Captain's Log

For a Healthy Planet

Maui Fire Recovery – How to Help

The recent fires on Maui claimed lives, destroyed homes, businesses, historic and cultural sites, and caused severe financial impact to people already stressed by an asymmetric economy that was driving Hawaiians from their homeland to more affordable locations. Fortunately Hawaiians and people who love Hawai’i have pulled together rapidly to help.  Whalesong Project volunteers have helped through contributing time and resources during and after the fires, but our project is not accepting donations for fire recovery.  Instead we are directing people to other respected organizations.  Rebuilding will present many challenges and take many years, but if people who love Hawai’i pull together it can be done in a good way that respects the ‘āina, the culture and traditions of Maui.
Here are ways to help and stay in touch with ongoing efforts:
Places to Donate
Organizations Directly Helping People
Maui Food Bank – This organization is highly respected and does good work year round. The fires have added extraordinary challenges and donations will feed people who have lost jobs and homes. Every dollar donated will provide 4 meals to hungry people on Maui.
Hawaii Community Foundation – this highly respected and long established nonprofit organization has set up the Maui Strong Fund. 100 percent of donations go directly to community needs.
Kāko’o Maui – This Hawaiian Way Fund, established by the Native Hawaiian Advancement Council is providing resources that can be deployed quickly and efficiently to Hawaiian communities affected by the wildfires.
Peopleʻs Fund of Maui – Provides direct assistance to individuals. Established by Oprah Winfrey and Duane “The Rock” Johnson in consultation with community leaders on Maui. See this article, and this video on their project to help Maui.
Mohala Hou Foundation – Keola and Moanalani Beamer are residents of Lahaina whose neighbors lost everything, and are dedicating their own and their foundation resources to helping the community recover.
Animals are also affected
Maui Humane Society – This organization does great work year round on Maui and has played a vital role in saving and treating and taking care of animals lost, burned, injured and in other ways affected by the fires.

Upcoming Whalesongs

The series is titled Age of Man and hopes to present a new look at humankind’s relationship with the natural world. Passion Pictures will use the most advanced ‘blue chip’ filming techniques to provide visuals akin to natural history event programming although in this series they will turn the camera around to show the world as it really is “with us in it”.

Age of Man

The London based production company Passion Pictures will send a film crew to Maui early May. They hope to capture live whale songs for a five-part conservation series for PBS in association with National Geographic Television.The series is titled Age of Man and hopes to present a new look at humankind’s relationship with the natural world. Passion Pictures will use the most advanced ‘blue chip’ filming techniques to provide visuals akin to natural history event programming although in this series they will turn the camera around to show the world as it really is “with us in it”.Learn more about this awesome project here.

New book by Whalesong Board Member David Rothenberg

We just wanted to let you know that “Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise” by philosopher and musician David Rothenberg, is on sale now! In looking at cicadas, as well as other humming, clicking, and thrumming insects, Bug Music is the first book to consider the radical notion that we humans learned rhythm, synchronization, and dance from the panoply of insect sounds that has surrounded us for millions of years. Publishers Weekly raves, “The author’s wide-ranging musical interests…together with his playful, almost romantic approach to the subject helps engage general readers.

Rothenberg provides in-depth research and writing on the relationship between human and animal music as he interviews researchers and scientists, explores the exotic insect markets of Shanghai, and plays his saxophone as an accompaniment to an orchestra of crickets. Kirkus says “adventurous audiophiles will catch Rothenberg’s bug for insect-music appreciation.”

