Whale Studies
Live Whale Song
The Live Whale Song project was the first of Jupiter Research Foundation's (JRF) major endeavors. The objective was to make live Humpback whale sounds available on our website both for the research community and for public enjoyment. We have successfully met this objective, streaming live whale song on the Internet since 2003.
HUMPACS (Humpback Pacific Survey)
JRF partnered with Whale Trust co-founder and biologist Dr. Jim Darling to study Humpback Whale Song across the North Pacific basin. In 2017, the HUMPACS project (the Humpback Pacific Survey) emerged out of this partnership, with the goal to search for humpbacks where no one has looked – the deep ocean basins and seamounts between Hawaii and Baja California (East Leg) and between Hawaii and the Mariana Trench (West Leg), where biologists have long wondered if there is an undiscovered distribution of humpback whales. The results of these efforts have lead to other collaborations. Learn about our voyages on our map and our blog.
Joint Projects
From time to time JRF has had the opportunity to join other groups like universities, community groups or outreach programs in there efforts. We have been involved in a collaborative humpback whale localization study using Wave Gliders with Cornell University and Hawaii Marine Mammal Consortium; helped the University of Hawaii deploy and recover EARS; support whale watching natural history expeditions for Cornell University, Parker School and North Hawaii Community Hospital; help the Puako Community identify an algal bloom along its coast; and as trained responders, support the North Pacific Large Whale Entanglement Response Team and NOAA's marine mammal tracking efforts.
Humpback Whale Photo Identification
Humpback whales have a unique pigmentation pattern on the underside of their tail (flukes) much like a "thumbprint" that allows us to identify individual animals. Beth Goodwin, who has been doing humpback whale photo-ID for over 30 years as part of Eye Of The Whale, has created an interactive catalog where she and others can post and try to match their fluke photo IDs as well as their "Best Of" pictures of humpbacks whales seen along the Kohala Coast (primarily between Blacks Point and Anaehoomalu Bay out to ~3nm).
