It’s really hard not to anthropmorphize this situation: last February a boatload of people freed a humpback whale trapped in a net, and the whale put on a display that looks for all the world like a joyful “thank you” (this starts at 6:30). Whatever it means, it’s really lovely.
h/t: Matthew Cobb
Happy not to be in Icelandic waters no doubt…
🙁
Yes I know – it was not a Fin or Minke whale but…
Brilliant video! Wonderful people.
Couldn’t help noticing that one of the guys was called Michael Fishbach. 🙂
I agree it is very lovely and it does look like a thank you display. I just can’t quite come at it though.
I really, really try not to anthropomorphize and may be taken to task for being a cold rationalist.
However it seems more likely to me that the whale is getting its circulation and feeling back into its fins and tail and doing what it does naturally in any case. I have no idea how long the animal was out of action and trussed up. A fair while I would guess. Nerve endings not being fed with oxygenated blood go numb.
Better to be totally free of restraints and full of feeling before taking off into the deep again.
Anyone can put me right. I tell anthropomorphic stories about my cats anyway:-)
I don’t know about “thank you”, but I don’t have a problem with “joy”. Or just “pleasure that I don’t have that goddamn net on me anymore”.
Yeah…you’re probably right though.
It could have done all that under water….
Comments below point out that the splashing and breaching might be directed at other whales. Maybe. But whale sounds travel very far underwater, seems it could have communicated its position efficiently without all the show. But I don’t know whales.
I think that sometimes we go overboard when avoiding anthropomorphising some animals. I mean, whales are a social intercommunicative mammalian species. It would be surpising not to find behaviors associated with things like gratitude and joy. An interesting question would be: can an animal’s emotional state encode a behavior that another species could decode with some accuracy
Yes, exactly.
We know that we share the overwhelming majority of our genomes with other vertebrates and that our physiologies are very, very similar — including our neurologies.
The parsimonious conclusion would seem to be to assume similarities and equivalences in cognition when lacking positive evidence to the contrary.
Cheers,
b&
No, I don’t think that’s warranted.
Emotions and other cognitive ‘experiences’ are not a function of physiology or neurology. Neurons work basically the same in humans and flatworms.
Instead, cognition is an emergent property of the complex organization of neurons, and this organization is vastly more complex in humans than in any other animal.
Now, whales also have relative large and complex brains, but it’s important to note that they evolved this state separately and convergently. For some aspect of cognition (say, the emotion of gratitude) to be homologous in humans and whales, it would have had to have been inherited by both from their common ancestor. But we know that the common ancestor of humans and whales is (probably) identical to our common ancestor with sheep, bats, and shrews.
The parsimonious conclusion is that whatever emotions whales experience are of completely separate evolutionary origin to ours, and there is little or no reason to suppose they are similar at all.
Couldn’t emotions also evolve convergently? One certainly sees things that look like analogues of human emotions in some birds, for example.
I am confused, isn’t the organization of neurons physiology?
What I am less confused over is the subject of emergence. Emergence, such as crystals out of cool enough collections of molecules, is not a function of complexity but of simplicity (bonds, van der Waals forces).
It is also a great leveler, since emergent properties are shared over vast classes of systems. Crystals can be made of molecules, but also ions in ion traps and quantum dots on silicon chips. This means convergence is an option that has to be considered for emergent systems.
Cognition is emergent, and more specifically symbolic processing emerges out of simple neural models of a cortex. These results predicts that learning without overtraining, a difficult task for computers, is inherent in systems with a cortex.
[It is interesting, I think, that our brains are hardwired for symbolism seeing that we have adopted that for organizing products of languages.]
As for homology, Wikipedia claims a cortex is found in all vertebrates, and the analog mushroom bodies in invertebrates. [Hey, I remember that discovery!] Ties in with that learning is a problem that must have been solved early on. So despite a trait based on emergence, there is no reason to suspect convergence happened here.
So, to take on my physicist hat, “a first order hypothesis” is that symbolic processing and functional learning are basic and shared cognition traits among vertebrates and invertebrates.
Even if the above would be correct it doesn’t say much on how emotion is wired and processed. But there is no reason to think that an emergent learned symbol associated with “hunger” or “lust” does not share similar characteristics over these animals. Hunger will be associated with food and sufficient absence from it, and so on.
I note from the paper referenced in the link that symbolic processing maps (and 1-to-1) with spatial location of neurons. I.e. each symbol is captured in a set of specific neurons. Which probably means that someone in the future can tease out if these regions _do_ share similar reactions to similar stimuli over species.
Oh, if something basic like learning is tied to a cortex/mushroom body, that could explain why vertebrates and invertebrates has kept the cortex, right? Duh, I have never thought about why these structures are kept!
Now we have a conundrum though; why do politicians keep a cortex? Ah, more mysteries.
Is that true of all emotions?
Among mammals, threat displays and the signalling of anger are intelligible between species.
It would seem to me that gratitude requires some semblance of theory of mind in an animal: it has to be able to project intent, and if it exists in whales it most certainly is a case of convergent evolution.
My cat purrs when I stroke her. I decode this as her being content – she always comes back for more.
My answer: almost certainly.
Being able to understand the emotions of other creatures, and therefore their likely behaviors, has significant survival value. For example it is quite useful for a lion to understand whether that bull elephant over there is angry. There is also high survival value in having other creatures understand one’s own signals — it is useful for a boar’s anger (threat) to be understood by a lion (a boar that is ready and willing to fight may not be worth the risk).
Furthermore, the most basic emotions undoubtedly have very deep roots, so given common descent, we should expect some similarities.
I think in the absence of contrary evidence, we can safely infer “joy”.
