In the article referenced below, the New York Times writer investigates one of the animals on the endangered species list according to NOAA fisheries: the sperm whale. The population of the sperm whale has declined 70 percent in the last 150 years. Although the article’s intention is not to highlight this fact, I think it is worth noting due to our recent time spent studying the red list and other life forms that are in peril because of depopulation. In this case with the sperm whales, the cause is due to the amount that have been killed by humans for food and oil. In this article, however, the objective is to investigate the intellect and social capabilities of sperm whales. The process that is under investigation by the free diving scientists is the practice of coda clicks by which the whales communicate. Objectively, at first exposure, the sounds seem primitive and unintelligent in nature, but upon further investigation by the team, there have been much more intricate and elaborate parts found within each basic sounding click. The interesting part of each click is found “when the clicks are viewed on a spectrogram, a visual representation of an audio signal, each reveals a remarkably complex pattern. Inside these clicks are a series of shorter clicks, each lasting a few thousandths of a second”. The most fascinating part, in my opinion, is the potential that these clicks have in terms of communication. While socializing, the sperm whales very possibly could be communicating in a much more complex and intellectual way that previously thought. Even more interesting is the possibility that arises if we are able to decode these clicks and use them to converse with the whales.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/16/opinion/sunday/conversation-with-whales.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/whales/sperm-whale.html