University of Hawaii marine program to focus on conservation

The Marine Mammal Research Program at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology is shifting its research focus under new director Lars Bejder to include the impacts of climate change, human activities and prey availability on whales and dolphins.

The University of Hawaii program is traditionally known for its acoustics-oriented research into how animals produce, hear and perceive sounds.

“The main focus now is the conservation of marine mammals, and for that, we are mainly working with free-ranging animals,” said Bejder, who assumed his post in February. “So if you want to conserve and protect a population or know whether it’s a viable population, some of the important parameters are: What are the important habitats, how many are there and what are the potential stressors that these populations might have, stressors meaning, human activities and climate change, for example.”

Bejder, 47, came to the program from Murdoch University in Australia, where he was a professor and head of the Cetacean Research Unit. Bejder has spent nearly two decades studying various aspects of whale and dolphin biology, ecology and conservation in New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and the United States.

At the same time, marine mammals are charismatic animals, he said, making them ideal messengers for conservation issues such as plastic pollution and marine debris.

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“Some of the studies that we are carrying out will allow us to provide information to conserve these animals,” he said. “Very importantly, they are also sentinels of ecosystem health, and this is really important because they can help raise concerns with the general public about concerns that we have about the ocean health today.”

While researchers will continue to use traditional techniques to study the marine mammals, including photo identification to track animals via dorsal fins, flukes and scars, they also will be embracing newer, innovative technology such as noninvasive suction-cup tagging and drones.

The new tools will help researchers collect data on habitat use, animal populations, movements, communication, calf-suckling rates and the physical condition of marine mammals. The program’s research also will seek to identify the specific impacts of human activities on marine mammals and develop appropriate mitigation and management strategies.

Bejder said the use of drones is opening up a new world of research possibilities, including the ability to look at changes in the condition of marine mammals over time, with millimeter precision.

One of the Marine Mammal Research Program’s projects, for example, uses drone technology to examine humpback whales at their feeding grounds in Alaska in an attempt to understand the possible causes of a decline in whale sightings.

In 2016, humpback whales in Hawaii were removed from the Endangered Species List. However, since then, scientists have observed a consistent decline in humpback whale sightings in Hawaiian and southeast Alaskan waters over three consecutive seasons.

The program’s “Humpback whales, climate change and prey availability” project, in collaboration with the Alaska Whale Foundation, seeks to quantify the bioenergetic demands on the humpback whale migration between Alaskan feeding grounds and Hawaiian breeding grounds.

Another study, recently published, found through the use traditional photo identification and other data-collecting methods that spinner dolphins resting off the Kona coast have the highest rate of human exposure anywhere in the world.

To best achieve its mission, the Marine Mammal Research Program plans to work with other academic institutions and across all sectors, including the tourism industry, state and federal management agencies, nongovernmental organizations, community and educational organizations.

Bejder said it is important to build these relationships.

“I’m a firm believer that dialogue is extremely important … . The more you work across all these different sectors, the more effective you’re going to be, one, in raising awareness, but also implementing your science into conservation,” he said.

Bejder also plans to share research in progress with a wider audience beyond other scientists.

“We are going to be communicating our science as we go, not wait until the results are done,” he said. “You want people to have confidence in what you do, you want to give them an understanding in why you’re doing it, how you’re doing it.”

The program recently launched a new website and social-media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to build awareness and connect with the community. The program also is accepting donations at mmrphawaii.org/donate to fund research initiatives and student scholarships.