Studying Whale Society

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/studying-whale-society.html

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To the Editor:

Re “A Conversation With Whales,” by James Nestor (Sunday Review, April 17):

For more than a decade, I have led research on the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, a long-term study of wild sperm whales. I can recognize whales, whale families and whale cultures by their sounds, and I now know that identity is important in sperm whale society.

The article underreports what boat-based scientists have learned about sperm whales and creates a false dichotomy between “institutional researchers” and “rogue scientist” free divers. Every fact given is known because passionate institutional researchers invested time away from their families to study sperm whales.

Armed with new technologies, scientists face not a challenge of getting data but devoting the time to understand it. I hope that DareWin, the communication research project Mr. Nestor is associated with, will contribute something new to the whales’ story without disturbing them in the water, and not discount the shoulders of the giants on whom they stand.

SHANE GERO

Aarhus, Denmark

The writer is a research fellow in the Marine Bioacoustics Lab at Aarhus University and the founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.