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I'm trying to start a conversation is the most basic way you can say it.

I'm trying to put a speaker in the ocean and talk to a whale and hope it talks back.

If this work is successful, it will be the first experiment

where we have actively engaged in a dialogue with a humpback

whale.

I'm trying to start a conversation is the most basic way you can say it.

People have been studying humpbacks song for 40, 50 years and

still no one really knows why they sing.

Birds have song and other whales have song, but humpback song is even more elaborate.

They have rhythm,

time's breathing,

rhyming and repetition,

hours of patterns within patterns with

no clear beginning or end.

I think humpback song is complex communication on

a scale that has no analog that we know of except

us.

My stepfather was a classical pianist.

When he sat down to teach me the piano, he told me

to play one note and to close my eyes and listen

until the sound disappeared.

He wanted me to understand the sound by experiencing it.

So

took 10 years to lay the groundwork before we could even

begin to build the playback files to play to the whales.

That's it. This is that's the playback call. That was the

actual call that we will be playing. Or one of the calls.

Yeah, we'll need to adjust it a little bit. I mean, we could reduce the volume.

Maybe so it's clipping. Well, it's clipping from your

point. Oh, yeah, the clippings from your So these recordings

haven't been filtered. They haven't been adjusted at all.

That's good.

Something's not right. I am trying to fool the whale. I

should be transparent about that. I'm trying to convince the

humpback that there is another whale in the water that is vocalizing.

So playback experiments in the past made a lot of terrible

sounds by accident. This is for half of the first, it's the

real song.

The last time they did playbacks, they ended up sounding

like a humpback whale on helium. And this is the

reconstructed one.

And then they wonder why no one responded. So you actually

clear out. Yeah, you lose all the noise. And here you have

the waveform like blue is the input and red is what we're

listening. Red is what we're hearing now. And you're in and

you basically are just working with signal. So you don't

have any issues with the spectrum. You don't have like all

the type of sounds or breaking the noise. All the clicks and

everything, you know, will be thrown away. That is a great

idea. The only issue I see is that most humpback calls

aren't tonal. I mean, they're amplitude modulated calls and

they're short. So a lot of them are these sort of

calls that aren't harmonic. That's amazing.

Then it's just, again, I think going to be a clarity. I think we should try it. Yeah.

If you were to listen to all the whales around the world

at the same time, most of those sounds would be calls.

Sometimes they occur in series that change order. Sometimes they occur one by one.

But they're short and we understand very little about them.

But of all of the humpback calls, I think one is the most important.

The whoop.

This call is produced, we think, by everyone. This is an

animal that has the potential to produce infinite numbers of

calls.

Why is this call unique? Why is this call special? And the

best way to start finding that out is by playing it to a

whale and seeing how the whale reacts to it.

This is the question I've been preparing for.

This is the one that I fought for when I was 25 and I

started this. And this was the one that I rallied for when I

started my PhD.

And I have to make sure the science is impeccable. This is

the very beginning of how we understand how humpback whales

perceive the world and how humpback whales perceive each

other through sound.

My mum loved the ocean and

she always wanted to be an oceanographer, but women weren't

allowed out on boats. So she became a geographer instead.

She never lost her love of the ocean and she definitely transmitted that onto me.

Exactly. That's an important thing. Noting the weird, noting

the different is the best thing you can do because that will

jump out at you. If we notice these individual level

differences, make a note. Scientists had always thought that

songs were only used for mating. I've got a nice pattern. So

a violin, a bark, and I'm pretty sure that's going to be a

whoop. So these are like three perfect examples.

But as I listened to a decade of recordings from the South

Pacific, I saw the same songs turning up in populations

separated by hundreds of miles. It's important that we're

seeing the structure, right? So we've got a big squeak and

then a lower frequency unit, then the big squeak and some

lower frequency. And so if you think about it, it's a

structural thing. I realized song had to be much more than just mating.

Small changes are introduced to the song. And then all of

the singers learn those changes and the song evolves. It

steps forward. Songs are then passed across distant

populations. And as this repeats, they become the shape of

what thousands of whales sound like collectively.

