Deep Dive: An Interview with Robin Baird

So what do you say...

So to our listeners who wanna stay safe in the water, what can you tell us probably specifically about dolphins to start with? They go out in the bay, let's say it's Hanalei Bay, and they go out, and they wanna watch all the dolphins, the spinner dolphins.

Isn't this wonderful? Can you tell us about their behavior so people can understand why they keep coming into the bay, what they're doing when they're spinning? What are they doing during the early morning hours versus the evening? All of that information would be great.

Yeah.

Well, uh, spinner dolphins probably get more exposure to human activities than any other species in Hawaii, uh, because of their day/night patterns and their, their, uh, tendency to rest near shore during the day.

So spinner dolphins, uh, do almost all of their foraging at night, and, and that foraging is, is usually a few miles offshore, uh, in deeper water.

And, and then they come in close to shore early in the morning, uh, usually right around or shortly after sunrise.

Uh, and they will spend most of the day, uh, usually until sort of mid to late afternoon in these shallow nearshore areas like Hanalei Bay and off of Polihale.

And, uh, the spinner dolphins-- Many species of whales and dolphins in Hawaii have these very strong day and night patterns where they'll feed at night and rest during the day.

But spinner dolphins are the only one that, uh, does that resting behavior almost exclusively in, in very shallow nearshore waters.

So, uh, they, they tend to, uh, when they first come in, uh, in the morning, uh, they may move around, uh, a little bit, and you'll see a lot of social activities.

Uh, and then they will sort of descend into a deeper sleep or rest pattern, and that resting pattern may last for five or six hours, uh, before sort of waking up in the, the mid-afternoon and, and starting to, uh, range more broadly.

And, and, and, you know, based on various studies, they're, they're starting to move out into deeper water maybe three o'clock in the afternoon or four o'clock in the afternoon.

And because their resting behavior is so-- the locations for where they rest are so predictable, it's really-Um, set them up for a lot of sort of, um, land-based disturbance.

And when I say land-based, I mean people swimming out from shore, uh, to get close to the dolphins and, and interact with the dolphins, uh, during the, the middle of their rest period.

And it's interesting, folks who have done this type of thing, and we even noticed it in our, our, our research activities, is it's not surprising even when you have a group of spinner dolphins that are resting that one or two of them may come over and approach a boat, or they may come over and approach swimmers.

Uh, but often it's the, the juvenile individuals.

And, uh, I, I, the analogy I use is, you know, kids or, or teenagers, you know, it's not like they're necessarily, uh, resting when they're supposed to rest.

Um, they...

If they're, they're easily distracted, and that doesn't mean that they don't need the rest.

Um, that, that's the same, I think, with spinner dolphins, uh, uh, and their resting nearshore behavior.

Uh, there's been a lot of attempts in Hawaii over the years and discussion about how to manage that situation, the, the human-dolphin interactions.

Uh, a few years ago, National Marine Fisheries Service, uh, which is the regulatory body for whales and dolphins in Hawaiian waters, uh, and throughout the U- United States, uh, put, uh, set up a, a regulation, which is a no swim with regulation and a, and a 50-yard approach rule specifically for spinner dolphins.

And there was also lots of discussion at the time, and, and National Marine Fisheries Service is still trying to decide on whether to set up, uh, what would be some, some sort of time area closure.

So they, they might make it so that you weren't allowed to go into a particular bay that's known to be a resting bay for spinner dolphins between, you know, 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM.