You're not going to be a new thing.

The whole need a look on the answer. I have to be at all the time. Oh, Welcome to Color and Outside the Lines. I'm your host Dan Zettestrom. This is something a little different. Every now and then I'll be exploring subjects that I feel relevant to the conversation around the search for other forms of life and our place in the universe.

My hope is that you find the conversations both informative and thought-provoking and that they help you see the world around you in a new light.

With that said, thank you for tuning in.

Let me introduce my guest.

My guest today is a marine ecologist who uses passive acoustics to understand communication behavior and the impacts of marine resource management decisions on underwater ecosystems.

You might know her work from the 2021 documentary Fathom with Dr. Fournay and Dr.

Alan Garland set out on an undertaking as colossal as their subjects to decipher the

complex communication of Wales and uncover a culture eons all of our own.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Michelle Fonet.

Hi Michelle, how you doing today?

Hi, good morning, I'm fine, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

That's great. Thank you for coming. You got coffee with you there?

I've got a cup of coffee with me this morning to get the day started.

Oh, a tea person, great, lovely, lovely. Okay, so let's dive in. For those who aren't aware, just tell

us a little bit about yourself in your field of study.

Sure, so I am an acoustic ecologist,

which means I study how the natural world functions

from the perspective of sound.

And predominantly, I study underwater animals,

and then within that I mostly, my sort of primary subject is humpback whales.

But that said, really what I what I'm trying to do is is to be a good

...