Whales' Vital Role In Our Oceans

Short Wave

NPR

News, Life Sciences, Daily News, Nature, Science, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whales are more than just beautiful creatures — they play a vital role in the ocean's ecosystem. Today, Asha de Vos, marine biologist and pioneer of long-term blue whale research within the Northern Indian Ocean, explains why protecting whales is crucial for protecting the entire sea in this excerpt of TED Radio Hour.

Listen to the full episode, An SOS From The Ocean, here.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:06.2	What's up, Deuterinos?
0:07.2	Emily Quang here with a very special treat from our friends at the Ted Radio Hour.
0:12.8	It's conversation all about whales.
0:16.2	Whales, by the way.
0:17.3	Some of the most beautiful creatures in the sea, if I can give my humble opinion.
0:22.1	Host Manouche Zomerodi talks with marine biologist Aasha DeVos about the vital role that whales
0:28.3	play in the ocean's ecosystem.
0:30.3	It's an excerpt from their recent show on Saving R-Seas.
0:35.3	Okay, I'm going to let Manouche take it from here after the break.
0:38.3	It's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR.
0:46.1	I'm Manouche Zomerodi and I want to start with the biggest underwater creature there is,
0:52.7	the whale.
0:55.5	Which, despite its size, can be really hard to spot.
0:59.5	They're huge, but they live in this gigantic space, 70% of our planet, right?
1:05.4	So you just stand and stare out of the horizon and you hope that an animal will turn up.
1:12.6	This is marine biologist Aasha DeVos and before she ever had a chance to see a whale,
1:19.8	Aasha fell in love with how they sound back in college.
1:23.6	I did a project on sperm whales and they're acoustics and I was listening to this cacophony
1:30.6	and I was just like, you know, this world sounds so remarkable.
1:37.4	These are the clicking sounds that sperm whales make.
1:40.8	So sperm whales are the largest tube whales and so when we listen to them, they just have
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.