120
doctors  it depends on the condition of the 
animal it's activity a number of variables one  

01:58:01.120 --> 01:58:06.640
aspect of the technique is actually to add more 
gear to get the gear off to control your patient  

01:58:06.640 --> 01:58:11.600
a little bit more I sometimes use the analogy of 
that when you're working with a horse and people  

01:58:11.600 --> 01:58:16.160
maybe can relate to this more so than a whale 
as you walk it around the corral you bring it  

01:58:16.160 --> 01:58:22.880
into this table then you have it confined somewhat 
it's a safer environment a safer situation to work  

01:58:22.880 --> 01:58:27.600
with that large animal we're sort of doing 
the same thing we can't we can't walk the  

01:58:27.600 --> 01:58:32.560
whale around the coral for instance but we can 
introduce ourselves we can get it used to us  

01:58:33.920 --> 01:58:38.800
and at the same time assess the patient and then 
instead of the stable analogy it's basically  

01:58:39.440 --> 01:58:44.480
maybe the whales dragging a buoy we add one or 
two more buoys over a period of time to slow  

01:58:44.480 --> 01:58:49.280
the well down a little bit more in a controlled 
manner and keep it at the surface so then we can  

01:58:49.280 --> 01:58:55.120
reach out with with hook knives on the end of 
poles and cut the whale free those lethal wraps  

01:58:55.120 --> 01:59:00.640
everything comes off those same buoys and this 
technique is called kegging then leave everything  

01:59:00.640 --> 01:59:05.440
keep everything at the surface where not only 
have you removed it from the animal you're gonna  

01:59:05.440 --> 01:59:09.840
remove it from the environment so it poses no 
more risk and here's the connection with the  

01:59:09.840 --> 01:59:14.240
science so important today a big theme today 
with the symposium is you start figuring out  

01:59:14.880 --> 01:59:18.480
what it is where it came from what 
part of the gear was its lethality  

01:59:18.480 --> 01:59:30.000
things of that nature so that's a bit of a one at 
least one aspect of getting gear off the whales

01:59:30.000 --> 01:59:36.160
over thank you Ed so we are 
right at the top of the hour  

01:59:36.720 --> 01:59:43.840
right now and Cindy are there 
any more questions by any chance

01:59:45.040 --> 01:59:49.040
it looks like we covered all the questions 
if folks have any further questions feel  

01:59:49.040 --> 01:59:54.560
free to submit them now um and we 
did submit the link in the chat box  

01:59:54.560 --> 01:59:58.160
for the training once again so 
folks should see it in the chat box

02:00:00.320 --> 02:00:05.680
great wonderful well I you know amazingly we 
have perfect timing in terms of presentations and  

02:00:05.680 --> 02:00:11.280
questions and that's that's rare but I'm 
quite amazed that we're right at 11 o'clock which  

02:00:11.280 --> 02:00:19.520
is when this symposium is scheduled to end so 
with that I wanna say a very big mahalo first  

02:00:19.520 --> 02:00:25.600
of all to all of our our speakers and presenters 
who who participated in this in this symposium  

02:00:25.600 --> 02:00:30.880
our our Sanctuary VIPs who came along you know 
came on and provided their their their thoughts  

02:00:31.520 --> 02:00:37.280
I want to thank the National Sanctuary 
Foundation  for their their support of  

02:00:37.280 --> 02:00:41.440
these mini grants and and administering 
them and and awarding these mini grants  

02:00:42.240 --> 02:00:48.160
 and then finally I want to thank all of you 
of course for for attending you know the  

02:00:48.160 --> 02:00:53.680
reason we do this these kinds of symposium is 
to to educate you to to let you know about the  

02:00:53.680 --> 02:00:59.280
kind of work that is being conducted in in your 
Sanctuary and so I hope that you enjoyed all  

02:00:59.280 --> 02:01:05.840
the presentations and and and learned as much as I 
did I learned a lot about you know you know what  

02:01:05.840 --> 02:01:11.120
people are doing but a lot of you know the science 
and about humpback whales so for me it's been it's  

02:01:11.120 --> 02:01:21.840
been tremendously educational so with that 
I just wanna again say mahalo and and aloha

02:01:22.880 --> 02:01:23.380
you