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Underwater soul It all started when Dan Sythe stuck his head under the waters of Charley Young beach on Maui.
Songs of Hawaii's whales reach an
international audience, via the InternetBy Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comHe heard the sounds of giant humpback whales speaking to one another, those otherworldly "songs" that also reach out to members of Homo sapiens eager to find their bond to the natural world.
Or something as mundane as "emotional calming and better sleep," according to an Ashland, Ore., doctor who finds Sythe's Web site therapeutic.
By hooking up to www.whalesong.net any time of the day, you'll hear the whales via a live hookup from a hydrophone off Maui's South Kihei coastline.
Sythe's popular Web site started last winter, after a revelatory experience at the beach.
"When I told visitors that they could hear the whales if they just put their heads underwater, they almost all would come up with a smile on their faces," he said. "It has such a dramatic effect on people, to have that whole world of sound open up to them. I also hope it opens a doorway of interest to protect the environment.
"We took a boat out to Maalaea Bay, put a hydrophone in the water and webcast the whale sounds for three to four weeks last year as a trial run, as well as broadcasting it to the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Maui Education Center.
"We plan to continue with a second system that will be fed to the education center, like last year," he said. "The center gets anywhere up to 600 visitors a day."
Sythe said the peak hours for listening to the whales are 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Hawaii time, although the morning he spoke by phone from Kihei, "the vocalizations peaked between 8 and 10 a.m."
Sometimes, when we hear what sounds like the males accompanying the mother and calf's vocalizations, some say they are 'proud papa' songs.
Dan Sythe,
The Whalesong Project
Every winter season, the females come to the islands to give birth, "in particular the leeward side of Maui, where they feel protected in the warm, shallow water," he said. "It's where the highest concentration of births occur, and people can see them calve there."
Sythe said that in addition to providing relaxing sounds and helping inspire an eco-friendly consciousness, the Whalesong Project can be incorporated into a science curriculum appropriate from grade school up to college. Researchers have also used the Web site to study the mammals' vocalizations.
"All of this is maintained with just me and the volunteers, using our own time and money," he said. "We hope to expand with the help of grants and donations. We now keep the Web site up and running all year round, and when the whales are not in season, we offer archival recordings. During that time we hope to develop a curriculum that would be an outreach into the community."
ACCORDING TO the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary's Web site, native Hawaiians may have viewed the whale -- "kohola" in Hawaiian -- as sacred, an animal form of Kanaloa, one of the four major demigods, and therefore kapu (forbidden) to kill. It was also believed to be an aumakua, or guardian spirit, to some families.
The sounds of the whales change through the brief winter season they spend here.
"At the beginning of the season," Sythe said, "there are more birthing sounds, what naturalists now say are the mothers and babies communicating with each other. The vocalizations are these beautiful, haunting, ethereal minor chords, and at night we hear more long, soulful songs.
"The conventional wisdom is that these longer, solo songs are made by male whales. And sometimes when we hear what sounds like the males accompanying the mother and calf's vocalizations, some say they are 'proud papa' songs."
Sythe said that since the site has been on the Internet, he's gotten an increasing number of enthusiastic e-mails from Africa, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany and around the United States, all from people -- inspired by the sounds of the magnificent sea creatures -- who don't even have to get their heads wet.
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