Mysterious Blainville’s Beaked Whales Make An Appearance In Hawaii
Big Island photographer captures four minutes of up-close video of a pair of the elusive creatures during a 25-minute encounter.
Whale season in Hawaii usually means majestic humpbacks 辞谤听, but the Aloha State is also home to a more mysterious and reclusive cetacean.
Last week, was 聽when she encountered two juvenile Blainville’s beaked whales.
Blainville’s beaked whales, which look like obese spinner dolphins, are normally very elusive, but when Denning jumped in the water with her camera, the pair stuck around for about 25 minutes. She even captured four minutes of up close and personal video footage with them, above.
“Typically, they are very shy,” Denning . “You might see them for a few minutes, then they disappear.”
Luckily for her (and us), these two wanted to play.
Denning told the Big Island’s that she made eye contact multiple times with the whales and even communicated with one by slapping her fins on the water in response to its tail slaps.
Blainville’s beaked whales can be as long as . They live in tropical waters worldwide, but often spend most of their time , where they hunt for squid and small fish.
Because they swim so deep 鈥 they’ve been known to dive than humpbacks 鈥 Blainville’s beaked whales are difficult to observe.
Biologist Robin Baird of the Cascadia Research Collective has been documenting these and other whales for years. He estimated that on average, . For comparison, sightings of the common short-finned pilot whale rate about 8.33 per 100 hours.
鈥淭hese guys are very stealthy,鈥 Whitlow Au, a , told HuffPost. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to look hard to find them.鈥
As a result, Blainville’s beaked whales are somewhat of a mystery: Scientists don鈥檛 know how many there are, or .
Denning knows how lucky her chance encounter was, telling KITV that it was a “really neat and a beautiful experience.”
Au was even more excited about it: “The video was amazing!” he told HuffPost.
We couldn’t agree more.
