If you're in Maui during the
height of humpback whale season,
and you just go for a swim in

the ocean, typically you
will hear the chorusing
in the background of
humpback whale song.

Humpback whale males
are the ones who sing.

The humpback whale song is kind
of other-worldly because it
combines these elements of low

frequency sounds together with
these really high notes and
all kinds of things sort of

in between.

And that's part of the
reason what makes the
song so interesting
and unique because you

really get the sense that
the whales are trying to
kind of show off the range.

It's quite beautiful and
melodic and other than human
language, it's been touted as

one of the most complex
vocalizations in
the animal kingdom.

Surfacing.

Each year, approximately half
of the North Pacific humpback
whale population migrates

roughly 3,000 miles from its
feeding grounds in Southeastern
Alaska to its breeding

grounds in Hawai.

The majority of the
whales will be here
between January and March.

When they're in the breeding
grounds, other than newborn
calves that are feeding on their

mother's milk, the whales
are largely fasting.

So the amount of time that
they can spend here is going
to be dictated by their energy

stores that they've
built up over the summer.

While in the breeding
grounds the male whales
perform their haunting song.

All the whales in Hawai sing
approximately the same song.

Based on genetics, now there
is believed to be 14 distinct
population segments of humpback

whales around the world.

There are very large differences
between the song that is
produced, let's say here in the

North Pacific and what we have
in the South Pacific, because
those are entirely different

populations and those whales do
not interact with each other.

There's three or four
other whales singing

When the breeding season
starts, the whales are singing
the same song that they ended

with at the previous season.

The song evolves in certain
ways over the course
of a breeding season.

There may be innovators in the
singing community in Hawai.

It may be that there are whales
from other breeding areas
that go up to similar feeding

grounds and they've come down
to the Hawai breeding grounds
and are bringing some changes

in the song that the
other males are adopting.

And that combination
leads to the song kind of
evolving over the course of

a season.

So at the end of the season
when you record a song, there
is some slight differences that

are very noticeable from
the beginning of the season.

If you record song over several
years, you may hear that
those small changes lead to

large scale changes.

There's still so much we don't
understand even just some
very basic questions as to

what the function
of their song is.

And there's just been a
lot of debate about that.

How do scientists study
humpback whale song?

And what might it tell
them about the fitness
of an individual whale?

Major funding for this
program was provided by
the Batchelor Foundation,

encouraging people to
preserve and protect

America's underwater resources.

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,

The Do Unto Others Trust
and by the following.

Whales have long held a
place in Hawaiian culture.

We all paid tribute
to the whale.

And one of the chants
was aumakua, which is
the guardian angel.

So it talks about the whale
being a guardian angel

of a family.

It says that the whale
exists everywhere in heaven.

It has a lot of knowledge and
a lot of experience and is very
strong and it takes care of us.

While historically
toothed whales have always
played an important role
in Hawaiian culture,

today humpback whales are
clearly the most recognized
whale species in Hawai.

Tourists come from far
and wide to observe
these majestic creatures.

They generate tens of
millions of dollars
in a tourist interest.

The islands clear waters
are also a great place
for researchers to study

the baleen whales.

We have several projects that
we're currently engaged in.

And one of them is trying
to get a better handle
on how song may function.

Scientists Adam Pack and Marc
Lammers have been researching
humpback whales for decades,

often collaborating
on different studies.

To research whale song, the
team works on the leeward side
of Maui, inside the Hawaiian

Islands Humpback Whale
National Marine Sanctuary.

In the United States
humpback whales are
given special protections
under the Marine Mammal

Protection Act.

Federal Regulations mandate
that people have to stay a
hundred yards away from whales.

We have specialized federal
permits that allow us to
do our research, which
includes approaching

closer than
a hundred yards.

Okay, we've got an
animal at 12 o'clock.

Is he still singing? Yeah.

Animal 12 o'clock? How far away?

150 yards.

Okay.

In order to be able to collect
our data, we have to locate
where the singer is, and the

physics of underwater
sound make it challenging
because underwater
sound travels four and

a half times faster
than in air, which makes
the wavelengths longer.

So if we just stick our heads
in the water, we're not going
to be able to tell you where

the sound is coming from.

So what we do is, we use
a directional hydrophone
system, which has
effectively two receivers

that are spaced at four
and a half times the
spacing between our ears.

