Are beluga whales the next gorillas?

            Confused by the title? Well, you should be because it makes little sense - except for the fact that researchers are now wondering if beluga whales can be taught to communicate with humans the same way that some gorillas have been.

            The Raffi song "Baby Beluga" was one of my favorite songs when I was a little kid, and belugas have always been one of my favorite animals because they look so happy all of the time, and chirp - thus they are known as the "canaries of the sea." So, this week when I was perusing science articles I found one from the Telegraph in the United Kingdom that was about a beluga and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. 

            They were reporting about a male beluga, named NOC, who has actually passed away since the recordings were done (his attempts at communication were first discovered in 1984), but the research was just published in the October issue of the journal Current Biology. In the recording the whale appears to be saying "Get out of the Water" to human divers. 

             I don't think that the words are truly that decipherable, but it does sound vaguely human. The pitch that NOC was using was many octaves lower than the usual chirps, whistles or clicks of beluga whales, and the cadence he was using was more similar to that of a human. They believe he was able to vary the pressure in his naval cavity and stretch lip-like structures within his blowhole to make these noises.

            I find this fascinating! An aquatic animal trying to make contact with humans. I would like to see more research done in this field of study. To think perhaps we could find some way to modify our larynx to make noises similar to a beluga whale, as NOC was able to manipulate his nasal tract to imitate us.            

Telegraph article - here.

Scientific American article - here.