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The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins
In the songs and bubble feeding of humpback whales; in young killer whales learning to knock a seal from an ice floe in the same way their mother does; and in the use of sea sponges by the dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia, to protect their beaks while foraging for fish, we find clear examples of the transmission of information among cetaceans. Just as human cultures pass on languages and turns of phrase, tastes in food (and in how it is acquired), and modes of dress, could whales and dolphins have developed a culture of their very own?
yes. In The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins , cetacean biologists Hal Whitehead, who has spent much of his life on the ocean trying to understand whales, and Luke Rendell, whose research focuses on the evolution of social learning, open an astounding porthole onto the fascinating culture beneath the waves. As Whitehead and Rendell show, cetacean culture and its transmission are shaped by a blend of adaptations, innate sociality, and the unique environment in which whales and dolphins a watery world in which a hundred-and-fifty-ton blue whale can move with utter grace, and where the vertical expanse is as vital, and almost as vast, as the horizontal.
Drawing on their own research as well as a scientific literature as immense as the sea―including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience―Whitehead and Rendell dive into realms both humbling and enlightening as they seek to define what cetacean culture is, why it exists, and what it means for the future of whales and dolphins. And, ultimately, what it means for our future, as well.
yes. In The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins , cetacean biologists Hal Whitehead, who has spent much of his life on the ocean trying to understand whales, and Luke Rendell, whose research focuses on the evolution of social learning, open an astounding porthole onto the fascinating culture beneath the waves. As Whitehead and Rendell show, cetacean culture and its transmission are shaped by a blend of adaptations, innate sociality, and the unique environment in which whales and dolphins a watery world in which a hundred-and-fifty-ton blue whale can move with utter grace, and where the vertical expanse is as vital, and almost as vast, as the horizontal.
Drawing on their own research as well as a scientific literature as immense as the sea―including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience―Whitehead and Rendell dive into realms both humbling and enlightening as they seek to define what cetacean culture is, why it exists, and what it means for the future of whales and dolphins. And, ultimately, what it means for our future, as well.
408 pages, Hardcover
First published November 24, 2014
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February 21, 2018
What I initially had hoped would just be a gimmicky, click-bait title, turned into the main argument of the book - the authors desperately try to shoehorn whales and dolphins into the animal “culture” debate and, by using a bunch of otherwise really interesting scientific research and studies, engage in what I can only describe as self-indulgent anthropomorphism.
In the beginning of the book, the authors make clear that they're aware of the pseudoscience surrounding the arguments for cetacean “culture” and “have therefore tried to separate as clearly as possible the evidence— the scientific documentation— from our views about what it means. […] We are obviously going to present our view, but our overriding desire is to engage you via the evidence in a debate that is very much ongoing [...] rather than simply convince you that we are right.” However throughout the book, the authors insist that the behaviour exhibited is indeed “culture” (at least by their definition of the word, which, by the way, they spent a whole chapter clarifying and defending). An example of this:
(( If you're curious about the music being referred to in the above quote, there's a long section on it. Here's a quote of just a small part of it:
So, just because they're neither complete nutjobs (since they're trying to “rescue the study of cetacean behavior from misguided mysticism ”) nor cold hearted scientists who don't believe in using words like “beauty” (“no scientists had used the word “beauty” in a technical paper about whale song before”), the reader is meant to think, what? That they're the sensible guys in the middle? It seems to me like a case of the authors' wanting to have their cake and eat it too: no, we're not like those kooky, new agey pseudoscientists – but oh how beautiful and touching the whale songs are and just look at how much their culture affects ours, this is definitely evidence of culture!
The constant emphasizing of how scientific, accurate and skeptical they are seems a bit like the authors are protesting a bit too much – especially considering the fact that the book contains quite a bit of (what seems to me as) faulty logic and erroneous, or at the very least severely misleading facts. An example of this is the section on feral children in which the authors claimed that the two feral children raised by wolves never learned to speak because they weren't immersed in human culture, but a simple wikipedia search revealed that one of the children was actually found to be autistic, and the other story they sited was actually a fundraising hoax – perhaps the authors assumed that since the reader was interested in learning about whales and dolphins, they wouldn't be bothered to fact check the non-cetacean related information that they used to support their claims for cetacean “culture”. Knowing this made it impossible for me to take anything in the book seriously.
So despite all the interesting whale facts, research projects and studies mentioned in the book, the question I was left with was actually: What's the point. Is cetacean behaviour just not interesting enough if it can't be given the “culture" label? What's the point of playing with semantics in this way, especially when there isn't a practical implication to either side of the argument. So, if cetaceans don't have “cultures” does that make whaling morally/ethically acceptable? And if they do have “cultures”, how would the knowledge of these “cultures” be any different/more useful to conservationists/ecologists than say, having detailed, well researched data outlining their behavioural patterns without calling them sets of “cultures”? Or is this the authors' round about way of suggesting that the emotional connotations of the word “culture” would make researchers/people more motivated to protect cetaceans from whaling, etc.?
What's the point of this argument, except for perhaps relieving the authors of their need to seem like enlightened scientists who aren't afraid to dabble in a bit of sociology and to sell a gimmicky book that would attract more “new agey” readers, the same ones the authors show such disdain for in the beginning of the book – ironically, I would imagine that those may very well be the sort of readers that the book is aiming for since they are perhaps the most likely to buy into the authors' conclusions. In the end, the rating of the book didn't come down to whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the authors' claim that cetaceans have “cultures”, I personally actually don't really care what label the sets of behaviours are given because I think it's irrelevant – what annoyed me was that instead of actually focusing on the sets of behaviours, the authors were more concerned in “proving” that the patterns in behaviour were indeed “culture”.
In the beginning of the book, the authors make clear that they're aware of the pseudoscience surrounding the arguments for cetacean “culture” and “have therefore tried to separate as clearly as possible the evidence— the scientific documentation— from our views about what it means. […] We are obviously going to present our view, but our overriding desire is to engage you via the evidence in a debate that is very much ongoing [...] rather than simply convince you that we are right.” However throughout the book, the authors insist that the behaviour exhibited is indeed “culture” (at least by their definition of the word, which, by the way, they spent a whole chapter clarifying and defending). An example of this:
“Humpback song has clearly had its effects on human culture— influencing both our music and whaling practices— but what of our interest in whale culture? These discoveries are particularly important for us because there is only one way large numbers of animals can sing the same song that evolves over periods of time that are much less than an individual’s lifetime: culture.”
(( If you're curious about the music being referred to in the above quote, there's a long section on it. Here's a quote of just a small part of it:
“Roger Payne put out the long- playing record Songs of the Humpback Whale in 1970. It swept up the charts. According to the jazz musician Paul Winter, “Songs of the Humpback Whale is a timeless classic of the earth’s music. It deserves a place in our cultural pantheon, alongside the music of Bach, Stravinsky, and Ellington.”47 The songs were incorporated into human music: into jazz by Paul Winter and into classical music by Alan Hovhaness, among many others. But when the pure- voiced folk singer Judy Collins sang the old whaling song Farewell to Tarwathie accompanied only by humpback whales, the public was entranced. As people heard these extraordinary, and beautiful, sounds of the deep, their image of whales changed... ”I understand that they were trying to make it interesting but I think there's a way to do it without having to resort to wordy, pointless, and in my opinion, totally irrelevant and tiresome sections like the above. ))
So, just because they're neither complete nutjobs (since they're trying to “rescue the study of cetacean behavior from misguided mysticism ”) nor cold hearted scientists who don't believe in using words like “beauty” (“no scientists had used the word “beauty” in a technical paper about whale song before”), the reader is meant to think, what? That they're the sensible guys in the middle? It seems to me like a case of the authors' wanting to have their cake and eat it too: no, we're not like those kooky, new agey pseudoscientists – but oh how beautiful and touching the whale songs are and just look at how much their culture affects ours, this is definitely evidence of culture!
