Experts Worry : Swan Song for Whales in Hawaii?

A baby humpback whale, no more than 3 months old, rested with its mother in the brilliant blue waters off the coast of Maui. The calf, about 15 feet long, noticed an unusual creature floating near the surface: researcher Deborah Glockner-Ferrari in her snorkel, mask and fins.

Full of curiosity, the little humpback swam up for a closer look and came within 10 feet of the diminutive scientist, staring at her intently with its huge right eye. Quickly, Glockner-Ferrari snapped more than a dozen photographs before the calf’s 40-ton mother gently led it away.

“I think this little calf would almost have let me touch him,” said Glockner-Ferrari, whose photos may later help identify the calf. “There’s a specialness when you look into their eyes. The calf didn’t have any fear at all.”

Pioneer in Study

Glockner-Ferrari is a pioneer in the underwater study of the humpback whale, a critically endangered species. She and her husband, photographer Mark Ferrari, devote their lives to this playful giant with the wing-like flippers and the eerie songs that can carry 15 miles underwater.

If not for a humpback named Humphrey, their work would be known to only a handful of people.

Last October, the Ferraris inspired the dramatic rescue of the errant whale that wandered into San Francisco Bay, swam up the Sacramento River and got stuck in a dead-end slough 70 miles inland. Humphrey became an international celebrity and thrust the Ferraris into the public spotlight for nearly a month.

Since the 1970s, the two 35-year-old researchers have spent each winter in Hawaii swimming with humpbacks and gathering data that could help save the species. They pursue the whales using a 15-foot inflatable boat that would fit inside the mouth of one of their research subjects.

Significant Discoveries

The Ferraris have no formal scientific credentials. At times, they have supported themselves and their research by serving cocktails or packing salami. Yet they have made significant discoveries that have earned them a solid reputation in the small community of scientists who study whales. Glockner-Ferrari, for example, was the first to develop a reliable method for determining the sex of humpbacks and the first to prove that the species can reproduce annually, not every two years.

“As a scientist, she is outstanding,” said Roger Payne, a whale biologist with the World Wildlife Fund and a leading expert on whales. “She is a very exceptional individual and certainly one of the better people at work on whales today. She has done it in a completely unusual, offbeat way.”

Now, the Ferraris are concerned that the humpbacks are being pushed out of their prime breeding area off the coast of Maui by growing tourist activity, high-speed boating and the pollution spawned by a building boom along the island’s western shore.

They are worried that this could further diminish the chances of survival for the humpback whales that inhabit the North Pacific Ocean, estimated to number only 1,200. Altogether, scientists estimate, there are 10,000 humpbacks in the world, including populations in the Atlantic Ocean and the southern hemisphere.

Unlike the gray whale, seen along the California coast in growing numbers, the humpback has shown no measurable increase in population in the 20 years since whaling nations agreed to stop hunting the species, federal biologists say.

Since the slaughter ended, little has been done to help the humpback recover.

In 1984, Hawaii Gov. George R. Ariyoshi killed a federal plan to create a sanctuary for the humpback whale--Hawaii’s official state marine mammal. Opponents feared that such a designation would interfere with fishing, commercial boating and the state’s all-important tourist industry.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency responsible for protecting the humpback, has yet to begin work on a recovery plan for the species ordered by Congress in 1978. Such a plan could lead to the designation of a critical habitat area for the humpback as well as promote research and public education.

In the Pacific, humpback whales spend about eight months of the year in U.S. territorial waters. Primarily a coastal animal, the humpback’s annual migration from the Bering Sea to the tropics covers 8,000 miles.

During the summer months, members of the North Pacific population congregate off Alaska to feed on herring, krill and other small prey. In winter, Hawaii is the giant mammal’s primary breeding area, although groups have also been observed off Baja California and Japan.

Glockner-Ferrari, who once rode dolphins as a trainer at a marine park in Mississippi, was one of the first to study the humpbacks in their natural habitat when she began swimming with them in 1975.

With a degree in biochemistry, she came to Hawaii after she grew sick of killing rats for laboratory experiments at the University of California, San Diego. Working as a cocktail waitress at night and swimming with the whales during the day, she learned to recognize individual whales by the unique pigment patterns on their tails.

She met Mark Ferrari in 1979 when he came to Hawaii to photograph whales. Ferrari, who has a degree in psychology, had spent nearly a decade raising mountain lions, and set three of them free in the wilds of California.

