Decoding Whale Communication with AI: What Whales are Saying & What They Can Teach Us
Shane Gero, scientist-in-residence in Department of Biology, ÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ University has been researching family of whales for almost 20 years. His fascination with the mammals was ignited in the 1980s – like that of many children during that era – by watching Free Willy and CBC’s Danger Bay.
This interest turned to passion, and eventually a career, when he began working with the legendary scientist, Hal Whitehead, at Dalhousie University during his PhD. Together, Whitehead and Gero journeyed to the Eastern Caribbean where they encountered families of sperm whales thriving off the leeward coast of Dominica. This finding launched Gero’s (DSWP).
Since then, Gero and his team have put in thousands of hours observing the sperm whale population, detailing their behaviors and history. In 2019, Gero was approached with the idea for a large collaborative initiative – one that would attempt to understand whale communication whilst also focusing on conservation. was launched a year later, where Gero is now the lead biologist. In 2021, Gero’s work with sperm whales , Secrets of Whales.
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