The constant emphasizing of how scientific, accurate and skeptical they are seems a bit like the authors are protesting a bit too much – especially considering the fact that the book contains quite a bit of (what seems to me as) faulty logic and erroneous, or at the very least severely misleading facts. An example of this is the section on feral children in which the authors claimed that the two feral children raised by wolves never learned to speak because they weren't immersed in human culture, but a simple wikipedia search revealed that one of the children was actually found to be autistic, and the other story they sited was actually a fundraising hoax – perhaps the authors assumed that since the reader was interested in learning about whales and dolphins, they wouldn't be bothered to fact check the non-cetacean related information that they used to support their claims for cetacean “culture”. Knowing this made it impossible for me to take anything in the book seriously.
So despite all the interesting whale facts, research projects and studies mentioned in the book, the question I was left with was actually: What's the point. Is cetacean behaviour just not interesting enough if it can't be given the “culture" label? What's the point of playing with semantics in this way, especially when there isn't a practical implication to either side of the argument. So, if cetaceans don't have “cultures” does that make whaling morally/ethically acceptable? And if they do have “cultures”, how would the knowledge of these “cultures” be any different/more useful to conservationists/ecologists than say, having detailed, well researched data outlining their behavioural patterns without calling them sets of “cultures”? Or is this the authors' round about way of suggesting that the emotional connotations of the word “culture” would make researchers/people more motivated to protect cetaceans from whaling, etc.?
What's the point of this argument, except for perhaps relieving the authors of their need to seem like enlightened scientists who aren't afraid to dabble in a bit of sociology and to sell a gimmicky book that would attract more “new agey” readers, the same ones the authors show such disdain for in the beginning of the book – ironically, I would imagine that those may very well be the sort of readers that the book is aiming for since they are perhaps the most likely to buy into the authors' conclusions. In the end, the rating of the book didn't come down to whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the authors' claim that cetaceans have “cultures”, I personally actually don't really care what label the sets of behaviours are given because I think it's irrelevant – what annoyed me was that instead of actually focusing on the sets of behaviours, the authors were more concerned in “proving” that the patterns in behaviour were indeed “culture”.
February 20, 2016
A demanding but fascinating read. Scientific-method focused, so to lay readers such as myself, reading was challenging at times. But allow yourself distraction-free hours and you'll be rewarded with fascinating observations and profound thoughts about culture as it relates to many species, and questions about morality and how humans share more than has been acknowledged with other sentient beings. Many of the differences assumed between species in regard to cognition owe to the difference types of behavior and knowledge required to live in vastly different environments -- contrast land with vast seas. Stick with this book to the end.
My notes:
The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins
Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell
Approach studies like puzzles.
Heady concepts like mitochondrial evolution, cultural hitchhiking.
Ethology (behavior) and ecology (env)
Culture can drive the population biology of a species evolutionarily, ethologically and ecologically.
Culture, genes, drive, society is group
culture behaviors taught parent, social group
Can be same function - sponge on nose so dolphin not scrape while hunting prey in tight pace, another uses stick
meme - cultural analog of genes, passed on
Song culture food buildings
Animals migrate fly build homes, songs,
Shared sense of morality.
Sometimes personally dangerous cooperative behavior.
Kin selection : us vs. them
Group selection on cultural traits -- some dismiss the idea this occurs within nonhuman animal societies.
Culture allowed humans to dominate the sea tho not marine mammals.
Echolocation, sonar intelligence!
(mysticetes baleen vs. toothed)
Emulation: copy goal of a behavior vs. specific form.
Some dolphins will put sponges on nose in crevices to dig out food, others use sticks to protect their skin. Dolphins with such knowledge are more reproductively successful.
Religions in human culture that legitimize material wealth seem to be attractive, spreading fast at the expense of more austere variants, and religions demanding human sacrifice haven't survived the test of time.
Orca: social, cultural and cognitively complex creatures that have never killed a human in the wild.
Ecotype: diff ways of life, not just feeding.
Different orcas eat diff prey.
Orcs are picky eaters, xenophobic and cultural.
Residents: stay in same pod, clan and community whole life.
Ecotype encompasses several communities.
Variations in behavior and lifestyle = culture.
Variations of behavior caused by genetics, ecology and culture.
LANGUAGE: Close range clicks, whistles, pulse calls distance - dialects too.
Vocalize mainly when not foraging.
Highly synchronized movements in communal foraging.
Seasonal migrations Antarctica to Uruguay, like warmth, clean skin, rejuvenate. Cold = rough skin, systems shut down to conserve energy to endure cold. “Their holiday leaves them in better spirits as well as with more attractive skin!”
Adapt to habitat. When land animals entered oceans, lost many land adaptations. Streamline, big with blubber to float, buoyancy, insulate...survive water, cold water, depths, navigational senses and behaviors .... few refuges underwater from predators.
Temperature regulation.
Babies born larger and able to swim (like horses and calves, rise fast)
Cognitive abilities, bigger brains evolved.
Song of the humpback whale., mate, structure and appeal of the song, volume, size of male, song cycle has 8 themes., at end of each surface to breathe.
Courtship
Super-alliance of whales. Characterized by huge synchrony in movement.
Diversity of foraging.
Ecotypes, groups defined mainly by what eat.
Dolphins learn to take food from fishing lines...to their detriment.
Family units, pods, clans, communities, ecotypes
Vocal clans
Clicks whistle , spermaceti
Dialects
Multilevel societies: humans, elephants, sperm whales, killer whales.
Large-scale cooperation rare outside humans except social insects: ants, bees, termites and the naked mole rat.
Sperm whales nomadic, females intensely communal.
Bottlenose dolphins drafted into US military.
Copy and emulate human behaviors.
Reiss underwater keyboard
learn from other species and in captivity.
Dolphins more body-oriented movements when calves around - teach.
Pointing gestures when humans faced them.
Imitation, emulate behavior
Variability of behavior caused by genetics, ecology and culture.
Culturally complex animals.
Plausible explanation vs. scientifically experimentally proven. Can't be sure of the mechanism of learning, but culturally transmitted obvious when all whales sing the same song in an ocean basin.
Dolphin tail-walking.
Foraging strategies.
Some killer whales beach selves to catch seals, sea lions calves, and improve their hunting skills..cooperative fishing...sperm whale learns how to carefully remove sablefish from longline. Sharks don't.
Observed one raised in isolation. Free Willy star Keiko irony returned to captivity in Mex. Name means lucky blessed, but captured age 2 from Iceland waters. Eventually after move,free Keiko, with Hollywood money, flown back to Iceland to prepare for release. But had trouble interacting with wild whales didn't known dialect, culture. Ignored him. , trouble feeding. Scared returned to tracking boat. Eventually began provisioning hi, died 23 pneumonia.
Some like Springer reintegrate successfully.
Ghost whale own song 1992-2004 betw Alaska and Mexico.
