Cascadia Research Collective

14/10/2026

14/10/2026

And our west coast presentations at the SMM conference next week!

13/10/2026

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/10/12/washington-among-4-states-with-highest-rate-of-whale-entanglements-report-shows/

In 2025, Washington was among four states where nearly 80% of reported whale entanglements occurred.

12/10/2026

We hope to see you there!

11/10/2026

Any guesses as to what species of Hawaiian odontocete this example of dive data is from? This shows a 24-hour period (with night-time shaded) of an individual tagged off Hawai‘i Island. If it helps figuring out what species this is, although the individual didn’t dive deeply much during the day in this 24-hour period, the same individual did do a lot of deep day-time dives on other days. We have not previously shared any data on diving behavior of this species - in our Hawai‘i studies we’ve collected dive data from 10 species of toothed whales and dolphins, and we’ve published data from eight of the 10 species, but this is not one of the species that we’ve published on.

If you want to try to figure it out, you can see what species we’ve published papers on diving behavior on our Hawai‘i publication page https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii_publications/ and you can see what species we have data from on our Hawaiian dolphin and whale species page https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii/hawaiian-odontocete-species/

We’ll provide the answer soon!

Going to the 26th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Puerto Rico? A number of us from Cascadia will be there, and we look forward to seeing you at the opening reception on October 18th! Watch this space for more information on our upcoming presentations at the conference.

And if you didn’t see our end-of-summer wrap-up report, the flipbook is available at https://cascadiaresearch.aflip.in/Summer_2026.html

If you want to subscribe for future updates, you can sign up at https://cascadiaresearch.org/subscribe/

29/09/2026

We have released an end-of-summer wrap-up flipbook, including videos, animations, photos, and lots of information on what we've been up to. A preview of a few pages here but click on the link to experience the whole thing

https://cascadiaresearch.aflip.in/Summer_2026.html

If you want to subscribe to our mailing list to be notified about future updates you can do so at this page https://cascadiaresearch.org/subscribe/

28/09/2026

A new paper out today on social network structure in rough-toothed dolphins in Hawai‘i, comparing association patterns between the Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau resident population and the Hawai‘i Island population, suggesting that differences in population density and habitat may influence social network structure of this species. Rough-toothed dolphins are one of 11 species of toothed whales and dolphins that are resident to the main Hawaiian Islands.

If you subscribe to Marine Mammal Science you can download a pdf from their website https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.70281 - if you don’t and would like a copy, just let us know!

If you’d like to learn more about rough-toothed dolphins in Hawaiian waters, check out our web page on this species - https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii-species/rough-toothed-dolphins-hawaii/

23/09/2026

A month ago while working off the island of Kaua‘i we had the opportunity to tag two false killer whales from the endangered main Hawaiian Islands population. This was an unusual opportunity, as previously tagged individuals from this population have only infrequently visited Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau. While the longest any previously tagged individuals have remained around Kaua‘i or Ni‘ihau was 11 days, these two whales have not left the vicinity! Is this a shift in the MHI population range or is this more about the individuals tagged? Are their movements over the last month just related to prey? Each tag is a window into these individuals’ lives and we still have much to learn.

Prior to this year we’ve obtained data from 77 satellite-linked tags deployed on false killer whales from the MHI population, with tags deployed off Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Maui, Lāna‘i, and Hawai‘i Island. In 2016 a Cluster 1 individual (HIPc0205 in our catalog) tagged off O‘ahu spent 11 days around Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, and in 2021 another Cluster 1 individual (HIPc0808 in our catalog), this time tagged off Hawai‘i Island, also spent 11 days there. In the month since we tagged the two Cluster 3 individuals (HIPc0367 and HIPc0914) they’ve circumnavigated Kaua‘i three times and Ni‘ihau four or five times, and have spent a lot of time in the southern part of the Kaulakahi Channel that separates the islands. Why have they spent so much time around just these two islands when their range encompasses all the main Hawaiian Islands? The most likely answer is that this is where the prey are – false killer whales feed on a diversity of pelagic and reef-associated game fish, as well as at least occasionally on squid – we are looking forward to trying to better understand these movements.

The map shows movements of HIPc0914 over the last month. In the first two weeks after tagging the tags were transmitting every day, but since September 7th have switched to every second day, to save battery life. Thus the occasional long gaps shown on the map.

If you want to learn more about false killer whales in Hawaiian waters check out our web page on this species - https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii-species/false-killer-whales-hawaii/

21/09/2026

Do you think pilot whales would move to avoid an approaching hurricane? Earlier this month the center of Hurricane Lowell passed to the west of Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i as a Category 2. Kaua‘i sustained a lot of damage and is still recovering. The short-finned pilot whale that we tagged during our August field effort was still in the area as the hurricane approached, and although the tag had started duty cycling a week earlier, so it was on a one-day-on/one-day-off schedule, the period when the hurricane hit was one of the “on” days (the tag was programmed in UTC, so started transmitting at 2 PM HST on September 7th). One of these maps shows the 15 days of this individual’s movements prior to September 7th, and the other shows ~21 hours of data spanning from 2 PM HST on September 7th to ~11 AM HST on September 8th, the period while Hurricane Lowell was passing. On the afternoon of the 7th the tagged whale was east of Ni‘ihau and was moving southwest towards the south end of the island, and then turned north to the west of Ni‘ihau – the opposite of what you’d expect if it was moving away from the storm. The tags we deployed on two false killer whales were also transmitting during this time – stay tuned for a post on their movements during the storm.

Kaua‘i needs your help – please consider donating to a local organization to help support recovery efforts. Mālama Kaua‘i https://malamakauai.org/donate/ and the Kaua‘i Strong Fund of the Hawaii Community Foundation https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/give are just two options – if you have suggestions for other groups that could use support for Kaua‘i recovery please add them to the comments.

If you want to find out more about our August Kaua‘i effort please check out our project web page https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii-update/august2026/