# briefing
WORDS OF WISDOM
I must be a mermaid … I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living .
ANAÏS NIN
SPERM WHALES : CULTURAL NOMADS Researchers have found that sperm whales are culturally nomadic , with distinctive clans moving vast distances in response to changes in habitat . This cultural constancy has so far been seen to be unusual in the marine environment , with most animals preferring to remain in their habitats through periods of environmental fluctuation , and adapting their cultures accordingly .
SIGNPOST
FEMALE
These findings come from a study in the Galápagos , where the waters were dominated by two specific clans of sperm whales until they left in the 1990s , but now host two entirely different populations that have moved in from across the Pacific basin , thousands of kilometres away . The distinct populations can be determined by their “ codas ”, or vocal dialects , that are specific to certain clans .
Co-author of the study Dr Shane Gero , a postdoctoral marine biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark , told Mongabay that this kind of cultural turnover is unheard of outside of humans . “ It ’ s as if you had been going to Canada for 20 years and everybody spoke English and French , but then in the next 10 years nobody lived in Canada ,” said Gero . “ Then , you went back and everyone spoke Spanish and Portuguese .”
“ Sperm whale cultures appear to endure dramatic environmental changes ,” said Mauricio Cantor , a postdoctoral fellow at the Federal University of Santa Catarina , Brazil , and lead author of the study . “ These cultural boundaries are not trivial or abandoned in the face of new challenges .”
The research implies that protecting sperm whales may require tracking their populations culturally , rather than geographically .
It is a curious situation that the sea , from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life . But the sea , though changed in a sinister way , will continue to exist ; the threat is rather to life itself .
RACHEL CARSON
We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean . But if the drop were not there , the ocean would be missing something .
MOTHER TERESA
6 SDAA