HERCULANEUM

Whales Have Accents and Regional Dialects: Biologists Interpret the Language of Sperm Whales

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2011) — "Dalhousie Ph.D. student Shane Gero has recently returned from a seven-week visit to Dominica. He has been traveling to the Caribbean island since 2005 to study families of sperm whales, usually spending two to four months of each year working on the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. One of the goals of this project is to record and compare whale calls over time, examining the various phrases and dialects of sperm whale communities.

When they dive together, sperm whales make patterns of clicks to each other known as "codas." Recent findings suggest that not only do different codas mean different things, but that whales can also tell which member of their community is speaking based on the sound properties of the codas. Just as we can tell our friends apart by the sounds of their voices and the way they pronounce their words, different sperm whales make the same pattern of clicks, but with different accents.

Caribbean and Pacific whales have different repertoires of codas, like a regional dialect, but the "Five Regular" call -- a pattern of five evenly spaced clicks -- is thought to have the universal function of individual identity because it is used by sperm whales worldwide.

These discoveries were recently published in the journal Animal Behaviour, in an article authored by University of St. Andrews PhD student Ricardo Antunes, Dal alumnus Tyler Schulz, Mr. Gero, Dal professor Dr. Hal Whitehead, and St. Andrews faculty members Dr. Jonathan Gordon and Dr. Luke Rendell.

Mr. Gero and Dr. Whitehead explain that the sperm whale's biggest threat is human pollution. Not only do humans introduce toxins into the ocean, but they also generate harmful sound pollution. Increased shipping traffic, underwater explosions caused by searching for oil, and military sonar all contribute to ocean noise that masks communication between whales. "No one wants to live in a rock concert," says Mr. Gero, adding that noise pollution is especially troublesome in the ocean because "it is a totally different sensory world." The sperm whales can dive to depths of over 1000 metres and depend on sound for communication and navigation in the pitch black of the deep water."

This is fricking awesome... And really, when we actually "think" about it, we shouldn't be surprised.

The below video is really quite cool. If you can get over the guy being a Kindergarten teacher (because I want to slap the Legos clean out of him), it's cool.

Even MORE pertinent and immediate reason to not allow bullshit like the following.

A Debate: Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline? Thousands of environmental activists from across the continent plan to gather in Washington, D.C., tomorrow to launch a two-week protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. The massive pipeline would cross the Yellowstone River, as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest freshwater aquifer in the United States.

And if that shit isn't bad enough, we have California's new environmental curriculum including a section on "The Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags". Why, you ask? Because lobbyists for the American Chemistry Council — the same front-group that spent millions to defeat the statewide bag ban last year — convinced school officials to include it. You can find out more and sign a petition against this delusional bullshit here.

We're poisoning our world and ourselves.

And we need to stop.

Now.

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*** Urge President Obama to Impose Sanctions for Whaling

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