All of this is a cultural phenomenon. So from Australia,

it first spreads to New Caledonia, 800 miles away. They all

learn the song within a couple of months, which is

ridiculous that animals can learn this very long, complex

display so rapidly. The songs go from West to East every

time, connecting an ocean of whales with culture. I'm trying

to complete a map of where song sharing is found in the

South Pacific. To find its edges. To find out where this

humpback culture ends.

That's enough, I think that's enough. Stuff it in.

Is he all

right?

Fail work is always a challenge because you're away from people you care about.

On occasion, I've managed to get Matt to come to the field site with me.

And we discovered he gets seasick on boats, so that didn't

work so well. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Have

you opened that yet? Step one, I normally sit top of smoke lines.

Oh, you all right? Yep.

Thanks, buddy.

I don't even know where to start. Okay. Delegate done. Cut it? Delegate.

Okay, can you get all the stuff off the washing line that's dry? Yes, I can.

You know, we have absolute minimal communication coming up.

That sucks and it's really hard and I think it's much harder

for you than me because I'm surrounded constantly by people,

by the team. Plus you've got something to do, right? There's

no rest really on field work. When you're really interested

in something and really passionate about it, it's just the

obvious thing you want to do. I love being in the field. It

makes me super happy and I absolutely love it and I wouldn't

want to stop doing that but it is really hard to go away.

It's just best to try and not think about it, I guess.

Okay.

There we go.

Four hydrophones. Check. Remote. Check. Four dry bags with

collars and GPS units. Check. Tracker. Check. Small black

dry bag with boat GPS unit. Check. iPad. Check. Green towel

is in the backpack. Goal Zero battery with charging cores

and the Goal Zero solar panel are both in the backpack.

Black Pelican. Check. I checked it this morning. Camera,

binos, an extra nine volt camera battery and AA batteries

all in there. Awesome. Big yellow dry bag. Rain jackets.

Lunch snacks. Check, check, check. Okay. Playback speaker.

Check. Four life jackets. Yep. Two radios. Check. Personal

dry bags and water bottles. Water. I've got my water bottles full. Sunscreen.

We'll do our

first survey down south and then we'll work our way north. Good.

When you're in a place of such beauty, it's easy to forget.

The whales could capsize us and the water is cold enough

that we would die.

There's somebody up there for sure.

In past seasons, I've gone weeks without seeing any whales.

This year, we have only a month to survey at least 30.

Okay hydrophones, it is 1028 August 11th. This is Dr. Leanna

Matthews here with Dr. Michelle Fournay. I'm going to clap

three times.

Each playback takes one hour. Below,

we'll acoustically track one whale with hydrophones while our speaker plays whoops.

Starting playback.

And above, we'll note everything we see one whale do. This

is called a focal hollow. By linking behaviors we see at the

surface with recordings below the water, I'll have a

complete picture of how the whale is responding to our

playbacks. We'll start at first surface. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like

she's gonna pop up right next to us. Yeah. I feel like

she's

gonna pop up right next to us.

Start survey. First surface, southwest 76.2. Below,

never mind, scratch that, not our whale. That's not our whale. No.

Below, west 50.1.

Below, northwest.

Dive, 36.3.

It is our whale. Yeah, that's our whale. Okay. A little

white on the dorsal. Right? Yeah. Yeah, the fluke just made

me feel better because that other whale was also a black

fluke whale. I know, I noticed that and I was like, oh my

god. No, this is our whale. And that was the right fluke?

That was the right fluke. Yeah, black fluke, leucons,

speckles, barnacles on the tops. Yep. Okay, that's the end of our survey.

Contact. Contact. Contact. Contact. Contact. Contact.

Does anybody mind if I take the cheddar one? Go for it.

Are you guys disappointed that I'm not taking us down there?

No. It's intentional. There are too many whales down there.

I don't think we should go down there. I think I get really confused here.

It's not our whale. Correct. That's not our

whale. These two are not our whales. Correct.

Oh, what about that splashing whale? That's our whale.

Surface, first surface, 185.2 200 I'm pretty sure it's our

whale. I'm going to try and get it in the binos.

