Written by Brijonnay Madrigal False killer whales (FKW) ( Pseudorca crassidens ) and short-finned pilot whales (SFPW) ( Globicephala macrorhynchus ) are resident, toothed whale species to the Hawaiian archipelago. In Hawaiʻi, they are colloquially referred to as ‘Blackfish’ as they are largely dark gray in color, often appearing all black. Both FKW and SFPW exhibit complex social structure which translates into complexity in their communication systems. These two species gen

Written by Kirby Parnell I am excited to share that last week, in collaboration with NOAA’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program (HMSRP) and Pacific Islands Regional Office Protected Resources Division , we successfully instrumented two Hawaiian monk seals with Customized Animal Tracking Solutions (CATS)  tags! This company creates multi-sensor biologging devices so that scientists can track the fine-scale movements and behaviors of wild animals including sharks, whales, cro

Written by: Lily Magee, Pearl Thompson, and Kirby Parnell We are thrilled to announce that two of our undergraduate interns have received...

Written by Brijonnay Madrigal We are pleased to share a new publication in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America , which describes the first killer whale call catalog for the Chukchi Sea and identifies the likely ecotype present. This paper was written by Brijonnay Madrigal and colleagues at the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center as part of her Master’s thesis work conducted at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories prior to entering the PhD program at the Hawai’i

Written by Kirby Parnell In early May, I traveled to Kauai to deploy an underwater acoustic recorder, known as a SoundTrap. The goal was to record the underwater vocalizations of Hawaiian monk seals offshore the tiny, uninhabited island of Lehua Rock (Fig. 1). Lehua Rock is a monk seal hotspot where adult male seals are seen and heard vocalizing often by recreational divers (Video 1). With the help of Captain Tara Leota and Adam King at Kauai Searider Adventures , we comple

Written by Kirby Parnell We are pleased to share a new publication in Endangered Species Research , which describes underwater sound reception and sound production in Hawaiian monk seals. This research was completed by Kirby Parnell and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz during Kirby’s Master’s thesis , prior to starting her Ph.D. at the University of Hawai’i . The manuscript is entitled: Underwater hearing and communication in the endangered Hawaiian mon

Written by Brijonnay Madrigal Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist. I always loved the ocean but my desire to become a marine biologist started with a National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) marine science camp I attended when I was in the 6th grade. I remember how captivating it was to hear the scientists talk about underwater research and how excited I was that people had these amazing jobs that allowed them to explore the oce

Written by Kirby Parnell As a first-year PhD student in the Marine Biology Graduate Program at UH Manoa, I am excited to begin my...