Evolutionary biology
Much whale and dolphin behavior is acquired by social learning, is shared by groups, and therefore is culture.
Respond to environment, heat, cold, so much social learning adaptive.
Frans de Waal
Marine mammals sirenians manatees and dugongs social, mother-calf bond lasts up to 2 years. Sea grasses stabl resource compared to pelagi fish and squid that are the staples of most cetaceans.
Cetaceans don't make hand axes, or anything else that endures, so how can we chart the development of cetacean culture? Pieces of evidence include development of our brains. Large brains are a feature of the most culturally sophisticated species, and the human brain increased substantially in size just about when the axes grew complex and diverse.
Lori Marino neuroanatomist: echolocation came online, kickstarted social learning and brain expansion. Cognition.
Energy spent getting prey.
Culture changes everything. When significant amounts of information begin flowing within species independently of their DNA, evolutionary processes can be affected in profound ways.
Gene-culture coevolution
Killer whales illustrate 4 ways distinct behavior developed: xenophobia inhibiting mating between ecotypes, diff ways to obtain food (Keiko failed to make social connections when released from captivity), gene evolution....
Menopausal members' function to help teach, especially behaviors in response to El Nino-type climate events that they are old enough to remember and had survived.
British Cavalry vs Russia, knew mission was suicidal during 1854 Crimean War... Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem: charge of the light brigade: Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die. Cultural imperative.
Culture can reduce numbers in these slow-reproducing animals when they stay in territories like Puget Sound that are noisy, polluted, human urban waterways.
Incentive to be bold and take fishing line fish.
Commercial whaling extirpated individual whales and fractured habitat and societies, study of 11 subspecies of baleen whales never recovered.
Some cetacean culture, like the humpback, bowhead and blue whale songs or the call traditions of killer whales, is clear. Much, including the variation in behavior among the units, pods, and clans of the matrilineal whales is very compelling. Features of animals with important cultures: large brains, prolonged mother-infant dependency, menopause, maladaptive (stupid) behavior, ecological success, wide habitat ranges, large-scale cooperation and indications of the coevolution of genes and culture.
Disease outbreak affected forest baboons removed the more aggressive members and the difference, had through social transmission, changed the culture to a pacific culture...no significant difference in hormone levels in their blood between lowest- and highest-ranking males, and more grooming from females for new males joining the group than in control groups.
Chimps playing by waterfall, observed by Jane Goodall: display behaviors, dance, seems to be shared activity.
Is carrying around dead infant by chimps, elephants and cetaceans a misdirection of maternal care, or something more?
Last chapter - wow!
Read it!
The rest of the book builds a case for consideration of nonhuman animals with cognitive and cultural traits.
Birdsongs structured, as are humpback whales, used in courtship and mating, vary geographically and evolve over time. The songs of baleen whales and songbirds can be complex or simple (fin whales and bullfinches). If sped up, maybe 16 times or about 4 octaves, humpback whale song sounds quite a lot like birdsong.
Whales are huge, so sing loud, and their songs travel far in water.
Birds learn much from each other -- horizontal learning (peers… vertical parent to child). Migration, feeding and breeding habitats, choice of decorations and courtship bowers of bowerbirds, recognize and warn of predators, dangers...alarm calls, feeling activities.
Avian social learning case: tits opening foil or cardboard caps of milk bottles and drinking the milk when delivery spread across Britain between the 1920s and 50s.
New Caledonian crows make leaves into elaborate tools to extract insects from cavities -- socially learned.
Chimps - we study and have learned so much about them because: they are our closest evolutionary relatives...primatologists have worked out ways to observe wild chimps consistently - researchers habituate group so they ignore human presence and then observe over time...their behaviors seem similar to ours...unlike other “cultural species,” chimps are not nocturnal or aquatic and habitat for many rather accessible. Bonobo (pygmy chimp) though similarly related to humans, live in less accessible habitat. And chimps display lots of culture.
Yet cetaceans appear to be superior social learners compared to primates, especially in the vocal domain. So in vocalizing, more similar to humans. Chimp societies are not multicultural anywhere near to the degree as those of killer and sperm whales.
Gay Bradshaw in her book “Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach us About Humanity” contends complex vast elephant culture.
Elephants maintain large stores of knowledge about their social and physical world and they can learn from each other their vocalizations, what to eat, and more. Data sets collected in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya (Cynthia Moss, Joyce Poole observations...reviewed by Lucy Bates and Dick Byrne)-- demonstrate how elephants keep a mental map of the whereabouts of family group members when when they are out of sight.
Elephants can identify, and react appropriately to, both the typical scent and typical garment color of young Maasai men, who have a cultural practice of demonstrating virility by spearing elephants, in comparison to similar cues from the much less dangerous Kamba tribe, who have a more agricultural culture. The elephant can not only distinguish between the tribes but also between dangerous and benign members of the tribes - young males and females, respectively - solely by listening to recordings of their voices. Also simulated estrus -- thought to teach young female kin how to handle themselves in adult society...pick the right male.
The value of the information held by older individuals is indicated by the responses of elephant groups to a prolonged drought in Tsavo National Park, Tanzania, in 1993 Calves were much more likely to survive if their groups left the park during the drought, and they were much more likely to leave the park if their clan contained females old enough to have experienced the preceding severe drought in 1958-61.
Culture includes songs, foraging methods, movement, play, mating, parenting.
Language:
Dolphins and whales communication mainly acoustically.
The key attribute of human language is syntax. Syntax allows a finite number of words, together with a few rules, to express an infinite number of concepts.
Dolphins and other animals including bonobos and African gray parrots, can learn and use some syntax when taught by humans. They can distinguish between “bring the ball to the hoo” and “bring the hoop to the ball.” Dolphins appear to use signature whistles as quite specific labels to refer to individuals.
But to our knowledge, wild whales and dolphins do not use syntax, or in a simple way. Click patterns.
Thus whales, dolphins, apes, monkeys, and birds do not have the long narrative stories, lectures about the structure of their worlds, or sets of instructions for doing or making complicated things that our language gives us. (Oral histories.)
Not having language is not necessarily a cognitive deficit especially since dolphins can use syntax when trained by humans.
But they vocalize/communicate. And they can point to things and use sounds to refer to one another. They communicate frequently and enthusiastically.
Morality
Human infants in some studies begin making judgments about the behavior of others before than can talk.
When killer whales washing seals off ice floe...one seal swam frantically toward the numpbacks...one humpback rolled over back, swept seal between massive fippers on his/her chest, then as killer whales approached, the humpback arched chest, lift seal out of water and nudged with flipper back to middle of its chest, then seal scrambled off and swam to safety of nearby ice floe..
2998 Moko bottlenose dolphin guided mother calf pair of pygmy sperm whales out of an intricate set of sandbars off the coast of New Zealand where they seemed disoriented and trapped -- rescue workers were considering euthanasia after the pair stranded 4 times.
Appear to be altruistic moral acts.
When a human protect another, we call it compassion. If a humpback whale does so, why call it instinct?
When considering the moral standards of human culture, it seems churlish to deny the cetaceans made conscious decisions to save the other animals. We cannot know the motivations of the animals, but then again, how can we know it for sure of our fellow humans?
Dolphins helping humans in peril. Sperm whales clearly control the strength of their powerful sonar ofr else could permanently damage others at close range, thus suggests learn and share agreements about the right thing to do.