Blue, south, 178.5 400. The closer one, yeah?

That's not our whale. Delete that whole last surfacing.

This study has a high probability of failure.

The logistics are really complicated.

When there are multiple whales, it's really hard to track just one.

It's the idea that I might be able to contribute to this

knowledge, that that might be my little piece that I can

help with the puzzle.

Even in the hardest field season or the crappiest day, it

gets me out of bed every morning. I'm a nerdy scientist.

Trying to understand our planet, trying to understand

all the animals on our planet before they disappear.

So, you haven't had much instruction with the hydrophone

before? Not much, no. So, general idea, this part can't get

wet, that part has to go in the water. These take ages

to wake up on stamina mode. Yeah, right. I can hear that

through there.

Yeah, that's definitely doing well. So, the whole idea is

you pop on a piece of tape and then you want to wind it

tight, but not too tight. You don't want to strangulate

the cord. Okay. And the idea for this is to reduce the low

-frequency rumble. Yeah, it produces those low-frequency

vibrations. So, yeah, this has been passed down from my

supervisor's supervisor to him, to myself, and now I'm sort

of introducing it to our lab. It's the Australian technique,

shall we say. That's perfect. Now we just need the whales.

Yeah, I'm very happy to see you too. So glad we can come out

with you. I only have a couple of weeks and I need to get

high-quality recordings from different whales. So I know what's being sung.

OK.

What do you reckon? Maybe try... For the song, this is

better. And after we can go... Yeah, that's the best idea.

Ready to go in? Yeah, ready to go in.

Perfect. All right, I'm going to start listening now.

I'm listening at level 95.

Maybe at the very edge of my hearing. Yeah. It's a game of

acoustic hide-and-seek. Let's wear all of the... The string?

Yeah, all the cable out because it's not sitting vertical

and I'd rather get as much depth as we can. Below the

surface, a song can be heard by other whales for dozens of

miles. But my hydrophone struggles to record clearly beyond

a mile or two.

I'm going to stop that now. File 001. Feel it from this way.

The whales sing outside the reef but the deeper waters can

get so big that if you're not careful, it could sink the

boat.

The water is a window but it's also a wall.

We do have sing-in going on but it is forward to very

far. It's a long way and we can't go into that, so...

Ten years in

Alaska and I've never seen so many whales. I think we're

doing a disservice to the playback if we don't do a scan.

Like, we're focal following this animal and doing a playback

to this animal but that's not the only animal that hears

this playback. Which means that what the animal does is

going to change because you and I having a dialogue alone

versus you and I having a dialogue with a group of people is

going to change how much we contribute and how much we pay

attention. I think we're having trouble letting go. Sure,

we spent weeks, I spent months, I spent years a long time

designing these focal follows. But when you get there and

you do it and you're seeing all of these other things it

doesn't matter how much time I spent designing it. So what

is the most elegant way to be certain about something we see

in nature without exaggerating it, without hoping for it?

And I feel like in terms of that question A scan is the

simplest way to capture the response of a playback. It's a strong pivot. Very strong.

Hey Maggie, we're making some changes to the protocol. It's

going to be scans. Just scans? Scans only. I thought I was

only going to have one whale so it made a lot of sense to look at what one whale did.

Instead I have lots of whales which was an unexpected surprise.

So I need to know whether or not the number of whoops that

each whale is producing goes up when I produce a whoop. And

the best way to do this is to start doing scans. I mark

every whale that I can see all around me. If on average how

many whoops each whale is making goes up when I produce a

whoop call that's really strong evidence that they're using

whoops to make contact.

Yes.

Starting playback.

OK.

We're going to head that way to give some space and

then we'll cut back slow. We're going to go slow.

30 seconds out from playback.

Group size 4131500

Group size 21541000

145 group size 2 Can you slow down just a little? Barely.

Range 200 Please repeat that asthma. 142 Group size 2

250 yards 185 Group size 1 Please repeat that I'm sorry. 185 group size 1 250 yards

200 yards group size 1256 I am at group size

4 at 1000 What was the asthma? I don't know.

