Listening to Whales

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Wisconsin Public Radio

Prx, Philosophy, Knowledge, Wpr, Ttbook, Wisconsin, Society & Culture

4.7 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What can we learn from whales – and whales from us? Technology like AI is fueling new scientific breakthroughs in whale communication that can help us better understand the natural world. And, there’s an international effort to give whales a voice by granting them personhood.

Special thanks to Ocean Alliance and whale.org for some of the whale recordings heard on this episode.

Original Air Date: August 24, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:
Translating whale, with the help of AI — Searching for a whale alphabet — Giving a voice to the whale ancestors — Roger Payne touches a whale

Guests:
Shane Gero, Carl Zimmer, Mere Takoko

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Categories: whales, language, marine life, oceans

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey friends, it's Anne.
0:04.2	Have you noticed that whales have been popping up a lot lately?
0:13.5	Startling people on boats and beaches, but also in science labs.
0:19.0	For the first time ever, researchers who study whale communication think they might actually be
0:24.9	close to understanding it.
0:27.7	AI technologies are helping decode those beautiful, deep whale calls and songs, which raises
0:34.8	profound questions about the rights and personhood of other sentient species.
0:39.3	What will it mean when we recognize that whales have a voice and something to say?
0:47.3	Today, on to the best of our knowledge, listening to whales.
0:53.3	From WALS On to the best of our knowledge, listening to whales.
0:59.1	From WPR.
1:03.5	It's to the best of our knowledge.
1:04.8	I'm Anne's Train Champs.
1:08.3	I've spent my life listening and talking to people,
1:10.6	which is pretty normal for a human.
1:18.4	But this planet is awash in other species, above and below the ground, in the skies, in the oceans.
1:23.2	We humans are not the only one speaking.
1:26.1	Ever wish you could translate?
1:29.5	I was off the coast of Dominica not too far, maybe two or three miles, and we're on
1:37.2	a very small boat, you know, something that you might use to get around the intercoastal
1:42.1	waterway, but we're off in the middle of the ocean.
1:48.0	This is marine biologist Shane Garrow.
	...

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