Male Killer Whales are Real Mama's Boys

Looking closely you will see the baby whale at the end, it's mother in the middle; and, there's an escort whale (male) in the front just out of sight. Photo courtesy: Dave Lonsdale/CC BY 2.0

It seems that humans are not the only ones that have that most unique of all children - the mama's boy. There is always the male children that would rather remain with his mother than forge his own destiny. And the human mothers usually encourage this type of behaviour.

Apparently, so do killer whale mothers. Scientists have always wondered why female killer whales have the longest menopause of any non-human species. Now they think they know.

If his mother dies, a male whale is 14 times more likely to die within the year.

The research team, from the Universities of Exeter and York (UK), the Center for Whale Research (USA) and Pacific Biological Station (Canada) studied killer whales in the North Pacific ocean over a period of 36 years.

Menopause seems difficult to explain in evolutionary terms: how does surviving well past the age in which reproduction is possible contribute to the survival of a species? Attempts to answer the question have lead to the so-called "Grandmother hypothesis" which surmises that Grandma's contributions to the core family unit help the survival chances of the third generation.

In the case of whales, the mothers themselves remain dedicated to their offspring a lifetime long -- until well after their sons are mature whales in their own rights. According to Dr Dan Franks, a Biologist at the University of York:

Our analysis shows that male killer whales are pretty much mommy's boys and struggle to survive without their mother's help. The need for mothers to care for their sons into adulthood explains why killer whales have evolved the longest post-reproductive lifespan of any non-human animal.

The press release explains the unique social groups of killer whales: "Sons and daughters (stay) with their mothers in a single group throughout their lives. With this close association, older mothers have the opportunity to increase the transmission of their genes by helping their adult offspring survive and reproduce. When sons mate, their offspring are cared for by females in another group, whereas when daughters reproduce the offspring stay in the group, which increases local competition for resources within the group."

21 Nations Vote Against Whale Sanctuary

Photo courtesy: Thoth, God of Knowledge/CC BY 2.0

Today, in the enlightened, internetted 21st century, whaling should be the simplest conservation issue out there. We've killed too many of them, they're endangered, and people love them. All evidence points to the fact that we shouldn't kill them anymore.

There are many reasons to stop hunting them beside the obvious one. First and foremost, they are sentient beings who should have the right to live their lives without fear of being harpooned. Secondly, you would think that the outcry against whaling from the public would be sufficient to put an end to it without even taking into account the added incentive of the booming industry that is whale watching. And let's not forget - the demand for whale meat is minimal and even their oil isn't used anymore.

Another effort to protect whales has crashed and burned at the International Whaling Commission meeting; a proposal was made to turn the Southern Atlantic into a giant whaling sanctuary. Nations like Brazil and Argentina, both of which have thriving whale-watching industries, were totally behind it. So were more than 35 other countries.

Unfortunately, 21 nations weren't, and voted not to protect whales. The BBC reports:

Latin American countries argued that declaring a sanctuary would help whale conservation and whale-watching. The bid gained more than half of the votes but fell short of the three-quarters majority needed to pass ...

The proposal covered almost the entire Atlantic Ocean south of the Equator, from the west coast of Africa to the east coast of South America. It would have joined up with the two existing whale sanctuaries approved by the IWC, in the Southern and Indian Oceans.

This stuff is frustrating in a radically different way than something like climate change is. This is a major, multifaceted blight that seeps into every aspect of our daily lives. Nothing is more infuriating than world leaders' continued inaction on climate change, but the enormity of the problem at least makes the chaos understandable. If we can't rally to protect endangered whales (while of course respectfully preserving the right of limited catch for indigenous populations who subsist on them) then there's little hope, frankly, that we can protect much of anything at all.

Can Whales Predict Tsunamis?

Observers have watched whales vanish after an undersea earthquake. Photo courtesy: Andrew Sutton via guardian.co.uk

Do whales hear earthquakes long before humans? As tsunami warnings hit the Indonesian and Sri Lankan coasts last week, observers at sea watched as every species of cetacean – from massive blue whales to diminutive spinner dolphins – disappeared within five minutes. British photographer and film-maker Andrew Sutton, who took this remarkable shot last Wednesday off the southern tip of Sri Lanka, reports that he and his crew were mystified as the whales they were watching vanished in the space of a few minutes. The humans on the boat were unaware that the quake had happened, but the animals had evidently sensed the subsea seismic shocks, and fled.