Alright let's stop and start over. Really really fast I

haven't had time to really look at this. I know and it's

let's delete all of those and start again.

As hard as that was it was easier. To try and focal follow

what I edible and all of that. Look at these guys. Look at

that.

Alright. Start survey.

Alright. Group size 3159

I kind of want to see us. 1132

That sounds right. I think that's us. It's quiet. But again

like it fits right in. It fits right in. Oh yeah it sounds

very very realistic.

That's not us. No it's not. No we're over here. This is us.

Okay. I think the whoop is a kind of hello to them. Possibly

hello I am. Which raises the question if each whale has

their own whoop could they use it to identify each other?

This is why I'm playing this sound. Before you can

have the conversation it helps to introduce yourself.

So what else do we find in here? We wanted to see if they

were whooping before we started whooping. That's us. And

that's us. We don't see a lot of whooping before we started whooping.

That's us. I'm calling back.

Could just be a random chance. Here they go again.

Come here. Maggie. We need to push. Oh god. Oh god. I think

we hit the ground. It creaks. I'm not helping. I'm not

taking part in this. I'll not be sued if something goes

wrong. We hit the ground. I think we hit the ground. Stand

up here. Are you saying we can't swing? If we go

further that way there's less ground to reach.

Ready? Oh my god.

I'm going to pee my pants.

Be careful. Can we get your feet up there? I bet if you hold

the stick higher. You're going to have to jump. Jump and

straddle.

I take things that I love about being here and set them up

in my home. Like what? Like I don't have the internet. You

don't have internet at your house? I don't have internet at

my house. It's really quiet at my house. I'm far away from

noise. So that when I step outside it sounds a little bit.

When I wake up in the morning it feels kind of like waking

up in a tent. Transitioning out of being here is

exponentially harder. It takes days to recalibrate to

reality and the real world. That's the thing. I don't feel

like that is reality. I feel like this is reality. This is

the real world. Yes, but this is not the real world that we

live in all the time. So we have to reset to the day to day

life that we had before this. And it's hard.

Music

Music

Music Some things we do are not innate. Music Music They're

learned. Music They tell us who we're connected to. Music

And where we belong.

We worked today. We were a good team today. We took good

care of each other. We laughed a lot. We laughed a lot

today.

Music You don't want me to cut your hair?

We call these things culture.

Music Music Music The oldest cultures are not human. Music They're from the ocean.

For generations researchers thought they were solitary and

we didn't see them together. Music Music Music But they

haven't been alone for eons.

40 million years ago their brains exploded with complexity.

Music Before we walked upright. Music Before we sparked

fire. Music Consciousness bloomed because they became social.

Music Regions related to self and community grew more

elaborate than in any other brain. Including us. The senses

of sight and sound merged. Allow on whales to see one another through sound.

Whales evolved to build relationships in the dark.

Music Music Tail on the left. One there, one

there. Music Music Music Okay, recording at 1350.

Music

Music Music Okay, we do have a singer.

you can hear all the detail in it. This is exactly what we

want. This is it, this is the one. We are going to hold the

cable for an hour. This is our gold. This is our one for the season.

The song we recorded is different from the one I've been

tracking, a new song I've never heard before. In 20 years of

song recordings across the South Pacific, this is the first

time I've ever seen this happen. But I don't think it's an

anomaly.

The song has a

complex

In a week, I lose Leanna and Maggie to their day jobs. But

I think we're finally starting to get it. Since we've gone

from tracking one whale to dozens, the hardest part is

gauging distance by eye. So every morning, we practice.

We're a little under. Yeah. We're overestimating the

distance. Ready? Yeah. I would say 75. Closer than 100. 70.

Okay. I'm feeling better. I'm feeling better.

It's hot today. I'm so uncomfortable. You also look very

like a French girl goes into the field today. Really? In the

solid black. Oh, well, so that's it. You can't see my

sweat stains in the black. And I can put my hair in a hat.

Functional fashion. Functional fashion. Yeah.

I haven't changed shirts in like six days.

There's so many whips. Just there. There. There. There. There.