The Ferraris were married that year and began their cycle of working in the off-season in California to support their research in Hawaii.

Glockner-Ferrari, quiet and shy, handles most of the underwater work and the theoretical side of the research. Ferrari, more articulate and outspoken, does a larger share of the above-water photography. Their cameras are their main tools, and together they have more than 34,000 photographs of humpbacks.

Glockner-Ferrari is better known within the scientific community, dating back to the late 1970s when she stunned marine biologists with her first discoveries.

“Here was a cocktail waitress in Lahaina going out there and doing something the great bios (biologists) weren’t doing,” recalled Ken Norris, a professor of natural history at UC Santa Cruz and a leading cetologist. “She’s good and she deserves a lot of credit for that.”

Doyle Gates, chief of the National Marine Fisheries Service program office in Hawaii, initially balked at granting Glockner-Ferrari a research permit, but now says, “They’re held in high repute by the scientific community, especially the people familiar with their research activities in Hawaii. I think very highly of them personally.”

It was only by a quirk of fate last October that Humphrey swam within a dozen miles of the Ferraris’ off-season home in Walnut Creek, east of San Francisco.

The Ferraris were the first experts called in when the whale, apparently lost and disoriented, was sighted in the San Francisco Bay.

For nearly a month, they were obsessed with saving Humphrey. They organized the first attempts at rescuing the wayward whale and battled the National Marine Fisheries Service, which three times halted efforts to herd the animal downstream, preferring instead to let nature take its course.

Outpouring of Support

An outpouring of public support for Humphrey persuaded the Fisheries Service to let the rescue proceed. Dozens of boats and hundreds of volunteers joined the effort to drive the whale to the ocean. From their position in the rescue fleet, the Ferraris watched in exultation as Humphrey swam under the Golden Gate Bridge to freedom.

In Hawaii, the Ferraris are keeping a close watch for Humphrey, who escaped from California without any of the tags or satellite transmitters that National Marine Fisheries Service biologists attempted to attach. The researchers should be able to recognize Humphrey from the markings on its tail and pectoral fins.

“There still is the possibility he may show up here--if not this year, maybe next year,” Ferrari said.

The Ferraris, one of eight teams operating under humpback research permits from the Fisheries Service, are getting more support this year than ever--in part because of their role in the Humphrey rescue. They expect to receive $33,000 in grants from federal and private sources, and much of their equipment has been donated or loaned to them by corporate sponsors.

But the Ferraris have yet to receive sufficient backing to become year-round researchers and follow the whales to their feeding grounds in Alaska. Last fall, Ferrari worked at a factory in San Francisco packing salami into cardboard boxes--at times even during the Humphrey rescue.

Still Get Excited

Each year, their fascination with the humpbacks grows. They still get excited each time they swim with a whale or see one breach in the distance.

“I think if you didn’t love the whales, and you weren’t as sensitive in your approach to the whales, you wouldn’t be successful in getting close to the whales, which you need to be to take the photographs,” Glockner-Ferrari said.

Reaching 50 feet in length and weighing as much as 40 tons, the humpbacks are seemingly effortless swimmers with the power to move in bursts of speed up to 15 knots. The species was named “humpback” by whalers because the animal’s dorsal fin often rises high out of the water when it dives.

Many times, the Ferraris have heard the singing of the humpback, a sound so loud it is audible above water and so intense underwater it sends vibrations through the human body--even when the animal is too distant to be seen.

The humpbacks’ song spans almost the entire range of human hearing in gradually changing themes of high- and low-pitched grunts and moans. Scientists have found whales in different locations singing the same song.

Watch School Sessions

Over and over, the Ferraris have seen the leviathans breaching--leaping into the air and landing with a tremendous crash of spray. They have watched when school is in session--when calves only a few months old breach awkwardly or slap their pectoral fins on the water’s surface in imitation of their elders.

Frequently, they have seen male humpbacks fight for dominance, ramming into each other at high speed in struggles to determine which will win the right to escort a female. Male whales, battered and bloody, have swarmed around the Ferraris’ boat, battling in the swirling waters--yet the Ferraris have never been harmed.