And that allows us to
kind of use those kinds
of amplitude differences
that we would normally

use in air to effectively
resolve which direction
the song is coming from.

Okay, right again.

And that allows us to then
to then move closer to him.

We're interested in the
characteristics of a
humpback whale song itself.

The song is complex, it's
hierarchically organized.

What you see here is the full
cycle of the song and each one
of these little bright dots

right here is representative
of basically a song unit.

So, for example, here we have
a certain type of unit that's
repeated, and one phrase begins

and ends about right here.

Another one begins and
ends approximately here.

Then another one right
over here, and then
another one over here.

And then the final
one is right there.

So you can see really the
structure of how the units
contribute to different types of

phrases and how different
phrases are organized
into the themes that
make up the entire song.

After each song cycle, which
on average lasts between ten to
18 minutes, the whale surfaces

to breathe, before
re-submerging to start
the song all over again.

Once the animal dives back
down, the team joins him in the
water to collect their data.

The animals tend to sing kind
of canted about anywhere from
about 45 to 60 degrees down.

Most often they're alone,
sometimes they're singing
while in association
with other whales.

The humpback whale song is
just in itself very beautiful.

But when you get in the water
with them and you're right
next to a singer and you feel

the tips of your fins and your
lungs vibrating as a result, it
definitely leaves a very strong

impression on you.

And it's humbling, really.

To document the behavior
of the whale, Adam records
video while in the water.

He also uses the video to
measure the size of the
animal using a technique
called videogrammetry,

which he developed
with his colleagues.

For that technique you need
to know the distance from
the camera to the whale.

And so I am continuously
videotaping that whale
and I wait for the
singer to straighten

out.

Then I have a high
frequency handheld sonar
device, higher than the
whales can hear, basically

it's like a fish finder.

When activated, this sonar
device makes a clicking sound
while measuring the distance

between the camera
and the whale.

This measurement displays on
a small LCD screen which Adam
records with his video camera.

So when I'm back at
our laboratory at UH
Hilo and I'm watching
video of this, I'll hear

a click sound and I know that's
the moment I have to capture
that frame on my computer.

And then I'll basically measure
the distance on the computer
screen, from the tip of the

rostrum to the tip of the tail.

And then there's an
easy algorithm that we
use to calculate the
length of the whale.

While Adam captures video, Marc
records the whale's song so
its acoustic characteristics

can be analyzed later.

I will position myself towards
the head of the animal and
start making my recordings,

and I also have a handheld dive
sonar that I use to measure
the distance that I'm at from

the singing whale.

And those measurements are then
used for us to then be able
to calculate the source level

- so the amplitude that
the whale is singing.

We'll capture as much of the
song as we can and ideally if
we can, we'll capture multiple

sequences of the song.

What we're interested
in is whether that song
of a particular singer
carries information about

that singer's fitness.

If we consider that all the
whales are effectively trying to
produce the same song, some are

going to be inherently better
at it presumably than others.

And that's exactly what we're
trying to quantify, is just that
range and that variability that

exists among the whales.

Are some whales truly better
at producing song at both
low and high frequencies?

Are other whales maybe a little
bit more limited in terms of
the range that they can produce?

Are things like the loudness
of the song, right, the
amplitude of that song, is that

related to larger body size?

Would that represent
a singer with high
levels of testosterone?

We're interested in testosterone
levels because we know that
when whales enter a reproductive

stage, those levels go
up quite dramatically.

Is the quality of the song
related to their testosterone
levels, which could then help

them broadcast to their
competitors and to their
potential mates their
willingness and their

ability to compete vigorously.

To measure the testosterone
levels, the experts
need to collect a small
blubber sample after

they've completed their
in-water data collection.

Adam will shoot a biopsy dart,
which collects a very small
sample of blubber and skin using

a hollow tipped arrow that just
bounces right off the whale and
then we go and collect that.

At the end of each day, Adam
works up the biopsy samples
in a sterile work environment.

So here we have a small amount
of blubber, there's the skin.

And so, we're going to
send it up to our colleague
up at the University
of Alaska Fairbanks and

they have a laboratory up
there where they can do our
steroid hormone analysis for us.