Seriously?

Leanna, we've got fuel coming out of the back. Okay, let's go.

Yeah.

I don't know exactly where we're leaking from, so I need to

figure that out. But I know that when I'm feeding it fuel,

that my intake is fine, but something's

happening, I think. But I'm working on it. Okay.

Just know that probably for the next several hours, I will

not have any extra bandwidth, and I will be in problem

-solving mode until the problem is solved. Got it.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, we're getting close to 20 minutes.

Blow.

Is that English name? No.

He's not a singer. He's not a singer. I know. I know. He's

like right there. I know. I call it needle in a haystack.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just going to, they're either

going to be there singing or they're gone.

Okay.

So he's singing 4 4 30 at the Marina. Tomorrow?

Yes. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's see, won't we?

I just assumed that we didn't have any good song, but

it was good that we were out, and it's good practice.

And this end is the business end? Yeah, this is the

hydrophone. So what we do is when we cable tie it, we put

the hydrophone up, and it's tailed out. So there's a weight

on the ground, a buoy? Yeah, we're putting it down on the

reef there, and so there's a lot of fish around. Yeah, okay.

He's got some really cool croakers. Right. Like, you're

going to hear a lot of that, and they're snapping shrimp,

but as long as you've got a close singer, it just sort of

like overrides everything else.

I'm doing everything I can to capture something different that's happening here.

It is the 10th of September, and we are currently just off the reef.

We're placing hydrophones on the seafloor, hoping a singer swims close enough.

We call our communication language. We think what whales do is different.

Underwater, sounds can take half an hour to bend around

the horizon or fade in a matter of seconds and feet. Sounds

constantly arrive from different places and times, and

somehow humpbacks decipher an acoustic world

where the past and present arrive all at once.

It's like knowing how each of the stars fit within time, with just your ears.

How many whales have I marked? Six total. Six total. Whales.

Whales. I have a group size of two, a group of three, and I

have a single over there, right? Yep. That happens a lot.

Okay. Okay. Time for my three-minute break. Yes. Breaching

whale! Well, we're out of our work. Oh, yeah, but we can

watch it. It's snack time. Get the snacks. Get the snacks.

Here, pocket cheese. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Then how far

away do we go before we do another survey? One hour or four

miles. Excellent. How many surveys do we try and do in a

day? Four. Four. Four. How hungry are we going to be when we

get home? So, so hungry.

There's a lot happening in this vile. We're not surprised

there was a lot of whales around. There was a little half

feeding call.

That's called an arches, and then a droplet.

Whop. Feeding call. Droplet. Droplet.

Droplet, droplet, feeding called droplet, droplet, droplet.

How many of these did you name? I named all of those.

You know what we call that call?

Uh, elephant. No, close. Think of another animal that makes

a sound. It might be dead. Mammoth. Closer. Woolly mammoth.

Know what's called the brontosaurus? Ah, it may be dead.

Most certainly is dead. You tricked me. They do remind me of

brontosauruses. Brontosauri. I agree. That sounds like a brontosaurus.

Woo.

Woo.

Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo.

Woo. Woo.

Three more days until I get a new engine. Woo.

We're trying to answer the question, is the whoop a contact call?

And we are running out of time.

We're creating a record so that we can at least demonstrate

to the world and to the generations ahead of us that

something beautiful was here.

To answer these questions, I have to remove myself from society

and live in a world that is dominated with animals. I'm not

going to be able to do that. I'm going to have to do it. And

it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. It feels like a release.

I'm going to have to do it. I know I'm going to come home a

different person and I don't know if that person is going to

fit the role that I had before.

Like, I went to Antarctica for a month and came home to a

dog and a partner that I didn't fit into anymore. And I had

to leave them. And I'm terrified that's going to happen

again. You know? Yeah. I'm terrified I'm not going to fit

into that role that I had when I left. You have to leave

it, but not just leave it physically, but also leave it

mentally. You've come into the field for seven seasons.

Have you found a way to come home? No. No. Instead, I do the

opposite and I take the things that are precious to me about

home, like you, and bring them here. Which seems to make

more sense. Because this is a much safer place to be a

human.

