False killer whales regularly interact with the Hawaiian pelagic longline tuna fishery resulting in depredation of bait and catch and bycatch or entanglement of whales in the fishing gear. This is detrimental both for the fishers as loss of income and gear damage and to the whales as serious injury and death. The current rate of interactions is unsustainable (above potential biological removal, PBR). Passive acoustic monitoring, by deploying recorders directly on the fishing gear, has provided valuable insight into the potential mechanisms and the rate of these interactions, beyond what is possible through traditional fisheries observers.
I manage continued acoustic monitoring effort conducted in conjunction with volunteer vessels in the fleet and the NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office Observer Program. We have indentified a particular noise produced by the fishing vessels or gear that may be acting as a 'dinner bell' that attracts false killer whales to a potential easy meal. A publication on these findings is forthcoming. Current efforts aim to identify the exact source of this noise and explore strategies to reduce this noise and better mitigate whale-vessel interactions.