From December to May, you can sit on any prominent piece of land on any Hawaiian island and watch the humpback whale migration. The sight of their backs, glistening as they move through the water, or the occasional perfect fluke cutting through the surface, is a matchless experience.
Protecting the Humpback Whale. The waters around the Hawaiian Islands are one of the North Pacific humpback whales' most significant habitats: the only place in the United States coastal waters where humpbacks are known to reproduce and give birth to their young.
The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was established in 1997 to protect humpback whales and their habitat and to educate the public about whales and the Hawaii marine environment. The 1,400-square-mi sanctuary includes five protected areas around the main Hawaiian Islands.
Did you know? Humpback whales are the fifth largest of the world's great whales; a mature whale can be up to 45 feet long and weigh about 42-45 tons.
Their top jaw has fleshy knobs called tubercles. Each tubercle has a strand of hair and many nerve endings believed to serve some sensory function.
Their throats have expandable pleats, allowing the animal to ingest over 500 gallons of prey and water in a single gulp. They primarily eat zooplankton and small fish.
Their tongues can weigh up to one ton.
The calves have a 10 to 12 month gestation period. On average, newborns weigh 1.5 tons and are 10-16 feet long.
Calves nurse on the mother's rich milk for six to eight months and grow fast, nearly doubling their length by the end of the first year.
Humpback whales live about 40 to 60 years.
*This music video contains whale footage filmed by NOAA and set to a Daniel Ho original slack key composition, Kai Palaoa. The song is one of 11 on a CD--also named Kai Palaoa--featuring some of Hawai'i's finest musicians, including four-time Grammy Award winner Daniel Ho, kiho'alu master Kawika Kahiapo and singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. All donated their work--some original compilations--to help raise awareness of the impotance of ocean resources and our need to protect them. In Hawaiian, "kai palaoa" literally translates to "whale sea." In the more poetic way of the Hawaiian language, "kai paloa" means "the place where two currents meet."