Could cetaceans act as canaries in the sea, as advance alarms of potentially dangerous seismic activity? What a totally exciting concept. There is so much more to the whale and dolphin families than we give them credit for. Last year, both the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes were preceded by mass cetacean strandings on these islands' beaches. And a recent scientific report from Mexico appears to prove that a fin whale accelerated sharply away from the site of an underwater earthquake.

But having already exploited whales for centuries, perhaps we should not be so quick to enlist their services. Back in 1964, another erstwhile resident of Sri Lanka, the science-fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke, predicted that by the year 2000, "we will not be the only intelligent creatures. One of the coming techniques will be what we might call bioengineering – the development of intelligent and useful servants among the other animals on this planet, particularly the great apes and, in the oceans, the dolphins and whales". While I agree with Mr. Clarke that we are not the only intelligent species on the planet; and, haven't been for a very long time; I don't believe that animals should be domesticated against their wills.

Clarke thought it a scandal that man had neglected to domesticate any new animals since the Stone Age. But he also foresaw other issues, too: "Of course [they] would soon start forming trades unions and we'd be right back where we started."

Will Whales and Dolphins be Granted Personhood Status?

A little girl waves to a passing Beluga whale at the Vancouver, BC aquarium. Photo courtesy: rafe arnott / metro file

The answer, in a word, is absolutely!

Many year ago, my daughters and I were paying one of our frequent visits to the Vancouver Aquarium. At the whale exhibit, my youngest happened to stand in the spot the trainers stand in to signal the Beluga whale to spit (so to speak). He spat at her and spat again about five minutes later and so on. She was delighted - the whale recognized her. While my eldest and I toured the rest of the Cetacean exhibit, she stood there visiting with the whale who remembered and recognized her from previous visits.

She truly believed he recognized her; and, I like to think she was right. The point being she was so convinced of the intelligence in marine animals it never occurred to her that he might learn to recognize some of the frequent visitors to his enclosure.

I am hoping that these magnificent mammals are given personhood status. Just because their lifestyle is different to mine does not mean their lives are of any less value than mine.

Whales and dolphins are intelligent and cultural creatures and should be granted basic personhood rights, scientists argue.

Lori Marino, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, and Thomas White of Loyola Marymount University in California plan to present the Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Vancouver.

The declaration aims to open a discussion about the ethical and policy implications of giving cetaceans basic personhood rights. Giving personhood rights is already being considered for the great apes.

According to the scientists, research has proven that whales have cultural and cognitive abilities similar to humans. The emotional and social areas of the cetacean brain are “enormously complex,” notes one researcher, “and in many species are “even more highly elaborated than in the human brain.”

Whales are self-aware — they can recognize themselves in mirrors — they understand symbolic language and they think about others in a way comparable to humans.

“They’re very similar to us: (they) have a sense of individual identity, personality, the ability to control behaviour and abstract thinking,” White said. “They’re even more social beings than humans are.”

They also have complex cultural lives involving learning, the transmission of cultural traits from one generation to the next and the use of tools.

Some scientists believe that whales, in particular, have mastered their own language. The use of sound among whales and dolphins is particularly advanced, and researchers say there may be “something like grammar, syntax, even language” in the complex songs and codas passed between generations and individuals.

The sonar use of sound has interesting social implications as well. “There’s nowhere to hide,” notes a researcher. “They can use sound to form an image of each other’s insides—whether you’re pregnant, hungry, sick.”

“We’ve shown that all these qualities that make humans persons are shared with other animals,” said Marino. “(They) shouldn’t be treated like property or objects — shouldn’t be confined, captured, slaughtered or exploited and all the things we still do to dolphins and whales,” she said.

Hal Whitehead, a Dalhousie University biologist says this: "Based on what we know, I’d guess that cetacean culture is intermediate between humans and chimpanzees. Not in material culture, but in most other respects."

Annelise Sorg, president of the Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, said the symposium will “open up a door that hasn’t been opened to any other species before.”