Listening With Whales Globally
This growing interactive globe highlights the countless humans and whales encounters, and the ways they changed how we relate to them. Scroll below or click here to explore in full screen. Or click here to fill out a form and add to it.
Also check out Blue Corridors, a global collaboration working on protecting whale migration that offers an interactive experience that collects 30 years of data to show the many different threats humans cause to whales and how whales move across the ocean. And Happy Whale to learn about individual whale people; Pattern Radio for thousand hours of humpback whale recordings; Listening to Whales to learn about cachalots individuals. Check also out Ocean Sounds, Sound in the Sea.
In the 1970s, the theorization of humpback whale vocalization as song and the widespread reception of their singing through the album Songs of the Humpback Whale slowly eroded the idea of whales as silent unintelligent beings. People listening to these recordings and imaging themselves through the experience of a whales in the ocean predated by industrialized commercial whalers let themselves be moved by the their vocalizations, grieve with them, and then take actions to change. Arguably, listening to whales sings and attempting to listen with them, contributed to a massive re-orientation of people’s moral compass. Many started to care about whales and the ocean, and collective action through Save the Whales and other movements. So many believing that a better future was possible. Learn more about how that happens historically, musically, scientifically, and ancestrally; and read some whalish poetry.
Wanna add to the cultural history of human-whale connection? Contribute to the globe!
Did you catch a mistake? Report it for a krill!
Listening with Whales is a living, growing digital commons. Sing it out!