Nan hauser education

Nan hauser whale
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Saved by a Whale

Nan Hauser has spent much of her adult life raising her family in Brunswick and in the South Pacific Cook Islands. Many locals know of the charismatic nurse-turned-whale biologist who spent the better part of three decades studying humpback whales in Rarotonga, her research base. The readers of The Cryer were first introduced to Hauser’s lifelong passion in February 2009, when we reported on her research about humpback whales when she gave a standing-room-only presentation at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, sponsored by Cornerstones for Science. Hauser had a close encounter with a humpback whale on September 14, 2017 in the waters off of Rarotonga. She was saved from a 15-foot tiger shark attack. On September 29, 2018, the whale came back again. In all her years of research, this has only happened two other times. As a child, Hauser and her family spent time in Bermuda. Nan remembers looking out into the vast Atlantic Ocean and dreaming about whales. “That is when I think my passion for the ocean and studying whales really began,” the 64 year-old recalls. H

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Whale biologist Nan Hauser returned to Brunswick from over a year in the Cook Islands last week, which haven’t seen a single COVID-19 case. She appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show last week to tell the story of when a humpback whale pushed her away from a tiger shark in 2017.

Nan Hauser, a whale biologist from Brunswick, knew the world had changed dramatically when she was handed a face mask before boarding an airplane to head home. She watched, bewildered, as people ferociously scrubbed surfaces with antibacterial wipes, masks covering every face in sight.

“It was an interesting experience because for me, the COVID-19 world is completely new,” said Hauser. “Even though I’m a latecomer to this terrible party, it’s still terrifying.”

This was a new reality full of COVID-19 precautions she encountered after leaving Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, a place still untouched by COVID-19. She visits the island each year to research whale populations, acoustics, genetics, behavior, navigation and migration. She serves as the president and director of

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Our Research Team

Tap graduated from Cornell University in 1954, and then joined the US Marine Corps as a naval aviator, serving in Parris Island, Quantico, Pensacola, and MCAS Kanehoe, Hawaii. He attended graduate school in 1957 and studied marine biology at the University of Hawaii during the founding of the Ocean Institute Sea Life Park and the Makai undersea test range (now Makai Ocean Engineering). Tap was elected Senator of Hawaii in 1965 and served as chairman on the Committee for Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation.

At age 35, President Johnson named Tap one of 11 commissioners to the President’s Commission of Marine Science, Marine Engineering, and Marine Conservation. In 1968, Tap and Gosta Fahlman developed Aegir, an undersea habitat that fit 6 people. In the same year, they developed the first Plexiglas Submersible, which was tested off Makapuu Port along with Aegir. Pryor and Fahlman also invented Star II, a diver-operated pontoon platform for launching and recovering submersibles, enabling them to operate in all weather. Star II logged more undersea work than a