While Marc and Adam still need
to collect more data to draw
definitive conclusions about

the correlations between
a singer's hormone
levels and its size and
acoustic characteristics,

they're already able to tease
out some preliminary findings.

Larger whales may be able to
produce somewhat louder songs.

And we know that the larger
whale is the more likely to win
in a competition for a mate.

A number of hypotheses have
been proposed over the years
to understand the purpose of

the humpback's song.

From helping sort of stimulating
females to come into estrus
to providing some sort of

a homing beacon for
migrating whales.

None of them are necessarily
mutually exclusive.

From what we can
tell it is a display.

When we see singers being
joined by other whales it
almost always is by other males.

We don't see females
actively approaching singers.

And so if other males are the
ones that are really coming
in and paying close attention

to the song of the singer, it
suggests that there's something
in the quality of the song

that they're homing in on and
trying to sort of perceive.

It could benefit other males who
may encounter the singer again,
so they have some information,

so as not to engage this
male in physical competition
and perhaps get injured.

While Adam and Marc are
busy collecting their
data, other members of
the research team make

observations and take
photographs of the
animals' tail flukes
and other distinguishing

body parts.

These images will be used
later for photo identification.

And the fluke ID that we
gather is important because our
historical archive of humpback

whale individual identification
photographs dates back to 1976.

It's one of the largest archives
in the world of humpback whales.

It contains some 23,000 images,
or what we call observations
of, over 7,000 individual

whales.

So it's a rich database.

Unique markings on the whales'
tail flukes make it possible to
distinguish between individuals.

One of the whales that we came
across yesterday was a singer
and I was curious whether we

had seen this whale before.

So you can see that this is a
whale that we call a 75% white,
meaning three quarters of

the ventral surface of
the tail fluke is white.

And there is some markings
like this scar, this scar.

And so what I did was, I took
this photograph here, I'll
just move it to the side.

And then I started going
through our catalog.

And we found a match.

So you can see that this
scar here, for example,
is represented here.

This big line here, starting
out thick and getting
thin, is represented here.

This little white scar is here.

This is from March 10th,
2019, the new photograph.

And this is February
20th, 2006, so that
represents a 14 year span.

And if we continue to go back
in the catalog, we can begin
to start tracing the full life

history of this whale as it's
been seen in Hawai, which
is incredible to trace that

life history.

And it makes you fall in
love with these animals.

And as a scientist, it makes
me want to learn more about
them, so that I could then teach

about them to others.

So they care about them.

There's our animal
ahead of us, 12 o'clock

50 yards.

Unlike other whale species,
humpbacks do not stay together
in permanent pods, but instead

associate in various
temporary social groupings.

They'll be together from
anywhere from a few hours
to maybe to a couple of days

or so at a time.

When you're in the breeding
grounds one of the most common
pod types that you'll see

are mothers with newborn calves.

Often you'll see a pair of
whales and most often that
pair is composed of a male and

a female.

Females without calves
are very coveted.

They're prized by males.

The competitive pod is where
you have a female that has
multiple males that are trying

to effectively gain
exclusive access to her.

The whale that at that
point has access to her,
we call the primary escort.

And then you have multiple
whales, usually in the
periphery, who are the
so-called secondary

escorts.

And some of them will
become active challengers
to the principal escort.

He may do all these displays,
right, to show his strengths.

And so these include things
like blocking behavior by the
male closest to the female,

a head lunge, or blowing a trail
of bubbles from the blowhole,
to more vigorous contest

competition in which the male
will go chase a secondary escort
or will go and will strike it

hard with its body or its
tail flukes, sometimes
causing injury, blood.

And these are all efforts
by the male to effectively
kind of discourage
other males from coming

in and trying to dislodge him
from his position with a female.

So these displays, whether
they be these sort of physical
displays that we observe or the

song, maybe ways that
competitors use to sort
of gauge each other and
to determine whether

it's really worth it to
go in and try to take that
other whale on physically.

Keep your eyes
open, now, though.

Okay, I've got starboard beam.

Port beam.

To further study the various
pod types and behaviors, the
experts also place acoustic

suction cup tags on whales.

We have to get quite
close to the whale.

This is good speed.
This is good speed.

Let's see if he takes
a couple of breaths.

And we have to reach
out with a long pole

to actually physically
attach the tag to the whale.

