Minds in the Water – UPDATED

Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to wade into the battle over whether then president George Bush should be able to override a federal judge after that judge ruled that the US Navy would have to modify its use of sonar in training exercises held off the Southern California coast because of compelling evidence that the sonar did harm to whales.

Yet, despite mounds of data showing that sonar was causing whale deaths, in a 6 to 3 decision, the Supremes decided for the Navy and against the whales, the most recent version of centuries worth of conflict between whales and humans.

Still, in the view of many naturalists, the fact that the Supreme Court had been willing to hear the case at all was a welcome step forward. Moreover, after the decision the Navy agreed to do more to protect the whales when conducting its exercises.

Now, says Charles Siebert, writing for the NY Times Magazine, some biologists are beginning to believe that whales might be rewarding the more benign attitude that our species has had toward theirs in the past string of decades by consistently seeking us out in a way that seems…..relational. The huge creatures seem to want contact.

The phenomenon is most notably occurring, writes Siebert, in a particular area of Baja California.

I should note that Siebert occasionally tends to romanticize the great cetaceans that are considered to be among the planet’s most intelligent non-human mammels. But the story he tells of biologists perplexed by this suddenly friendly whale behavior is nonetheless fascinating.

Here are a few clips.

Scientists have now documented behaviors like tool use and cooperative hunting strategies among whales. Orcas, or killer whales, have been found to mourn their own dead. Just three years ago, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York discovered, in the brains of a number of whale species, highly specialized neurons that are linked to, among other things, the use of language and were once thought to be the exclusive property of humans and a few other primates. Indeed, marine biologists are now revealing not only the dizzying variety of vocalizations among a number of whale species but also complex societal structures and cultures.

Whales, we now know, teach and learn. They scheme. They cooperate, and they grieve. They recognize themselves and their friends. They know and fight back against their enemies. And perhaps most stunningly, given all of our transgressions against them, they may even, in certain circumstances, have learned to trust us again.

[HUGE SNIP]

“I don’t anthropomorphize,” [marine mammal behavioralist named Toni Frohoff] told me. “I leave it to other people to do that. What I do is study gray whales using the same rigorous methodologies that have long been used to study the behaviors of other species and interspecies interaction. Those who would reject out of hand the idea that whales are intelligent enough to consciously interact with us haven’t spent enough time around whales.”

[BIG SNIP]

I thought of another bit of interspecies cooperation involving humpbacks that I recently read about. A female humpback was spotted in December 2005 east of the Farallon Islands, just off the coast of San Francisco. She was entangled in a web of crab-trap lines, hundreds of yards of nylon rope that had become wrapped around her mouth, torso and tail, the weight of the traps causing her to struggle to stay afloat. A rescue team arrived within a few hours and decided that the only way to save her was to dive in and cut her loose.

For an hour they cut at the lines and rope with curved knives, all the while trying to steer clear of a tail they knew could kill them with one swipe. When the whale was finally freed, the divers said, she swam around them for a time in what appeared to be joyous circles. She then came back and visited with each one of them, nudging them all gently, as if in thanks. The divers said it was the most beautiful experience they ever had. As for the diver who cut free the rope that was entangled in the whale’s mouth, her huge eye was following him the entire time, and he said that he will never be the same.

It is worth reading the rest of this enchanting article.

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UPDATE: Both Siebert and biologist Toni Frohoff are interviewed by Terry Gross on today’s Fresh Air. The audio just now went up. I’m listening as I type. Give yourself a treat when you have time. It’ll cheer you up, I promise.

Hearing about members of two different species reaching out to each other makes the world and all of its problems seem like a slightly more manageable place.