The final key attribute of human culture affects biological fitness - reproductive success, affects genetic evolution.
Shark Bay, Australia study: calves of provisioned dolphins who came to the Monkey Mia resort beach for handouts from humans had over twice the probability of dying in their first year compared to those of nonprovisioned females. Connection between reproductive success and the famous cultural trait of the Shark Bay dolphins, sponging. Females who put sponges on their noses raised calves at higher rates than average dolphin.
Only in the sponging of the bottlenose dolphins is there even potential evidence of material culture, whereas we are physically surrounded by our material culture, and it accumulates spectacularly.
There is a similar contrast with syntactical language. But here are indicators of morality and that it affects biological fitness.
SHould whale and dolphin culture influence how humans treat them?
Does culture have moral worth?
But then, when asking Japan to abandon their whale hunting has prompted the defense: like asking Australians and Americans to stop eating meat.
Humans separate life forms in personal and nonpersons, considering needs and vulnerabilities. But arguments about assigning personhood to brain-dead but physiologically living individuals and fetuses lacking aware and sensations.
Personhood in humans defined as including factors such as being alive, being aware, having positive and negative sensations, emotions, and a sense of self; controlling one’s own behavior, recognizing other “persons” individually and treating them appropriately; and possessing a variety of sophisticated cognitive abilities. Bottlenose dolphins meet these requirements and thus has “moral standing,” says philosopher Thomas White.
Culture could be regarded as a necessary ingredient of personhood, informing moral debates.
My notes:
The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins
Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell
Approach studies like puzzles.
Heady concepts like mitochondrial evolution, cultural hitchhiking.
Ethology (behavior) and ecology (env)
Culture can drive the population biology of a species evolutionarily, ethologically and ecologically.
Culture, genes, drive, society is group
culture behaviors taught parent, social group
Can be same function - sponge on nose so dolphin not scrape while hunting prey in tight pace, another uses stick
meme - cultural analog of genes, passed on
Song culture food buildings
Animals migrate fly build homes, songs,
Shared sense of morality.
Sometimes personally dangerous cooperative behavior.
Kin selection : us vs. them
Group selection on cultural traits -- some dismiss the idea this occurs within nonhuman animal societies.
Culture allowed humans to dominate the sea tho not marine mammals.
Echolocation, sonar intelligence!
(mysticetes baleen vs. toothed)
Emulation: copy goal of a behavior vs. specific form.
Some dolphins will put sponges on nose in crevices to dig out food, others use sticks to protect their skin. Dolphins with such knowledge are more reproductively successful.
Religions in human culture that legitimize material wealth seem to be attractive, spreading fast at the expense of more austere variants, and religions demanding human sacrifice haven't survived the test of time.
Orca: social, cultural and cognitively complex creatures that have never killed a human in the wild.
Ecotype: diff ways of life, not just feeding.
Different orcas eat diff prey.
Orcs are picky eaters, xenophobic and cultural.
Residents: stay in same pod, clan and community whole life.
Ecotype encompasses several communities.
Variations in behavior and lifestyle = culture.
Variations of behavior caused by genetics, ecology and culture.
LANGUAGE: Close range clicks, whistles, pulse calls distance - dialects too.
Vocalize mainly when not foraging.
Highly synchronized movements in communal foraging.
Seasonal migrations Antarctica to Uruguay, like warmth, clean skin, rejuvenate. Cold = rough skin, systems shut down to conserve energy to endure cold. “Their holiday leaves them in better spirits as well as with more attractive skin!”
Adapt to habitat. When land animals entered oceans, lost many land adaptations. Streamline, big with blubber to float, buoyancy, insulate...survive water, cold water, depths, navigational senses and behaviors .... few refuges underwater from predators.
Temperature regulation.
Babies born larger and able to swim (like horses and calves, rise fast)
Cognitive abilities, bigger brains evolved.
Song of the humpback whale., mate, structure and appeal of the song, volume, size of male, song cycle has 8 themes., at end of each surface to breathe.
Courtship
Super-alliance of whales. Characterized by huge synchrony in movement.
Diversity of foraging.
Ecotypes, groups defined mainly by what eat.
Dolphins learn to take food from fishing lines...to their detriment.
Family units, pods, clans, communities, ecotypes
Vocal clans
Clicks whistle , spermaceti
Dialects
Multilevel societies: humans, elephants, sperm whales, killer whales.
Large-scale cooperation rare outside humans except social insects: ants, bees, termites and the naked mole rat.
Sperm whales nomadic, females intensely communal.
Bottlenose dolphins drafted into US military.
Copy and emulate human behaviors.
Reiss underwater keyboard
learn from other species and in captivity.
Dolphins more body-oriented movements when calves around - teach.
Pointing gestures when humans faced them.
Imitation, emulate behavior
Variability of behavior caused by genetics, ecology and culture.
Culturally complex animals.
Plausible explanation vs. scientifically experimentally proven. Can't be sure of the mechanism of learning, but culturally transmitted obvious when all whales sing the same song in an ocean basin.
Dolphin tail-walking.
Foraging strategies.
Some killer whales beach selves to catch seals, sea lions calves, and improve their hunting skills..cooperative fishing...sperm whale learns how to carefully remove sablefish from longline. Sharks don't.
Observed one raised in isolation. Free Willy star Keiko irony returned to captivity in Mex. Name means lucky blessed, but captured age 2 from Iceland waters. Eventually after move,free Keiko, with Hollywood money, flown back to Iceland to prepare for release. But had trouble interacting with wild whales didn't known dialect, culture. Ignored him. , trouble feeding. Scared returned to tracking boat. Eventually began provisioning hi, died 23 pneumonia.
Some like Springer reintegrate successfully.
Ghost whale own song 1992-2004 betw Alaska and Mexico.
Evolutionary biology
Much whale and dolphin behavior is acquired by social learning, is shared by groups, and therefore is culture.
Respond to environment, heat, cold, so much social learning adaptive.
Frans de Waal
Marine mammals sirenians manatees and dugongs social, mother-calf bond lasts up to 2 years. Sea grasses stabl resource compared to pelagi fish and squid that are the staples of most cetaceans.
Cetaceans don't make hand axes, or anything else that endures, so how can we chart the development of cetacean culture? Pieces of evidence include development of our brains. Large brains are a feature of the most culturally sophisticated species, and the human brain increased substantially in size just about when the axes grew complex and diverse.
Lori Marino neuroanatomist: echolocation came online, kickstarted social learning and brain expansion. Cognition.
Energy spent getting prey.
Culture changes everything. When significant amounts of information begin flowing within species independently of their DNA, evolutionary processes can be affected in profound ways.
Gene-culture coevolution
Killer whales illustrate 4 ways distinct behavior developed: xenophobia inhibiting mating between ecotypes, diff ways to obtain food (Keiko failed to make social connections when released from captivity), gene evolution....
Menopausal members' function to help teach, especially behaviors in response to El Nino-type climate events that they are old enough to remember and had survived.
British Cavalry vs Russia, knew mission was suicidal during 1854 Crimean War... Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem: charge of the light brigade: Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die. Cultural imperative.
Culture can reduce numbers in these slow-reproducing animals when they stay in territories like Puget Sound that are noisy, polluted, human urban waterways.
Incentive to be bold and take fishing line fish.
Commercial whaling extirpated individual whales and fractured habitat and societies, study of 11 subspecies of baleen whales never recovered.
