Whale protection: the sanctuary, the rules and how to help

The 100-yard rule

Under federal regulations it is illegal to approach a humpback whale within 100 yards (300 feet) in Hawaiian waters by any means: boat, kayak, paddleboard, surfboard, swimming or diving. Aircraft, including drones, must stay 1,000 feet away. It is also illegal to put a vessel in the path of a whale, to operate at speeds that disrupt it, or to do anything that changes its behavior.

The rules apply to the approaching party. If a whale approaches you, you have not broken the law; the correct response is to stop, put the engine in neutral, and let the whale decide what happens next. Good operators do exactly this, and it is how the best encounters happen.

Violations carry civil penalties up to tens of thousands of dollars and are enforced by NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement and the state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement, with the sanctuary’s own staff and a lot of watchful captains reporting what they see.

The sanctuary

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was created by Congress in 1992 and is managed jointly by NOAA and the State of Hawaiʻi. It covers about 1,400 square miles of water around the main islands, and its largest and most important section is the Maui Nui basin between Maui, Lānaʻi, Molokaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, including the whole ʻAuʻau Channel. On West Maui the sanctuary waters run from Māʻalaea around to Kapalua.

The sanctuary runs the Sanctuary Ocean Count, maintains the whale-response network, funds research, and operates a visitor center in Kīhei with a live hydrophone during the season. Its boundaries are the reason your whale watch is where it is.

Entanglement

The biggest threat to Hawaiʻi’s humpbacks is entanglement in fishing gear, most of it picked up in Alaska and carried 3,000 miles. A whale trailing line through its mouth or around its tail can starve, drown or lose a fluke. Each season NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Large Whale Entanglement Response Network, based at the sanctuary’s Maui office, responds to a dozen or more reports, approaching under permit in small boats to cut the gear free. Several whales have been freed in the ʻAuʻau Channel in sight of tour boats.

If you see an entangled, injured or dead whale, call the NOAA Marine Wildlife Hotline: (888) 256-9840, or hail the Coast Guard on VHF channel 16. Note the position, time, direction of travel and what the gear looks like. Do not try to cut the whale free yourself; untrained attempts have killed people and rarely help the whale.

Vessel strikes are the other serious risk, especially for calves resting near the surface. Boats in the sanctuary are asked to keep speeds down and post a lookout, and most tour operators run at reduced speed in the channel during the season.

Choosing an operator

Both operators on this guide follow the sanctuary’s guidelines and, we think, go beyond them. Things worth looking for in any whale watch:

• A certified naturalist on board, not just a captain with a microphone.
• A stated policy of staying 100 yards off and letting whales approach.
• A real whale guarantee: a free second trip, not a discount coupon.
• Smaller vessels or limited loads, which mean less noise and less pressure on the animals.
• Participation in research, such as submitting fluke photos to Happywhale or reporting entanglements.

Counting whales for science

Two volunteer counts happen each winter on the last Saturday of January, February and March, from 8 AM to noon.

The Sanctuary Ocean Count is NOAA’s shore-based survey on Oʻahu, Kauaʻi and Hawaiʻi Island; on Maui the same day is covered by the Great Whale Count, run by Pacific Whale Foundation since 1988, with stations from Māʻalaea to Kāʻanapali. Volunteers sign up online, get a short training, and spend a morning with binoculars and a clipboard recording every blow, breach and fluke in their sector. In 2025 the Ocean Count alone put 1,353 volunteers at 44 sites and recorded 4,782 whale sightings over three days. Both counts take visitors. It is the best free morning you can spend on Maui in February.

What else you can do

• Use reef-safe sunscreen; oxybenzone and octinoxate are banned in Hawaiʻi.
• Pick up fishing line and plastic on the beach. A lot of what entangles whales starts as trash.
• Upload fluke photos to Happywhale so researchers can track the whale you saw.
• Report drones flying over whales; it is illegal within 1,000 feet and it happens every day at Kāʻanapali.
• Support Whale Trust Maui, Pacific Whale Foundation or the sanctuary foundation, which fund the research behind nearly everything on this site.