In the water, the researchers have been caught in a curtain of bubbles created by an angry whale in combat with a challenger. This “bubble streaming” is a sign of aggression and an effective method of disorienting a foe or prey. It is also one reason the Ferraris do not use scuba gear, which sends out its own stream of bubbles.

But the couple’s greatest inspiration comes from the humpbacks they call the “friendly whales.” They swim by the hour with mothers and calves who are unperturbed by the presence of people and seemingly as curious about the alien, goggled humans as the researchers are about them.

“Having them accept you into their environment after the hundreds of years of slaughter that people have perpetrated on the species is just awesome. It’s overwhelming,” Ferrari said.

One of their favorite whales is a female they call Daisy. She recently returned to Maui with a new calf--the sixth the Ferraris have seen by her side in the last eight years.

When they spotted her distinctive white tail, the Ferraris shouted with joy and slipped quickly into the water--even though three males were fighting over her nearby. Daisy, seeming to show off her new baby, swam in their direction and allowed them to come within five feet of the calf.

“She’s very tolerant,” Ferrari said. “We’ve had some incredible experiences with her because she is so friendly.”

It was Daisy and her offspring who first showed the Ferraris that humpbacks can breed every year.

Through their method of passive observation, the Ferraris have made other important contributions to the knowledge of the species.

Determing the Sex

Glockner-Ferrari was the first to discover how to determine the sex of a humpback by looking at its profile. This in turn, helped the Ferraris and other researchers understand far more about the behavior of the animals. For example, the Ferraris learned that whales frequently seen escorting mothers with calves are males, not female “aunts” as had been believed.

The researchers also have found a high correlation between white scar tissue and the fighting behavior of males, which is what led them to believe there was an 80% chance that Humphrey was a male.

In studying calves, the Glockner-Ferrari discovered that pigment patterns on the flukes, which are used to identify adult whales, change as the young whales grow, making that method useless in recognizing them in later years. So she developed a new method of identifying these whales by the pattern of grooves that line the outside of their mouths.

But what causes the Ferraris to worry is their finding that the whales seem to be abandoning the waters close to the Maui shore.

Between 1977 and 1979, 80.3% of the females and calves they photographed were within a quarter-mile of shore. By 1985, that number had dropped to 5.8%. Last year, 83.7% of the mothers and calves were sighted more than a mile from land.

May Disappear

“Now they seem to move more often and they are not resting for as long intervals,” Glockner-Ferrari said. “We are really concerned that the calves are not getting enough rest. If this much movement continues to occur, perhaps one day there won’t be any whales in Maui.”

The Ferraris’ concern that the whales are being forced out of their breeding area is shared by Gates, the National Marine Fisheries Service program chief in Hawaii, who termed the discovery “disturbing.”

The decline in the number of whales close to shore is tied to the beginning of parasail operations--high-speed boats that tow tourists dangling from parachutes--and jet-ski rentals after 1980, the Ferraris said. A recent University of Hawaii study suggests that humpbacks are affected by the noise of boats as far as 1,000 yards away.

“The high-speed, constant noise is like having a chain saw in your bedroom,” Ferrari said.

The Ferraris also are concerned by the scores of whale-watching boats and private vessels that sail out each day to view the popular mammals and the dozens of vessels anchored outside the Lahaina harbor in what was once prime humpback habitat. They also point to the polluted runoff water that is muddying the waters near Maui. At the south end of the whale’s habitat, U.S. Navy boats use the island of Kahoolawe for bombing practice. Occasionally, their shells fall short and land in the ocean.

Plan Not Drawn Up

The National Marine Fisheries Service has responsibility for protecting the humpback in American waters. While it has secured the cooperation of other federal agencies in protecting the humpback, it has not yet drafted a recovery plan for the whales.

“The law does require a recovery plan and we don’t have one,” conceded Jim Lecky, a spokesman for the Fisheries Service’s headquarters in Los Angeles. “We are doing everything we can do to protect the humpback whale in Hawaii,” he said.

For now, the agency’s main role is attempting to prevent harassment of the whales by enforcing a rule requiring boats to stay at least 100 yards from the animals. However, only one agent is assigned to enforce the rule, and he often has other duties.

Gates acknowledged that the government could be doing more for the humpback, particularly by sponsoring more research. But he said the Fisheries Service is conscious of a growing public concern for the plight of the humpbacks.

“Humphrey taught us a lesson: don’t take whales lightly,” he said.