Some cetacean culture, like the humpback, bowhead and blue whale songs or the call traditions of killer whales, is clear. Much, including the variation in behavior among the units, pods, and clans of the matrilineal whales is very compelling. Features of animals with important cultures: large brains, prolonged mother-infant dependency, menopause, maladaptive (stupid) behavior, ecological success, wide habitat ranges, large-scale cooperation and indications of the coevolution of genes and culture.
Disease outbreak affected forest baboons removed the more aggressive members and the difference, had through social transmission, changed the culture to a pacific culture...no significant difference in hormone levels in their blood between lowest- and highest-ranking males, and more grooming from females for new males joining the group than in control groups.
Chimps playing by waterfall, observed by Jane Goodall: display behaviors, dance, seems to be shared activity.
Is carrying around dead infant by chimps, elephants and cetaceans a misdirection of maternal care, or something more?
Last chapter - wow!
Read it!
The rest of the book builds a case for consideration of nonhuman animals with cognitive and cultural traits.
Birdsongs structured, as are humpback whales, used in courtship and mating, vary geographically and evolve over time. The songs of baleen whales and songbirds can be complex or simple (fin whales and bullfinches). If sped up, maybe 16 times or about 4 octaves, humpback whale song sounds quite a lot like birdsong.
Whales are huge, so sing loud, and their songs travel far in water.
Birds learn much from each other -- horizontal learning (peers… vertical parent to child). Migration, feeding and breeding habitats, choice of decorations and courtship bowers of bowerbirds, recognize and warn of predators, dangers...alarm calls, feeling activities.
Avian social learning case: tits opening foil or cardboard caps of milk bottles and drinking the milk when delivery spread across Britain between the 1920s and 50s.
New Caledonian crows make leaves into elaborate tools to extract insects from cavities -- socially learned.
Chimps - we study and have learned so much about them because: they are our closest evolutionary relatives...primatologists have worked out ways to observe wild chimps consistently - researchers habituate group so they ignore human presence and then observe over time...their behaviors seem similar to ours...unlike other “cultural species,” chimps are not nocturnal or aquatic and habitat for many rather accessible. Bonobo (pygmy chimp) though similarly related to humans, live in less accessible habitat. And chimps display lots of culture.
Yet cetaceans appear to be superior social learners compared to primates, especially in the vocal domain. So in vocalizing, more similar to humans. Chimp societies are not multicultural anywhere near to the degree as those of killer and sperm whales.
Gay Bradshaw in her book “Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach us About Humanity” contends complex vast elephant culture.
Elephants maintain large stores of knowledge about their social and physical world and they can learn from each other their vocalizations, what to eat, and more. Data sets collected in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya (Cynthia Moss, Joyce Poole observations...reviewed by Lucy Bates and Dick Byrne)-- demonstrate how elephants keep a mental map of the whereabouts of family group members when when they are out of sight.
Elephants can identify, and react appropriately to, both the typical scent and typical garment color of young Maasai men, who have a cultural practice of demonstrating virility by spearing elephants, in comparison to similar cues from the much less dangerous Kamba tribe, who have a more agricultural culture. The elephant can not only distinguish between the tribes but also between dangerous and benign members of the tribes - young males and females, respectively - solely by listening to recordings of their voices. Also simulated estrus -- thought to teach young female kin how to handle themselves in adult society...pick the right male.
The value of the information held by older individuals is indicated by the responses of elephant groups to a prolonged drought in Tsavo National Park, Tanzania, in 1993 Calves were much more likely to survive if their groups left the park during the drought, and they were much more likely to leave the park if their clan contained females old enough to have experienced the preceding severe drought in 1958-61.
Culture includes songs, foraging methods, movement, play, mating, parenting.
Language:
Dolphins and whales communication mainly acoustically.
The key attribute of human language is syntax. Syntax allows a finite number of words, together with a few rules, to express an infinite number of concepts.
Dolphins and other animals including bonobos and African gray parrots, can learn and use some syntax when taught by humans. They can distinguish between “bring the ball to the hoo” and “bring the hoop to the ball.” Dolphins appear to use signature whistles as quite specific labels to refer to individuals.
But to our knowledge, wild whales and dolphins do not use syntax, or in a simple way. Click patterns.
Thus whales, dolphins, apes, monkeys, and birds do not have the long narrative stories, lectures about the structure of their worlds, or sets of instructions for doing or making complicated things that our language gives us. (Oral histories.)
Not having language is not necessarily a cognitive deficit especially since dolphins can use syntax when trained by humans.
But they vocalize/communicate. And they can point to things and use sounds to refer to one another. They communicate frequently and enthusiastically.
Morality
Human infants in some studies begin making judgments about the behavior of others before than can talk.
When killer whales washing seals off ice floe...one seal swam frantically toward the numpbacks...one humpback rolled over back, swept seal between massive fippers on his/her chest, then as killer whales approached, the humpback arched chest, lift seal out of water and nudged with flipper back to middle of its chest, then seal scrambled off and swam to safety of nearby ice floe..
2998 Moko bottlenose dolphin guided mother calf pair of pygmy sperm whales out of an intricate set of sandbars off the coast of New Zealand where they seemed disoriented and trapped -- rescue workers were considering euthanasia after the pair stranded 4 times.
Appear to be altruistic moral acts.
When a human protect another, we call it compassion. If a humpback whale does so, why call it instinct?
When considering the moral standards of human culture, it seems churlish to deny the cetaceans made conscious decisions to save the other animals. We cannot know the motivations of the animals, but then again, how can we know it for sure of our fellow humans?
Dolphins helping humans in peril. Sperm whales clearly control the strength of their powerful sonar ofr else could permanently damage others at close range, thus suggests learn and share agreements about the right thing to do.
The final key attribute of human culture affects biological fitness - reproductive success, affects genetic evolution.
Shark Bay, Australia study: calves of provisioned dolphins who came to the Monkey Mia resort beach for handouts from humans had over twice the probability of dying in their first year compared to those of nonprovisioned females. Connection between reproductive success and the famous cultural trait of the Shark Bay dolphins, sponging. Females who put sponges on their noses raised calves at higher rates than average dolphin.
Only in the sponging of the bottlenose dolphins is there even potential evidence of material culture, whereas we are physically surrounded by our material culture, and it accumulates spectacularly.
There is a similar contrast with syntactical language. But here are indicators of morality and that it affects biological fitness.
SHould whale and dolphin culture influence how humans treat them?
Does culture have moral worth?
But then, when asking Japan to abandon their whale hunting has prompted the defense: like asking Australians and Americans to stop eating meat.
Humans separate life forms in personal and nonpersons, considering needs and vulnerabilities. But arguments about assigning personhood to brain-dead but physiologically living individuals and fetuses lacking aware and sensations.
Personhood in humans defined as including factors such as being alive, being aware, having positive and negative sensations, emotions, and a sense of self; controlling one’s own behavior, recognizing other “persons” individually and treating them appropriately; and possessing a variety of sophisticated cognitive abilities. Bottlenose dolphins meet these requirements and thus has “moral standing,” says philosopher Thomas White.
Culture could be regarded as a necessary ingredient of personhood, informing moral debates.