Celebration of the Arts

Dan reports from California: “I was just very heartened and got some chicken skin to see our Maui team show up at Celebration of the Arts. This is our 12th consecutive year at this remarkable event. The buoy broke mooring last week and the local community, lifeguards and Paulo Mendes retrieved it. Couldn’t get it back in the ocean so brought it to the Ritz for the first time, and they are playing recorded whale songs and have a slide show. Dean Altiere is a new contributor, as will be Deanne Summers. Auntie Puanani Mahoe and friends are also participating along with board members Trisha Cabral, B and Sher Baum, and long time supporter Wendy Acosta. Paulo what would we do without you? Thanks for cleaning up the buoy and bringing her to the Ritz!
I am grateful that our team showed up for the event, and that we had some time in the water with live webcast this year. Mahalo nui to all. I’m with you there in Spirit!”
Celebration

 The Whalesong Project at Celebration of the Arts Festival

THE RITZ-CARLTON, KAPALUA PRESENTS THE 21ST ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF THE ARTS FESTIVAL

“E ulu…e ulu mau – To grow…to grow forever”

The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua will convene Hawaii’s most reputable artisans, educators, cultural practitioners, speakers and entertainers, March 29-30, during the 21st Annual Celebration of the Arts. The theme, “E ulu…e ulu mau – To grow…to grow forever focuses upon the forward movement of all things Hawaiian” states Clifford Nae‘ole, Cultural Advisor and Event Chair of the prestigious event.

We are very proud to be part of this wonderful festival for the 12th time! So if you’re around: our team will be more than happy to welcome you at our booth!

 Unexpected adventure…

The buoy broke loose today with strong current and high waves. Thanks to the Liveguards and Paulo who rescued it! We have a goal to get it back in early in the week. We just had the iTunes audio issue straightened out Thursday and it was sounding good yesterday morning, so this was an unexpected adventure… Please stay tuned!

The Whalesong buoy is LIVE!

Aloha everyone!

We had the usual challenges, but got the buoy in thanks to Bruce and Sher logistics and anchor setting, Paulo buoy refurbishing and base station set up, Trisha and Radha launch support, a host of other volunteers, Kihei Lifeguards with their jet ski. And Wendy Acosta for rescuing the buoy end of 2011 season and storing parts under her hale.

A rainbow greeted us on a sunny calm morning, after days of heavy rain on January 8. I only had a few days on Maui before Tokyo. A baby whale was born at Charley Young Beach so it was mobbed – and there were DLNR and Coast Guard teams there to protect the baby.

It was a lot of work for Paulo to get the base station going…the usual complex technical issues and our base computer broke down dead. It took the rest of this month for Paulo, Markus and I to get a new computer, and iron out the base station issues, but itʻs now working. Mahalo Paulo, and each of you. And Pua for the beautiful lei for the buoy.  And Markus for logistical support from Germany even as your new baby was born. Congratulations!

I presented Paulo with that shell lei (below) to thank him for accompanying me on several trips to Japan during the disaster, for saving the buoy after the earlier tsunami.

Also, we owe a great deal of gratitude to Wendy Grace, who donated significantly recently.  And each of you has contributed significantly to the project. And mahalo to my wife Nit for handing me tools and testing the system with me in the rain. Thanks to each of you.

From California where I am enjoying listening to the whales singing in my office, Aloha!

Dan

launch team

Attack on German website www.whalesong.info

We are shocked to notice did our German website for The Whale Song Project www.whalesong.info got hacked and mostly destroyed. We are seeking for possibilities to get the website up and running again. Meanwhile we ask for your understanding, indeed we will post in German once in a while. Thank you very much on or Hawaiian: Mahalo nui!

Attack on the German website www.whalesong.info

Almost 10 years ago, she went to the starting line – the German version of Whale Song Project: www.whalesong.info.

Unfortunately, the Jubilee was not granted on 2.1.2013 … the end of December was attacked our website and sustainably destroyed. A reconstruction of the page will cost as much effort as completely build a new one. This shock, we have not yet fully digested! Because of the ongoing crisis in the US Whalesong Germany makes a significant financial contribution to the survival of the whole project, it currently lacks sufficient simply to ‘play money’ to build something professional. We hope you understand that we have for the time being redirected to the American website. We want to report about the further development.

Positive is the fact that there are equal succeeded earlier this year, the buoy – bringing into the water after a year’s break. Now is still missing a PC, which can send the data to the provider of the live streams. A donation in the US these days will allow us to finance. It will take a while until we have all interfaces tuned to each other clean, but a live broadcast of the songs of the humpback whales off Maui will it definitely this year! Please remain loyal to us!