EXPLORE SCIENCESNAPS
Listening to Orca, the killer whale
Listen to the podcasts
Killer whales live in family groups called pods and communicate with each other with calls. Scientists can recognise patterns in the calls that help to identify individuals and families. This is like recognising different languages and dialects in people. In the same way as we can tell where a person is probably from by their accent or language, scientists can use the different killer whale dialects to identify whales by the calls they make.
Our research at Aberdeen University means that we are able to track movements of family groups without needing to see the whales – it can be done using their “speech”. This is an important part of increasing our understanding of how killer whales live and their behaviour as social animals.
My podcasts will take you into the world of killer whales and their language. How does science sound now?
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PROFILE
Andy Foote
PhD Student at the University of Aberdeen
I first worked with acoustic monitoring of killer whales as a volunteer at Orcalab in British Columbia. I took a break from my job in the local council housing department for a few months and my voluntary work inspired me to take things further.
When I got back to the UK I got a readers pass for the British Library and started studying in my spare time. Eventually I was accepted at Durham University to do a parttime MSc studying the acoustics of the endangered Southern Resident population of killer whales in the waters of Washington State, USA.
I am now based at Aberdeen university and working on the population structure using photo-id and genetics, but collaborating and assisting colleagues from the Sea Mammal Research Unit, St Andrews and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute with their acoustics studies.