August 27, 2020
Whitehead and Rendell rove the planet, often in their sailboat, scoping out whale songs, family relations, parenting, feeding strategies, migrations, and changes in learned behavior. Their stories come from whale observers everywhere, and some of them are seriously amazing. The view gets very large as the authors keep comparing intelligent behavior between species, and as they trace the whole evolution of whales. It becomes clear they are describing a moving target, as the whales have undergone major expansions of brain size, and their cultures are changing before our eyes. The songs of humpback whales suddenly shift in style across the ocean basins. The whales grow adept at stealing the catch from longline fishing boats. Whales released from captivity teach their wild friends the tricks they learned from humans. Much of the book gets technical, with discussions on the fine points of distinguishing inherited from learned behavior, or the genetic analysis of whale communities. But overall the observations are fascinating, and the driving curiosity is inspiring.
November 20, 2018
A disappointing book given the evidence available.
The authors open the book justifying their use of the term ‘culture’. The term is extraordinarily broad, though the authors have little interest in engaging with the nuance and complication of this term, and eventually settle practically for socially transferred behaviours across individuals, a definition they hope allows them to ‘get on’ and discuss the behaviours they refer to. However, Whitehead and Rendell never seem to quite escape the problems inherent in this definition being so loose, repeatedly returning throughout the book to the controversy it causes, without the evidence they cite providing any further clarification. This, to me, signals that ‘culture’ is a poor choice of word- it produces more confusion and strife than an entirely new, meaningless word.
It is somewhat akin to arguing that whales and dolphins have ‘history’, ignoring the objections of historians to the fuller meaning of that term, by noting that the previous actions of individuals in dolphin and whale pods influence their current actions. It truly is that reductive: later in the book, Rendell and Whitehead consider the problem of cultural rivalries and ethnic divisions by looking at suicide bombers and Glaswegian rangers fans stabbing Celtic supporters. Both are implied to have comparable explanations, namely, “culture”. If they weren’t going to engage with the difficulties of the term culture, as their churlish opening chapter makes clear with a great deal of shots at critics in the fields of anthropology and social science, they could at least have spared their readers the endless attempts to make it work as a scientific construct.
That they stick with this term throughout suggests to me that they value the power of the word “culture” as it is conventionally used, that it suggests human-like attributes in whales and dolphins. This is a strength of the definition, and a more exploratory, conclusive book might have made use of this openness and the possibilities it suggests. However, this book is empirical to a fault: it documents the work of hundreds or thousands of studies of animal behaviour, and yet with such loose theoretical underpinnings this work ends up feeling like a long list of trivia.
This empiricism goes hand in hand with an exhaustive scepticism, a continual examination of whether the given behaviours are cultural or genetic in origin. The authors decry that critics continually pose these possibilities as mutually exclusive, resurrecting the frame of the nature/nurture false dichotomy, and put the burden of proof onto cultural, rather than genetic, explanation of behaviour, but the authors do little to escape this framework. The tantalising evidence is continually undermined by returning to this basic and overcooked debate, when far more interesting questions surround such animals and their clearly very complex behaviour.
As a result of the author’s theoretical disinterest and dry empiricism, the authors explanation for cultural behaviour in whales and dolphins can only be that it is evolutionarily functional: either it increases the reproductive fitness of the animal, or it operates similarly to evolution by natural selection, by propagating memes rather than genes. Absurd and reductive comparisons to human culture follow, the standard sociobiological just-so stories about celibate priests who save their genes but spread their memes from the pulpit. Rendell and Whitehead cite all the most loathsome sociobiologists while Stephen Gould’s back is turned: E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, even Cochran and Harpending’s absurd and antisemitic evolutionary account of the apparent higher IQ of Ashkenazi jews due to their insular culture and selection for ‘banking and trading’ genes. Judged apart from the company the authors cite, this perspective is simply too limited for the vague but fascinating behaviour detailed in this book. A functional perspective on culture cannot help but reduce bizarre behaviours like whale songs, or dolphins wearing sponges on their rostrums, to almost randomly-selected, meaningless behaviour that can only be ultimately accounted for by how it affects the spread of the behaviour or the spread of the organism.
Given the basic and non-technical language used I assume this book is intended to be read by a general audience, but the book is far longer than it needed to be. It’s certainly not specific enough to be a dry scientific account, and not romantic enough to be an inspiring call to the sea.
The authors open the book justifying their use of the term ‘culture’. The term is extraordinarily broad, though the authors have little interest in engaging with the nuance and complication of this term, and eventually settle practically for socially transferred behaviours across individuals, a definition they hope allows them to ‘get on’ and discuss the behaviours they refer to. However, Whitehead and Rendell never seem to quite escape the problems inherent in this definition being so loose, repeatedly returning throughout the book to the controversy it causes, without the evidence they cite providing any further clarification. This, to me, signals that ‘culture’ is a poor choice of word- it produces more confusion and strife than an entirely new, meaningless word.
It is somewhat akin to arguing that whales and dolphins have ‘history’, ignoring the objections of historians to the fuller meaning of that term, by noting that the previous actions of individuals in dolphin and whale pods influence their current actions. It truly is that reductive: later in the book, Rendell and Whitehead consider the problem of cultural rivalries and ethnic divisions by looking at suicide bombers and Glaswegian rangers fans stabbing Celtic supporters. Both are implied to have comparable explanations, namely, “culture”. If they weren’t going to engage with the difficulties of the term culture, as their churlish opening chapter makes clear with a great deal of shots at critics in the fields of anthropology and social science, they could at least have spared their readers the endless attempts to make it work as a scientific construct.
That they stick with this term throughout suggests to me that they value the power of the word “culture” as it is conventionally used, that it suggests human-like attributes in whales and dolphins. This is a strength of the definition, and a more exploratory, conclusive book might have made use of this openness and the possibilities it suggests. However, this book is empirical to a fault: it documents the work of hundreds or thousands of studies of animal behaviour, and yet with such loose theoretical underpinnings this work ends up feeling like a long list of trivia.
This empiricism goes hand in hand with an exhaustive scepticism, a continual examination of whether the given behaviours are cultural or genetic in origin. The authors decry that critics continually pose these possibilities as mutually exclusive, resurrecting the frame of the nature/nurture false dichotomy, and put the burden of proof onto cultural, rather than genetic, explanation of behaviour, but the authors do little to escape this framework. The tantalising evidence is continually undermined by returning to this basic and overcooked debate, when far more interesting questions surround such animals and their clearly very complex behaviour.
As a result of the author’s theoretical disinterest and dry empiricism, the authors explanation for cultural behaviour in whales and dolphins can only be that it is evolutionarily functional: either it increases the reproductive fitness of the animal, or it operates similarly to evolution by natural selection, by propagating memes rather than genes. Absurd and reductive comparisons to human culture follow, the standard sociobiological just-so stories about celibate priests who save their genes but spread their memes from the pulpit. Rendell and Whitehead cite all the most loathsome sociobiologists while Stephen Gould’s back is turned: E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, even Cochran and Harpending’s absurd and antisemitic evolutionary account of the apparent higher IQ of Ashkenazi jews due to their insular culture and selection for ‘banking and trading’ genes. Judged apart from the company the authors cite, this perspective is simply too limited for the vague but fascinating behaviour detailed in this book. A functional perspective on culture cannot help but reduce bizarre behaviours like whale songs, or dolphins wearing sponges on their rostrums, to almost randomly-selected, meaningless behaviour that can only be ultimately accounted for by how it affects the spread of the behaviour or the spread of the organism.
