PRINCEVILLE — Humpback whales are starting to return to Hawaii on their annual migration.

And Ed Lyman and his crew will be ready.

“The on-water community is the foundation of our effort,” said entanglement expert Lyman, with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

He’s part of a trained team that responds to entangled whales reported around Hawaii, a group that’s removed gear off of 33 humpbacks since it started in the 2002/2003 season.

It’s a dangerous business, following the whale through open water to attach a tracker to the trailing gear and avoiding accidents that could occur working with such a large animal.

But Lyman and the crew are constantly training, testing and proving their methods of disentanglement. In fact, if you see an entangled whale, it’s best to keep eyes on it from a safe distance and call them.

“We tend to get more gear off when we are with well-equipped, trained and authorized people,” said Lyman, who will be speaking at the Princeville Public Library at 5 pm. Thursday. “We’re trained and we can get all the wraps off the whale instead of just the trailing gear. It’s safer and better for the animal.”

In order to mount the disentanglement efforts, Lyman and the crew have to know the whale’s out there, and that’s where fishermen, tour boats and anyone else who sees the whale comes in.

Lyman says they really couldn’t do it without the on-water community chipping in. That means keeping eyes on the whale from a safe and legal distance, and documenting as much as you can.

“It’s a big needle in a big haystack, especially off Kauai. Whales tend to be pretty mobile around Kauai it seems, people call it in and then we have a hard time relocating the whale,” Lyman said.

Humpbacks have already been spotted around Kauai, but in recent years, the annual counts have found fewer of them.

The drop in sightings around Hawaii is estimated at 50 percent to 80 percent over the past four years.

Researchers use a variety of monitoring methods to count the whales, including visual observations conducted aboard ships that follow specific coordinates and acoustic monitoring that listens for whale songs from fixed underwater locations. There is also a less scientifically rigorous count done each year where residents on shore report their sightings.

The humpbacks traditionally migrate each autumn from Alaska, where they feed during the summer months, to Hawaii, where they mate and give birth during the winter. Based on the latest large-scale population study, it is estimated that half of all North Pacific humpbacks make the journey to Hawaii each year, putting the total number of whales making the 6,000-mile round trip migration at around 11,000 annually.

Most humpbacks were taken off the Endangered Species list in 2016 but are still federally protected.

Lyman will talk about the team’s work, as well as touch on new data that shows potential changes in the humpback whale population and how that could possibly relate to entanglements.

The main message, Lyman says, is that whale season is coming. Secondly, Lyman will point out the negative impacts humans can have on the whales as well as the potential to help and be a sort of first responder for the animals.

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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or at jelse@thegardenisland.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.