December 2019 5
With 13 fresh species described in his game-changing
new eld study of whales, dolphins and porpoises, Mark
Carwardine
From hidden
I
t’s an incredibly exciting time
to be a cetologist – that is,
someone who studies whales,
dolphins and porpoises. These
enigmatic marine mammals
are mind-bogglingly difficult to
study – they often live in remote
areas far out to sea and spend most
of their lives out of sight underwater- yet we now have access to space-age
technology that, at last, is revealing
some of their best-kept secrets. We
still have an awful lot to learn but, in
recent years, the new discoveries have
been nothing short of remarkable.
The first real cetologist was
probably the Greek philosopher
and scientist Aristotle. He made
a number of impressively accurate
observations some 2,400 years ago - he differentiated between baleen
and toothed whales, for example,
and noted that dolphins give birth
to live young. Over the centuries,
others added snippets of information
(mixed freely with wild guesses,
assumptions and superstitions) but
there was little concerted effort to
understand much more.
The science of cetology didn’t really
take off until after World War II. Even
then, most of our knowledge was
gleaned from dead animals washed
ashore, or killed by fishermen, and
from some of the millions of whales
slaughtered by commercial whalers.
A few scientists also began to study
captive bottlenose dolphins and other
small cetaceans in concrete tanks.
But it was not until the 1960s that a
few pioneer biologists began to study
their lives under natural conditions,
wild and free. In the days when
modern technology had already taken
us to the moon and beyond, we were
just beginning to understand these
extraordinary forms of intelligent life
on our own planet. Indeed, at the time,
the prospect of studying whales must
have seemed about as difficult and
challenging as exploring outer space.
Gradually, though, more and more
people have become involved in whale
research, and the number of projects
and has increased exponentially.
Best of all, many of the information-
gathering techniques have become
increasingly sophisticated. ModernBy Mark Carwardine