Humpback whales as the count sees them
An adult humpback surfaces to breathe every 10 to 15 minutes on average and can stay down for as long as 45 minutes, while a calf has to come up every 3 to 5 minutes. Those figures come from the sanctuary’s prep document for Ocean Count volunteers. From shore, a calf can surface several times during one 15-minute scan, and a lone adult may not surface at all.
These pages cover koholā (humpback whales) for volunteers and shore watchers: the behaviors on the count’s data sheet, humpback song, and the approach rules. Each one summarizes NOAA and sanctuary sources, cited on the page. We are an independent site, not the sanctuary or the count.
When to look and what to look for from shore
The sanctuary’s boating guidelines put humpback season at November through May, with the usual peak from January through March. All three counts fall inside that peak. The same page says the whales gather in water shallower than 600 feet around the main islands. The site leader guide says more than half of the North Pacific population comes to Hawaiʻi each winter.
The sanctuary’s whale-watching guide gives the same method the census uses: scan the surface slowly and look for the blow, which it describes as bushy and 10 to 16 feet high. Large splashes point to active whales, and binoculars bring them closer. The sanctuary’s January 2026 results noted that high surf made whales harder to see from some shore sites.
On Hawaiʻi Island, Oʻahu and Kauaʻi, calves have made up between about 7% and 22% of the whales counted in a season since 2002, with no rise into March. On Kauaʻi the share has been higher since 2016 than before, and on Hawaiʻi Island it has been lower since 2021.
Show the numbers as a table
| Season | Hawaiʻi | Oʻahu | Kauaʻi |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 9.7% | 14.3% | 7.0% |
| 2003 | – | – | 12.9% |
| 2004 | – | – | 9.6% |
| 2005 | – | – | 7.9% |
| 2006 | – | – | 10.3% |
| 2007 | 13.6% | 20.0% | 9.8% |
| 2008 | 16.1% | 16.5% | 10.0% |
| 2009 | 17.1% | 17.8% | 13.9% |
| 2010 | 15.2% | 15.7% | 11.8% |
| 2011 | 18.4% | 18.8% | 12.1% |
| 2012 | 12.9% | 15.4% | 11.5% |
| 2013 | 13.6% | 16.1% | 13.0% |
| 2014 | 14.7% | 16.7% | 13.4% |
| 2015 | 13.5% | 18.2% | 12.9% |
| 2016 | 16.3% | 16.2% | 14.8% |
| 2017 | 13.5% | 18.7% | 18.2% |
| 2018 | 16.6% | 18.8% | 15.1% |
| 2019 | 13.2% | 19.4% | 19.8% |
| 2020 | 20.1% | 16.9% | 18.8% |
| 2021 | 8.4% | 19.5% | 15.4% |
| 2022 | 9.8% | 15.9% | 15.8% |
| 2023 | 11.0% | 17.0% | 21.7% |
| 2024 | 10.3% | 16.0% | 15.4% |
| 2025 | 11.7% | 17.6% | 15.3% |
| 2026 | 10.5% | 15.7% | 19.3% |
Behaviors on the count’s data sheet
The behavior sheet has six columns: number of adults, number of calves, breach, slap, blow and dive. Our behavior glossary gives the sanctuary’s definition for each column and each comment term.
Humpback song
Only adult males sing. The sanctuary’s acoustic monitoring page says their song is the main source of underwater sound in many parts of Hawaiʻi between December and April. Sanctuary researchers track that chorus through the season with recorders on the seafloor. Our page on whale song explains what researchers think the song is for, shows that seafloor recorders found song in nearly every recording from February to mid-March, 2019 to 2021, and links NOAA’s recordings from Maui, Oʻahu and Penguin Bank.
The 100-yard rule and Go Slow – Whales Below
Federal regulation 50 CFR 216.19 makes it illegal to approach a humpback within 100 yards by any means, or to fly within 1,000 feet, anywhere within 200 nautical miles of Hawaiʻi. The sanctuary’s regulations page names swimmers, paddleboards, kayaks, canoes and drones as well as boats. Our rules page summarizes the legal text and the Go Slow speed guidance for boaters.
White flippers and entanglement reports
About one in five North Pacific humpbacks has white pectoral fins, and under the water they look blue-green. The sanctuary says only half the entanglement reports it receives involve an entanglement, and most of the false alarms come from shore, where white flippers get mistaken for netting, kayaks or surfboards.
In the 2024–25 season, the sanctuary’s response network confirmed 32 reports representing 16 entangled whales (15 humpbacks and a sperm whale). Our rules page has that season’s response efforts and outcomes. If you think you see an entangled or injured whale, call the NOAA Fisheries hotline at 1-888-256-9840 and stay at least 100 yards away.
For whale watching from a boat, Love Big Island’s whale-watching guide compares Hawaiʻi Island whale tours by boat size and has a month-by-month table of the season. It’s published by the same company as this site.