Do whales have culture?

Commentary by Sara Tavares

What is culture? Is culture something that makes us, humans, special?

This was the theme of the last Café Scientifique meeting I attended, a monthly evening public meeting in a café/bar where scientists are invited to talk about their work or another interesting topic. In the last one I attended in St Andrews, Luke Rendell talked about his latest book, co-authored with Hal Whitehead, "The cultural lives of whales and dolphins", on the theme of culture in cetaceans.

So, what is culture? 

How to define culture has been one of the biggest academic discussions. Culture is not genetic, is not in the DNA. Broadly, culture is the accumulation of knowledge that is passed across generations over time.

Different sperm whale populations have different codas (stereotyped pattern of clicks) and in the Pacific different social groups make different codas and some groups share the same dialect and temporarily spend time together. This is part of the cultural identity of these whales and is not genetically transmitted, since genetic studies showed a mix of genes between groups that mismatch the dialect pattern.

This is just one example for one species that shows the existence of culture in cetaceans. Culture is probably vital for highly social animals such as cetaceans. One of the stories presented in the Café Scientifique meeting as an interesting example of the importance of cultural identity in whales was the story of Keiko, the Icelandic killer whale. Keiko was captured when he was around 2 years old and kept for many years on his own in a small tank. 

 

The killer whale Keiko, star of the film Free Willy (source: Wikipedia)

When adult, Keiko was gradually freed in Vestmannaeyjar (where we conduct our fieldwork in the summer), first kept in a sea pen for habituation. In one occasion, when Keiko was accompanied by a boat with people involved in his re-introduction , he was approached by one killer whale that tried to interact with him going "belly to belly", a common social behaviour among whales . However, Keiko quickly swam away from the whale and "hid" behind the boat, possibly scared by that unfamiliar behaviour.  After full release, Keiko eventually swam to Norway where he was adopted by a fishing village and fed by humans, until he eventually died, probably from pneumonia.

Keiko couldn't be re-introduced in the Icelandic killer whale society because, after being apart from these whales since a very young age, he didn't know the culture.

Although this is just one single story of only one whale it can still suggest to us how important culture might be for cetaceans. So maybe the question shouldn't be how to define culture but how many forms of culture there are. Because human culture and whale culture are not the same, but they both exist and they are both unique.

Café Scientifique is currently active in more than 40 towns across the UK and in some cities in other countries. Check out on their website where and when is the next meeting in your town and join the discussions!