The whole tagging process,
it is both exhilarating and,
and also a fairly stressful.

A whale right here
and a whale up ahead.

Second whale is closer
at the surface, stand by.

Wait, he's turning, turning.

So once the tag is successfully
on, as you can imagine, the
first thing that happens

is, there's a big cheer.

Yes. Good job!

The next step is to
follow the whale with the

tag and keep up with the tag,
because it's an expensive tag

and we don't want to lose it.

We typically only get a glimpse
of the whales while they're
at the surface, so we can only

really see behaviorally what
they're doing when they're
within our visual view.

But the tag has specialized
sensors that actually measure
the motion of the whale.

So we can look at the diving
pattern, but also how the whale
is moving through the water.

It has what are called tri-axial
accelerometers, which measure
the whale's movement in three

dimensions.

And then along with all
of that are the acoustics.

What are the sounds
that are produced?

What's their nature, what's
their frequency, how loud are
they and when are they produced?

Are they produced as a whale
is moving rapidly through the
water, are they produced while

the whale is diving or are they
more frequent when the whale
is resting or coming to the

surface?

It appears that there's a
wide variety of social sounds
that these animals produce.

That's fascinating.

The scientists closely
follow a tagged whale
using a VHF transmitter
that can pick up sound

signals from the tag when
the whale is at the surface.

We pick up some beeps.

Once it goes back down,
then it goes silent again.

And at that point we effectively
kind of lose all control
over what happens next.

And that's the part that can
get a little bit stressful
because the whale can then go

wherever he or
she decides to go.

It can go into rough waters
where we can't follow it.

If the tag stays on for
extended periods, for example,
overnight, we can't continue

to follow the whale.

More often than not
though, the tag will
stay on for a few hours.

Tag came off. Do you
see it? I don't see it.

It's right here. Right here at
5 o'clock. We went right by it.

Once the tag falls off, it's
designed so that it will sort
of bob up and down in the water

and expose the antenna and then
we get continuous beeps and that
is a cue that tells us, okay,

the tag's fallen off the whale.

Now we have to go
into recovery mode.

And of course that's the
gem right there, right?

And we go back to the laboratory
and then we download that data.

It's coming right here.

There's another one in
front of us 12 o'clock.

Okay, let's try
to pace this guy.

We may want to go for the
second whale right here.

Stand by.

Let him commit.

Stand by.

Okay, here we go.

We got her, tag on.

Tag on, good job.

More tags will need to
be deployed on different
animals found in a
variety of pod settings

to answer some of the deeper
questions, but the experts can
already glean some information

from the whales' tagged so far.

One of the sort of data streams
that we can look at from
the tag is the animals' dive

profile.

The tag went on here at the
beginning of the file and the
whale did some dives down to

about 70 or 80 meters or so.

At the time, this whale
was still affiliated
with another whale.

And then the two whales
separated and our whale with
the tag started to sing.

He did that multiple cycles,
for a few hours at a time.

And then later in the afternoon,
he stopped singing and he
started to affiliate with some

other whales.

And you can now see that the
dive profile becomes much
more erratic and you can see

evidence of the animal
interacting with other whales.

Then at some point in the night
he went back to singing again.

So this kind of gives us a
glimpse of at least a portion
of the animal's day and how much

time this whale, at least,
spent singing versus
interacting with other whales.

And it's this kind of
information that, to
us, is very interesting
and useful because as

we collect more and more of
these data, we can start to
build kind of a picture of how

these animals are spending their
time, how much of their time
do they have to spend resting

versus actively engaged in
competition with other whales.

Many mysteries remain.

Humpback whales are charismatic
animals that have long beguiled
humans with their moving

song and thrilling displays
- including the dedicated
scientists striving to unlock

the secrets of these
giant, ancient mariners.

Humpback whales are an integral
part of the marine ecosystem.

Because they are feeding
on schooling fish,

as well as krill,

they're what we call
a sentinel species.

So they are a reflection of
the health of the oceans.

And so it's important that we
not only understand their role
in the ecosystem, but that we

maintain healthy population.

lama kohol- please
take care of the whale.

Major funding for this
program was provided by
the Batchelor Foundation,

encouraging people to
preserve and protect
America's underwater resources

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,

the Do Unto Others Trust,
and by the following.