About
“Ocean Giants” is the fourth and last episode of the “Secrets of the Whales” documentary by National Geographic. This articles captures a sneak peak of the 4th episode which talks about Sperm whales . This can be watched freely if you have a Disney+ subscription. The executive producer of this series is James Cameron who has been shooting Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 in New Zealand. It would be interesting to see what parts of this documentary is coming in “Avatar 2 – The way of water”.
Introduction
The episode starts with a family of Sperm whales taking an afternoon nap. In this clan, baby whales are the future. The success of a clan depends on baby whales’ abilities to learn their way, their culture and their secrets. Moby-Dick was a Sperm whale but in that novel it was portrayed as a monster. An adult whale would weigh more than 50 tons but they are gentle in nature and focus on deep family connection. Female Sperm whales learn from each other and pass on their knowledge from one generation to another. Groups of families living together is called a clan and they share a common language. The sounds (clicks) they use to communicate between them resemble Morse Code.
The head of a Sperm whale is huge and usually is 1/3 of their body length and they have the largest brain that have ever existed on our planet. It is six time bigger than human brain. Sperm whale’s skulls hold the worlds largest bio-sonar. They make intense click sounds that is 230 decibels loud and wait for it to relay back to them and they locate it’s prey.
Female clan and importance of calf
Then the episode moves to Dominica near Caribbean island which is the home for more than 20 Sperm whale families and these families live here permanently. For the families who live here, it has been a struggle to raise their calf, as many have died, because of boat strikes and marine debris. In the last fifteen years only one female calf has survived to maturity but even she struggled a lot with a fishing equipment entangling her tail fin. Sperm whale society is based around female and their survival is important for their existence. The episode starts with 6 months old and 12 ft long female baby calf and its journey with this clan. This team named the baby “Hope”. If Hope can survive more another year, the chances of her survival dramatically increases.
The head of a Sperm whale is huge and usually is 1/3 of their body length. Because of the large sized head, the way calf drink milk from mother has been a mystery but this documentary captures the scene. The calf uses it lower jaw to push into the nipple cavity and the milk is injected into her mouth which is thick like yogurt.
Sleeping and eating pattern
Sperm whales are known to sleep less when compared to any other mammals in the world. Sperm whales wake up call appears to be group decision especially the older females in the group seems to nudge to move on. It takes a bit but once everyone agrees they start their work to hunt for food.
An adult sperm whale needs to eat hundreds of squids every day. Whales breathe air as human do so they need to come to the surface of the water for fresh air. The challenge here is squids are generally found in the depth of the ocean and Sperm whale needs to hold on to its breath for a long time in order to hunt for food. Before going for the hunt each Sperm whale comes to the surface of the water and suck in the air. It’s blood can hold 8 times more oxygen than human blood. Then they take a deep dive which is very noticeable when you observe their tail flukes which comes our of the water all the way out. They go down more than 3000 feet (2 times the size of Empire State building). Calf doesn’t go that deep until they are at least 3 years old. Even though the calf is alone, she can hear the hunting click that her mom makes. Since it is a big family, the calf can ask help from anyone of them.
As mentioned earlier Sperm whales learn from each other and this has been passed on by mother whales from one generation to another. There knowledge and language is shared by the entire clan (20 families) living in Dominica near Caribbean island.
Language
Sperm whales make series of clicking sounds which is their language. Each pattern is called a coda. The sound resembles Morse Code. Since Sperm whales hunt deep where it is dark its communication is very important. They use certain coda (click sound pattern) to navigate and find food and use other coda to talk with one another. They have 24 codas like English language has 26 letters, so they communicate a lot of things between them. Sperm whales usually don’t stay in surface for that long time. Brian Skerry has spent months to capture some good photos of them. Each Sperm clan has different language and exhibit different style of hunting and different behavior just like how humans from different parts of world talk and eat differently.
Male clan
Then the episode moves to “The Azores” where Sperm whales pass by the nine islands. Unlike Dominica, this clan of whales don’t have a fixed place to stay. They are 1/3 times bigger and this clan has only males. Their language is also different which can be verified by the coda (series of clicks) they speak. They are observed to be moving between North America and Europe. Young males calf in general grow up in a female clan but at later point they move the male clan. Female Sperm whales mature around 30 years and male Sperm whales mature around 50 years.
Male Sperm whales are bigger in size and they hunt giant squids that are found at 3000 feet down. Sperm whale’s skulls hold the worlds largest bio-sonar. They make intense click sounds that is 230 decibels loud and wait for it to relay back and they locate it’s prey.
Hunting
While Sperm whales hunt for food they leave scraps that would float in the surface of the water. Brian, Shane and his team were lucky to find a dead but intact giant squid that is rarely seen because of the depth they live in. Sperm whales go down every hour for 45 minutes to hunt these squids. Squids have beaks like birds. The size of the beak is bigger for bigger Squids. Dominica squids relatives seem to be small when compared to the ones found in the Azores.
Another clan in Sri Lanka
The episode then moves on to Sri Lanka where a strange observation was made. More than 100s of Sperm whales have grouped there and the team wanted to solve this mystery. Brian scuba dives and notices some whales are sleeping vertically like a tree and others were in horizontal position. But few Sperm whales noticed Brian and started to poop the area to indicate Brian that he was not welcomed there. Whale poops are good fertilizer to boost plankton growth which helps to feed other fishes and it even helps to combat climate change in a way.
Asha Devos another team member analyzes these poops to understand their dietary habits. This will help to understand the difference between clans. Shane Gero’s analyzes sounds using hydrophone to understand the differences between clans. Shane’s analysis indicates that the Sri Lankan Sperm whales speak different language than that of Dominica.
They also spot a Sperm whales with a broken lower jaw and lot of turtles struck in human debris and fishing nets. This team save few turtles they spotted. But overall it was a disturbing scene and a worry that lowers their survival rate.
Dominica and Hope
The episode again goes back to Dominica near Caribbean island to see if the female calf named Hope is doing okay. It is already 1 year since they visited Dominica and at that time Hope was 6 months old.
After the team reaches there, they see all female Sperm whales grouped together. Usually the mom and baby stay together but this time it seems to be different. Interestingly an outsider is visiting their clan. A male Sperm whale has come to breed. Only a female Sperm whale decides which one will mate with him but they all greet the outsider with a hug, young calf admire and play along. After that all whales swim in formation like how group of birds fly in the “V” shape.
Meanwhile Shane Gero is still concerned and searching for Hope, since too many calves have died because of fishing gear entanglements and marine debris. Brian Skerry dives to check this out and Shane meanwhile spots Hope and clicks some pictures. Hope has survived the first two crucial years and the future of the Dominican clan looks promising.
Shane sums it up, “whether it is whales or humans, if we have to preserve life it is important that we protect the cultural diversity both in our own society and the ecosystem as a whole”.
Diving deep
The episode finally show how James Cameron dives deep using a submarine name “Deepsea Challenger” and he narrates how Sperm whales dive deep to hunt day in and day out. He explains how their dives are peaceful and how they conserve their energy to reach the depth and how they communicate only with sound when it is ultra dark. He is optimistic that may be one day if we can decipher their language (coda) we can communicate to them.