Given the basic and non-technical language used I assume this book is intended to be read by a general audience, but the book is far longer than it needed to be. It’s certainly not specific enough to be a dry scientific account, and not romantic enough to be an inspiring call to the sea.
September 7, 2016
Amazing book. love it.
July 28, 2020
Rich in biological detail, and steering clear of mystical notions, this is a thorough treatise on cetacean culture and a scientifically sound argument for the idea that these are sensitive and intelligent beings. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2017...
August 11, 2015
Animal behavior is a tricky enough subject to read about, nevermind animal culture - so much of what's out there is pseudoscience, crystal-jangling frippery, and wishful thinking. This is one of the areas where the appeal of science, the fun of science, is often an obstacle to the actual understanding and apprehension of science: I think most readers just want a nice little bit about a dolphin who's best friends with a seal or a walrus who thinks he's people, a quick little snort of sensawunda, same as they'd get in science fiction about some rubbery alien. The books that most satisfy them and rise to the top of, say, Amazon's rankings are not necessarily also the books with the best scientific grounding.
Thankfully that is not a problem here. In one of the best books I've read in my marine biology curriculum, various cetacean behaviors are described, along with compelling arguments for considering them as examples of cetacean culture and a thorough address of the counter-arguments. It is exactly the tonic to all the horseshit I just mentioned.
Thankfully that is not a problem here. In one of the best books I've read in my marine biology curriculum, various cetacean behaviors are described, along with compelling arguments for considering them as examples of cetacean culture and a thorough address of the counter-arguments. It is exactly the tonic to all the horseshit I just mentioned.
March 9, 2018
A very thorough analysis of nonhuman culture sprinkled with lovely and captivating stories about cetacean behavior and cultural patterns!! An absolute delight to read in light of the intricacies of culture in nature -including human culture of course. Not only was this book very well written and thorough in explaining what we know on this phenomenon, but the authors went the extra mile to expose what we speculate on other phenomena crucial to this topic, like the evolution of culture itself: why, and how would something like culture evolve or the apparition of specific patterns like syntax or vocal learning. All in all, a fantastic read for anyone interested not only in Cetaceans, but in the Science of culture.
August 4, 2017
It's rare to find a science book that is both beautifully well-written and deeply rigorous. This book answers the question: Do whales and dolphins have culture? Of course they do! But unlike most popular books about cetaceans, which tend to assume cetaceans have culture simply because they are intelligent, this one delves into the evidence and evaluates it objectively and rigorously. It's also a lot of fun to read, partly because of all the amazing cetacean behaviors, and partly because the authors clearly had fun writing it.
June 22, 2016
as a lay person some of the language and ideas got a bit convoluted but facinating none the less. if you are at all interested in whales or dolphins this is a facinating read. took me longer than any novel of the same length to get through but thats because it made me think, made me ponder and above all made me wonder at the beauty of the whale nation. i have no doubt they have culture.
March 30, 2015
The book goes into the way information moves from animal to animal and gives some amazing details. It also discusses how whales and dolphins can be obviously. (This has also been seen in elephants).
I will have to share with all my Rookery buddies.
I will have to share with all my Rookery buddies.
April 17, 2025
A fantastic book for anyone interested in Wildlife Conservation and behavioral ecology. The book provides many examples of social learning and the intelligence of cetaceans. The book is well written and is easy to follow. (Even if you don't have a scientific background).
June 28, 2015
Seriously progressive work, incredibly solid yet still playful with exploring what exists in the minds and cultures of cetaceans
August 25, 2015
a fascinating and informative read. It makes you think about the other creatures that share the planet with us and their cultures.
January 1, 2016
Wonderful, informative, and thought provoking.
May 4, 2017
The book was very technical so was hard to get through.
August 17, 2017
Great book. good writer, Highly recommended to everyone
August 22, 2024
If cetaceans of the future read the books that humans wrote about them, they will surely marvel over their deep and expansive treatment in Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell's The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins. For readers skeptical that nonhuman animals possess "culture," Whitehead and Rendell's book carefully reviews a large body of anecdotes, data, and theory to argue that they do. For those already inclined to accept this proposition, the book offers both a comprehensive summary of what we know about baleen and toothed whale cultures so far as well as a reflection on the practice of studying them.
The 2015 University of Chicago Press edition contains 306 pages of text, 42 pages of notes, and 47 pages of references as well as an index and color plates. Three central chapters focus on whale songs, dolphin behavior, and "mother cultures of the large toothed whales"; these are bookended by more theoretical sections that set up definitions, describe experiments and observations, and summarize debates. This rich contextual scaffolding means that the book has as much to say about the culture and practice of science as it does about marine mammals. But the authors' self-disclosures and portraits of their peers are never self-aggrandizing; rather, they are assembled in support of a complex and qualified argument that many whales and dolphins possess “culture,” which Whitehead and Rendell define as 'information or behavior shared within a community that is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning' (12). And while their evidence for this claim is drawn primarily from observations of relatively well-studied species such as humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins, orcas, and sperm whales, it also extends to other cetaceans such as the bowhead whale whose songs resemble those of the humpback in many respects (85). By striving for a global perspective wherever possible, the authors assemble a picture of cetacean cultural diversity that is trans-specific.
Throughout the book, the authors also acknowledge objections and counterarguments such as evolutionary ecologist Kim Hill's worry that "the loose application of the term 'culture' for all socially learned behavior may obscure our ability to understand the evolution of what appear to be very unique characteristics of Homo sapiens"; to which, they reply that recognizing “culture” among nonhuman animals will have precisely the opposite effect: "[b]y having such a broad concept and qualifying it in the human case we move to a situation where our language more accurately focuses on that which makes human culture unique" (210-11). The authors conclude by speculating about the conditions under which culture in general might evolve and discussing the implications of the existence of cetacean cultures for conservation and future research.
The 2015 University of Chicago Press edition contains 306 pages of text, 42 pages of notes, and 47 pages of references as well as an index and color plates. Three central chapters focus on whale songs, dolphin behavior, and "mother cultures of the large toothed whales"; these are bookended by more theoretical sections that set up definitions, describe experiments and observations, and summarize debates. This rich contextual scaffolding means that the book has as much to say about the culture and practice of science as it does about marine mammals. But the authors' self-disclosures and portraits of their peers are never self-aggrandizing; rather, they are assembled in support of a complex and qualified argument that many whales and dolphins possess “culture,” which Whitehead and Rendell define as 'information or behavior shared within a community that is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning' (12). And while their evidence for this claim is drawn primarily from observations of relatively well-studied species such as humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins, orcas, and sperm whales, it also extends to other cetaceans such as the bowhead whale whose songs resemble those of the humpback in many respects (85). By striving for a global perspective wherever possible, the authors assemble a picture of cetacean cultural diversity that is trans-specific.
Throughout the book, the authors also acknowledge objections and counterarguments such as evolutionary ecologist Kim Hill's worry that "the loose application of the term 'culture' for all socially learned behavior may obscure our ability to understand the evolution of what appear to be very unique characteristics of Homo sapiens"; to which, they reply that recognizing “culture” among nonhuman animals will have precisely the opposite effect: "[b]y having such a broad concept and qualifying it in the human case we move to a situation where our language more accurately focuses on that which makes human culture unique" (210-11). The authors conclude by speculating about the conditions under which culture in general might evolve and discussing the implications of the existence of cetacean cultures for conservation and future research.
