Ten whales beached themselves on Sugar Beach on Thursday. Six were coaxed back out to sea, four were euthanized. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries permit No. 18786 photo
Six of 10 small whales that beached themselves at Sugar Beach on Thursday morning were coaxed back into deeper waters by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stranding teams and Native Hawaiian practitioners until the whales could not be seen.
“It is our hope they made it out to sea,” said David Schofield, NOAA Fisheries regional marine mammal response coordinator, in a conference call from Oahu on Thursday afternoon.
A team will continue to monitor the shoreline and nearshore waters off Sugar Beach today, he said.
Four other whales were euthanized after NOAA veterinarians determined that they were in grave condition and nothing more could be done for them. A dead calf about a mile north of the stranding location later was brought to shore.
Early reports said the whales were melon-headed whales but Schofield said the species of whale was not clear Thursday afternoon. They could be pygmy whales, he said.
NOAA volunteer Jamey Kleinhenz carries a dead whale calf from the water at Kealia on Thursday afternoon. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
The cause of the beaching was not determined as of Thursday afternoon, Schofield said. The deceased whales were flown by cargo plane to Oahu for a post-mortem to help determine the cause of death. NOAA was working with the University of Hawaii Stranding Lab.
There did not appear to be evidence of a vessel strike and not many boats were in the ocean in the area, he said.
Determining the reason for the beaching may take days, weeks or months, he said. Both Schofield and Dane Maxwell, a cultural practitioner called to the scene, noted that whales are social animals and may come to shore following a disoriented or ill member of the pod. Maxwell noted Navy submarines operate off Kahoolawe; Schofield said the post-mortem may help determine whether sound from sonar was a factor.
Schofield said the wide Maalaea Bay, like Cape Cod in Boston and bays in New Zealand and Australia, with its gently sloping undersea shelf, can disorient whales as they swim in from deeper waters. The whales can “get confused and strand,” he said.
Whale strandings near Maalaea Bay occur almost every year but mass strandings are more rare, Schofield and Maxwell said. In 2007, a pod of six pigmy whales swam into Maalaea with one stranding, Schofield said.
A whale calf is brought from the shore break Thursday. Ten whales beached themselves on Sugar Beach; this whale calf was pulled from the ocean. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
There was a mass stranding of pilot whales in Nawiliwili, Kauai, in 2017; five whales were stranded and two died. In 2004, there were 150 melon-headed whales in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, but only one beached.
NOAA began receiving calls of a “mass stranding of small whales” at Sugar Beach at 5:30 a.m., Schofield said. The Maui team responded and found 10 whales on the beach.
Maxwell said their beliefs call for whales to be allowed to die on their own and not euthanized.
“I really made a push to get the six out,” Maxwell said Thursday evening. “We asked them forcefully but nicely.”
The six were refloated but two of the six restranded themselves and all six restranded another time, said Schofield. Maxwell said the six came ashore a mile and a half down the shoreline near the Kihei Canoe Club. Some refloated themselves, others were returned to the ocean.
County ocean safety officers on Jet Skis patrolled the shoreline to keep the whales from coming back to shore. They were floated out as a group because if pushed out one at a time, they circled back to shore. State Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement officers also were on scene to aid the whales.
The whales milled around the bay most of the morning and into early afternoon, said Schofield. A tiger shark was observed but was likely deterred by the ocean safety officers on Jet Skis. The pod went out to sea, headed back to shore, then observers lost sight of them, he said.
“We don’t know the whereabouts” of the six whales, Schofield said.
Maxwell, grandson of Kahu Charles Maxwell Sr. who helped establish the relationship with NOAA more than a decade ago, expects to receive the cremated remains of the whales following the necropsy to perform cultural protocols so that the animals can transition to po, the place from which creation comes before birth and where those who have died go. This will be done at Sugar Beach, where they chose to strand, he said.
Hawaiian practitioners did not believe in euthanasia for the whales, which involves injecting the whales with a sedative then a euthanasia solution, similar to the cocktail given to dogs and cats. The solution causes respiratory and cardiac arrest, said Schofield, adding that “they kind of go to sleep.”
Maxwell, the cultural director for the Maui Ocean Center, said that euthanasia of the whales may seem humane, but it’s a “human thing” and “nature has its own process.”
“Unless you can speak or squeak whale,” a person cannot really know the wishes of the animal, he said. The transition to death is shortened and the cycle broken. Therein lies that “fine line” between Hawaiian culture and Western science, he said.
In Hawaiian culture, whales are considered the kino lau, or physical embodiment, of the god Kanaloa, Maxwell said.
“It’s been a work in progress how we interface with NOAA,” he said.
* Lee Imada can be reached at leeimada@mauinews.com. Matthew Thayer contributed to this report.
Today's breaking news and more in your inbox
The Maui News Maui County Department of Finance Director Scott Teruya was placed on administrative leave on last ...
Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, formerly on Front Street in Lahaina Town and destroyed by the fire, announced the ...
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rq3UoqWer6NjsLC5jqecsKtfobykrctmpZ6vo2R%2FcX2YaGdxZ6OexW6uxJqaoZ2UYsSprcueqmaqlanCs7qMraZmrJiaerSxwGadqK2iYrK2wMeapaKylZl8