after an initial sighting, suggesting either rapid 

 population turnover or high levels of intermixing 

 between the various schools of the area. 



Two pale animals were seen. They were very 

 different visually from their associates. This was 

 especially evident from the air. They were seen 

 along the entire southern Kona coast from 

 Keahole Point to Kamilo Point east of Ka Lae 

 (South Point) and over the longest time span for 

 any "marked" animals (1,220 days out of the total 

 1,246-day recording period). These pale animals 

 were seen either alone or on occasion together in 

 the same school. These data are suggestive only, 

 because such pale coloration cannot be assigned 

 definitely to a given animal since it is a recurrent 

 condition in the species. For example, such a pale 

 animal was captured near Oahu, and for some 

 years was an exhibit animal at the oceanarium. 

 Sea Life Park. The animal, called "haole" for 

 "white person", gradually grew darker during 

 captivity but always remained slightly pale. Per- 

 rin (1972) described a pale animal from the east- 

 ern tropical Pacific, as "albinistic." 



Let us examine each of our conclusions in turn. 

 First, is the question of residency. Taking only 

 those animals recognizable from the surface, we 

 find that 7 of 12 animals were seen in both the 

 large Keahole Point schools and in the smaller 

 Kealakekua Bay schools. The pale animals were 

 seen both in Kealakekua Bay and Keahole Point 

 schools amd far to the south at Kamilo Point. There 

 were long periods when a given animal was not 

 seen at one or another locality. This information 

 cannot be usefully quantified because schools were 

 sometimes large and all animals could not be 

 examined and because our records are not the re- 

 sult of concerted attempts to check each animal in 

 a given school. Instead, the records reflect oppor- 

 tunistic sightings during the pursuit of other ac- 

 tivities. 



Animals clearly moved back and forth between 

 the Keahole Point and Kealakekua Bay as- 

 semblages. Of the 12 animals, 6 were seen at more 

 than one locality and then returned to the first 

 locality of sighting at least once. Three animals 

 were seen at a single locality only, but this may 

 reflect low sighting frequency rather than lack of 

 movement. 



Finally, three animals were seen at two or more 

 localities but did not return to the locality of first 

 sighting. For these reasons we reject the idea of a 

 given cove having a definable resident school (Ta- 

 ble 1). 



FISHERY BULLETIN; VOL. 77. NO, 4 



Table l. — Movement of Hawaiian spinner dolphins that were 

 identified by natural scars and marks. 



Our data are too incomplete to show how long a 

 given animal might spend at a single locality, or 

 how often it switches between rest localities. Only 

 the number of consecutive days during which a 

 given surface-visible marked animal was seen at a 

 single locality vs. the number of days of consecu- 

 tive observation during the sighting period is indi- 

 cative. Considering the animals for which most 

 resightings are available: numbers 24 and 30, 

 during four separate continous periods of obser- 

 vation of 9, 8, 9, and 10 days, animal 24 was seen 

 2, 2, and 3 days consecutively (Table 2). Animal 

 30 was seen only once, 2 days in a row, during 

 consecutive observation periods of 7, 10, and 10 

 observation days. Animal number 13 (a large calf 

 traveling with its mother) was seen three con- 

 secutive days during a 16-day observation period 

 at Kealakekua Bay. During consecutive observa- 

 tion periods in which the observer moved from 

 Kealakekua Bay to Keahole Point, certain ani- 

 mals were noted on consecutive days at the two 

 localities, indicating a switch in a single night 

 from one to the other. These data indicate that 

 movements are frequent, at least between the 

 Kealakekua Bay and Keahole Point rest areas. 



As for the conclusion that dolphin schools con- 

 sist of labile aggregations of groups and sub- 

 groups, the best information comes from fluctua- 

 tions in school sizes with which a given marked 

 animal was associated. The results reflect almost 



Table 2. — Occurrence of a single spinner dolphin (No. 24) and 

 the size of schools in which it was seen at Kealakekua Bay, 

 Hawaii, 1970. 



Dates of observation 



Estimated school sizes Number of times seen 



28 Apr -6 May 

 23 June-30 June 

 10 Sept -18 Sepi 

 28 Oct -6 Nov 



15-30 

 15-40 

 25-36 

 7-120 



3 days of 9 



2 days of 8 



3 days of 9 

 3 days of 10 



830 