February 13, 2021
The only book about whales and dolphins (cetaceans) that the average American needs to read. The authors end the book by saying that Chapters 4-6 are the most important. I'd agree and add Chapter 3. Those chapters give you an overview of what really makes cetaceans special. They summarize all the research about how whales and dolphins act as a community.
The rest of the book is an argument that cetaceans have "culture" (here, defined broadly as something close to "shared, learned behavior"). The case is strong, even if it's not strong enough to clear all the hurdles of the scientific method (the authors lament that it's probably unethical to do controlled experiments on cetaceans even if we could, just as we wouldn't deliberately separate human twins at birth for the sake of studying them).
The authors obviously love their subjects, but they can write with enough detachment from them that you'd never associate this book with new age hippie stuff. They present the scientific evidence, and that's enough to make the reader a lifelong cetacean fan.
Various references to whales in pop culture appear from time to time to help ground the reader who is already familiar with them. Or, as in my case, they can point to the reader to where they should go next. I hadn't heard of the Songs of the Humpback Whale recordings. My library's got them, so I'm excited to check them out.
The rest of the book is an argument that cetaceans have "culture" (here, defined broadly as something close to "shared, learned behavior"). The case is strong, even if it's not strong enough to clear all the hurdles of the scientific method (the authors lament that it's probably unethical to do controlled experiments on cetaceans even if we could, just as we wouldn't deliberately separate human twins at birth for the sake of studying them).
The authors obviously love their subjects, but they can write with enough detachment from them that you'd never associate this book with new age hippie stuff. They present the scientific evidence, and that's enough to make the reader a lifelong cetacean fan.
Various references to whales in pop culture appear from time to time to help ground the reader who is already familiar with them. Or, as in my case, they can point to the reader to where they should go next. I hadn't heard of the Songs of the Humpback Whale recordings. My library's got them, so I'm excited to check them out.
March 23, 2019
Interesantísimo acercamiento a la cultura de animales misteriosos y fascinantes, y una decidida apuesta por ampliar la noción de "persona" a seres no humanos. Lo mejor de todo: los detalles, el conocimiento y la actitud intelectual de los autores, humilde y generosa, siempre dispuesta al diálogo y a reconocer las limitaciones de su propio conocimiento. El amor que estos investigadores sienten por los cetáceos se ve con facilidad, y con la misma facilidad puede el lector dejarse llevar por su entusiasmo. Lo peor: algunos párrafos donde se listan las evidencias científicas sobre determinado comportamiento cultural. Recuerda demasiado a un review de una revista científica, y se hace algo pesado de leer; aunque es difícil que pudieran hacerlo de otro modo.
September 16, 2022
Great whale facts, wild how little we know about most whales. What we do know about the social behavior of humpbacks, bowheads, sperm whales, killer whales, and coastal dolphins (the authors study sperm whales, apropos, but build their argument across all these evenly) makes it clear to likely that social learning that is not environmentally or genetically determined is widespread in many aspects of their lives, and which make the case for preservation of broad populations of whales to maintain cultural diversity.
June 4, 2019
Pretty dry, academic and focused on a scientific debate, the importance of which probably escapes most earthlings (whether whale and dolphins have "culture").
Couldn't get past chapter 8, still fascinating review of what has happened so far.
Couldn't get past chapter 8, still fascinating review of what has happened so far.
August 26, 2019
A little dry and academic but really interesting stories of dolphin and whale intelligence and cultural learning.
January 5, 2024
To be honest, I found it a little boring.
April 27, 2024
A bit slow but thoughtful and interesting.
November 10, 2025
4.5 stars.
April 13, 2025
With all this evidence of ecological psychological and neurobiological aspects of behavior, the drive to confuse this with social learning (how much learning isn't social?) and "culture" (how much culture is separable from biology or evolution?) is pretty petty. This is the best review text on whale dolphin behavior for the undergrad? Anyone have better suggestions?
Read
December 8, 2021"For a book in progress on animal law, I have been reading a lot of the wonderful scholarship animal scientists have been producing about animal cognition and emotions. I will recommend a group of books, not just one. Momma's Last Hug, the most recent book by the great primatologist Frans De Waal, is a moving study of animal emotions; another older book on that topic, covering many more species, is Mark Bekoff's The Emotional Lives of Animals. Two books by philosophers who are also experts in a particular species are Thomas White's In Defense of Dolphins and Peter Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Finally, an amazing combination of cutting-edge research and argument is Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins. This is a large literature, and there is a lot more, but these books will start anyone who cares about wild animals on a fascinating journey."
—Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics
"For my book on animal rights I have been reading a lot of scientific books on animal cognition. Of these, a real masterpiece is Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell's The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, a rigorous account of learning in whales and dolphins, arguing convincingly that quite a lot of it is not simply genetic, but cultural, imparted by imitation and teaching from the social group. Their conclusions have ethical importance: among other things, keeping orcas and dolphins in marine pens deprives them not just of free movement and society, but of all chance to become themselves, fully what they are. People should pair this with the more popular collection of essays edited by Janet Mann: Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, with essays by leading scientists and glorious photography. It's so much fun to learn about these mysterious animal relatives, whose lives challenge us all to think, and live, better."
- Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics
—Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics
"For my book on animal rights I have been reading a lot of scientific books on animal cognition. Of these, a real masterpiece is Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell's The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, a rigorous account of learning in whales and dolphins, arguing convincingly that quite a lot of it is not simply genetic, but cultural, imparted by imitation and teaching from the social group. Their conclusions have ethical importance: among other things, keeping orcas and dolphins in marine pens deprives them not just of free movement and society, but of all chance to become themselves, fully what they are. People should pair this with the more popular collection of essays edited by Janet Mann: Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, with essays by leading scientists and glorious photography. It's so much fun to learn about these mysterious animal relatives, whose lives challenge us all to think, and live, better."
- Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics
May 3, 2015
Though these scientists are excellent writers (truly!) and they even add witty and accessible asides in order to appeal to a layperson like me, this book can sometimes me slow going for someone who is basically sold on their central premise that whales do have culture--that they transmit information socially and even intergenerationally and not merely through their genes. This is such a radical premise for some in the scientific community that Whitehead and his partner must both propose and defend it page after page, and it was in those defenses and sometimes in the discussion of the origins of various behaviors and distinctions between whales and the alternative reasons *besides* culture that you could deduce for these behaviors and distinctions, I felt a bit...well, at sea...and had trouble focusing. Basically, the trade book equivalent of this book for readers like me (generally well-educated, very interested in animals, but last took biology in high school) would go something like this: 1) Yay, whales have culture! (2) Have we mentioned some cool ways that whales have culture? Humpback whale song! Fishing rituals! Cooperation with humans! Regionally based food preferences that seem otherwise to have no explanations! And ain't echolocation grand? 3) If whales have culture, we should remember that we have done horrible things to the ocean and to them and maybe stop doing some of those horrible things, huh? While that is loosely the structure of this book, it was also very in-depth. That being said, I enjoyed reading it and particularly enjoyed some of the things I learned about culturally conservative orcas (ha!) and clicking sperm whales. Mammalian extended child-feeding years really do produce some incredible complexities and communities.
November 9, 2015
While I didn't quite make it all the way to the end (2 chapters left), the book was very informative and persuasive on the point of whether whales and dolphins have cultures (certainly yes with respect to killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, likely yes with respect to humpbacks, and TBD with respect to the rest).
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