Whale & Wildlife Report | Feb 16-22, 2025
PC: Sam Murphy
Highlights
Humpback Whales
Pantropical Spotted Dolphins
Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins
Bottlenose Dolphins
Scalloped Hammerhead Shark
Reef Manta Rays
Melanistic Oceanic Manta Ray
Green Sea Turtles
Whale & Wildlife Report | Feb 16-22, 2025
Another adventure-packed week on the Kona Coast! When we’re on scene with humpbacks, we always try to get a good photo of their flukes. When we submit our photos to the Happywhale database, we may be able to ID the whales we’re watching! We identified multiple whales this week including two Pacific Northwest whales nicknamed “Morse Code” and “Rosie”. Our sister company Island Adventures in Washington State might see these two this summer! It’s amazing how with photo identification we can track the travels and migratory patterns of these whales.
PC: Sam Murphy
We had a lot of mom, calf, and escort trios this week. Our record was four of these trios in one trip! With so many babies in the area, we were bound to see some sweet action. Some of the calves were practicing their breaching with repetitive jumps. One more sleepy baby was flopping around on the surface and rolling on top of their mom’s head. It was the cutest sight! We also spotted a tiny new baby, so new that their dorsal fin was still bent!
PC: Sam Murphy
We had some insane humpback competition pods this week! One group started with 5 whales and grew to 7. There was constant action with lunging, thrashing, head butting, and bubble curtains from the boys. Things got pretty intense and red was definitely in the water. We even witnessed two exhausted males dropping out of the action. Watching this behavior was a humbling reminder of these whales’ competitive nature and determination during the breeding season. This is the wild and sometimes it can be brutal!
PC: Sam Murphy
Our manta dreams came true this week with a brief sighting of a melanistic oceanic manta ray! Melanistic mantas are completely black on their backs and almost entirely black on their underside. Oceanic manta rays are larger than Kona’s reef manta rays, and can be 15-23 ft wide! We also saw quite a few reef manta rays surface feeding in various current lines, and on our night manta snorkel tours of course! We were stoked to see so many swooping below our light boards including a local favorite nicknamed “Big Bertha”.
PC: Sam Murphy
We started many of our whale watching trips with Hawaiian spinner dolphins outside the harbor. On two occasions the pods were especially active with 100+ dolphins in the group! Bottlenose dolphins were cruising by the fish pens and sporadically swimming around a few humpback whales. A couple gave us closer looks and we bore witness to some mating behavior. Offshore we also found a pod of Pantropical spotted dolphins who were actively hunting and came over to ride our bow and wake. We can’t wait to see what awaits our adventures next week!
PC: Sam Murphy
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