I've never seen so few whales this late in the

season. And we've only captured one clear recording.

OK. All right. Put the phone down.

Everything nicely. I'm going to do Jason because

I'm going out there for a month and a half.

Can I have a time? I'm listening now. OK, recording.

So much water noise. So much splash. I think we might have

to call it at 25. OK. I just, this is getting, this is

getting challenging.

I am just exhausted from everything.

To talk about that it's hard, that it's

challenging, can sometimes be a sign of weakness.

Particularly being female in this field, you don't want to show any weakness.

This year I promised that I would only go to field work for two weeks.

I miss Matt.

It feels like a lifetime ago we were able to see each other's faces.

Music

Music It is

Tuesday, August 27th. This is Dr. Michelle Forney,

here with almost but not yet Dr. Natalie Mastic.

Alright.

Oh, there's a lot of us. OK. That's my favorite

problem. It's a good problem. Look at all the people.

Perfect. OK. Flu is secured on the anchor. Flu is now in the water. In the water.

Is the volume turned up all the way on the iPad? Yes. It is.

Play it again. Is it playing? It's playing. Oh, we didn't

put it in the water. Alright, stop it.

Alright, are you ready? I don't know, that was

very stressful. Oh, yes, you're ready. OK, go.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

eleven. Ready? And begin. We have a group of two, three

singles, one group of four, two, two. We're on survey number

twenty-six. That's time. Group size three, one forty-five,

twenty-six, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten.

Group of one, one twenty-nine, one six, two hundred, two

five.

I feel my age for the first time, and I want to have a baby.

What are you going to do with your baby when you're in the

field? You're going to bring him out. It's a hard question.

It depends on what kind of field work I do. It depends on

what kind of partner I have when I do that field work. If I

have a partner who can join me in the field, yeah. If I have

a support group of people, like, I'm dead serious. We do a

one-month field season, and somebody picks blueberries with

the kids and makes pancakes and does the laundry and cooks

the meals for the day and does the dishes for breakfast. And

then we come in from all of our surveys, and then the next

day, it's my turn. With the kiddos, like, you just stick one

here and you hold two hands, and if they fall, they fall.

You pick them back up again. And then we just bump around

again, and now it's your turn to stay home. Yes, that sounds

amazing. Yeah. Are you thinking about how exhausted you're

going to be? It's only one month. One month of working for

nine hours on the boat, coming home, not getting any sleep.

I guess there just aren't that many good examples

of that in our field. We don't need any examples.

OK. OK. OK.

OK.

He told me this way. Yeah? He's singing. OK. After when he

go, I stop singing. OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. OK, I think, yeah.

That explains it, because we heard pretty good

songs. So if he's off there, yeah. All right.

Going in.

I think we're going in the right direction. I think he's louder.

Yeah, we are definitely going in the correct direction now.

OK.

OK.

OK.

This is the same song we heard in Australia,

the one we've been tracking all season.

Which means there are at least two different songs here.

A cultural crossroads. Whale. This whale is singing the song from the west.

But the other song has to be from somewhere else.

And the next closest population is near Ecuador, 5000 miles east.

What I thought was unprecedented song sharing across the

South Pacific could be just one piece of a global cultural

network.

Thousands of brains learning and sharing some

of the most complex acoustic patterns on earth.

The result of evolution that's millions of years older than ours.

Studying whale culture might be more about glimpsing something of ourselves.

How we can connect differently a million years from now.

And that's what we're going to do.

OK. Whale.

Huh?

OK. We're about to find out if it worked on this one. Oh,

it starts there. OK. So in the first before period, there's

one, two, three growls. Whoops. In the second before period,

there's one, two, three whoops. In the during period, there

are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.

There are thirteen.

That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Right? We're talking

back to you. I keep thinking it's not going to work. OK.

It is so hard to

interpret the language of the natural world. To

listen and understand what it's saying to itself.

That is of the same proportion as pointing all of our

satellites skyward and listening for a sign from outer

space.

OK.

OK.

OK.

OK.

OK. OK.

OK. OK.