Gratitude is much more questionable, but I rather suspect that the whale understands that the humans were “other individual creatures” and “they helped me”.
But I also agree that the noise of the breaching and tail slaps are quite likely the equivalent of shouting “Yippee! I’m free!” and “Hey! Where is everybody?” to other whales in the region.
Hmmm… interesting question: can whales control the sound made by their tale slaps and breaching enough to be recognized as individuals, by pod, and/or to communicate information other than “hey a big whale is here making this loud noise”? I know I can slap my flat hand on a table top and make all kinds distinct sounds.
I agree. Considering that emotions tend to be housed in the most ‘ancient’ parts of the brain, I think it is more mammalomorphizing that anthropomorphizing anyway.
Years ago, I had a cat (Jerry will like this) that used to like for me to make a ‘cup’ out of my hands so he could sit/stand in them and ‘explore’ things like the tops of doors and cabinets and such. I woul dend up with my hands at or above chest level, my cat stretched out a foot or more above me (he was a large cat). When he was done exploring, he wouild look over his shoulder, and literally fall into my arms on his back, then lay there purring.
I do not know of any other way to describe his actions than as trust, and if that is anthropomorphizing, so be it.
Perhaps it was in a pod & it was breaching etc. to say “hi I’m here, where are you all ?”
Maybe it was a way of saying “I’ve just spent a hell of a long time in a frigging net! Now leave me the freck alone, you freckin’ freck humans whose species made the freckin’ net in the first place!!!”?
:-p
i.e., Rage Whale: “Maximum trawling, 10/10. Would rage again.”
so long and thanks for all the krill?
I don’t know about “thank you,” but I could easily go with “whee!”
“Thank you”?
There’s no evidence that the whale was trying to communicate anything to the humans. It was swimming away from them–they say in the video they “followed it for a half hour” or something like that.
If it was trying to communicate anything to anybody, it seems far more likely to have been “talking’ to other whales with the splashy breaching, tail-slaps, etc.
Maybe it was just having fun and not trying to communicate at all.
A “wild” animal might have attacked the boat after being freed. This whale did not.
It may be appropriate here to mention the book by Melanie Joy called “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism.” Or for Jerry, perhaps, why do we love cats and link to videos about whales “saying” thank you but also wear cowboy boots and post pictures of the steaks we’ve eaten.
I’d hate to reply to a book title without reading the book, but I’d actually love to. Pigs and cows output lots of plump meat in exchange for cheap feed inputs. Dogs and cats do not. Whales are mysterious and endangered. Livestock is boring. Domestic animals in general are treated the way they were bred to be treated. The minority of wild animals we’re aware of are regarded in accordance with those characteristics that we relate to. Snakes and crocodilians are an interesting borderline case. They’re evil, so we want to rough them up pretty good. But they’re cool, so we don’t wan’t to kill them all. Same with bears. But most of us can’t wrestle those guys, so we mostly wrestle the reptiles. None of this is surprising, but it’s all very interesting. I’m going to have to hope there are more books on the topic before I even read the first one.
Yea, you were right the first time; you should read the book before replying.
As dangerous as it is to anthropomorphize, it is the height of anthropocentrism to think that we are the only animals that have such emotions. Anybody who has a pet dog recognizes in them some emotions similar to ours. I recall one of my dogs lightly biting someone who approached my greenhouse at the University of Texas. I ran out and saw what had happened, and apologized to the woman who was bit. I was concerned, embarrassed, and angry at the dog. The dog quickly knew it had done wrong, it had that look on its face that all dog lovers recognize, and on its own the dog walked over to the woman and leaned against her, head down, as if to apologize. Amazingly, the woman was not upset by the bite and understood the dog’s behavior as an act of apology, and it sure looked like it. We should be equally on guard against anthropocentrism as anthropomorphism. We are not the only complex, communicative, and emotive social animals.
Perhaps not the same, but be aware:
“Dogs look guilty when when they do something they know they shouldn’t do, right?
Wrong. The perceived look of shame is all in the owner’s imagination, according to research.“
Yes, I can imagine that in this laboratory setting, where owner and experimenter gave the dog conflicting instructions, the dog may not have a strong sense of what the “correct” behavior is, and would be guided by the owner’s subsequent behavior. So I can see how the experimenter would come to this conclusion:
“Thus the dog’s guilty look is a response to the owner’s behavior, and not necessarily indicative of any appreciation of its own misdeeds.”
I suspect the results might have been different if the dog disobeyed more deeply ingrained instructions.
Also, I quickly googled that “guilty look” share the characteristics of the “submissive pose” of social animals.
The dog may not have to understand that it is guilty, but it certainly could understand that it is best to submit to an angry or suspicious owner!
Aren’t you misunderstanding what is going on by comparing a whale to a dog? Through artificial selection dogs have become able to socialize with humans. Through natural selection whales do not adapt to socialize with humans; they adapt behavior to survive in in the sea.
I think it was freaking out because it was recently abducted by aliens and probed all over. But that’s probably more of an anthromorphism than “thank you”.
Made me laugh. Made me think.
That boat following her really is another bloody UFO trying to probe her!
I’m impressed that the whale didn’t shred the boat when only its tail remained tangled. That might suggest a measure of patience.
What? You don’t think an intelligent creature like a whale could feel gratitude? that’s not anthropomorphism. Denying it is stupidity. Of course animals are grateful when we help them. Haven’t you ever rescued a cat or a dog?
I agree. I once rescued a young puppy that was enclosed on a neighbor’s porch with its mother and sibs. The enclosure fencing had twisted when the puppy bit it, with the result that the puppy was caught in the fence and hanging by its mouth. It was screaming in pain. The frantic mother could not figure out what was going on, and was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and barking a lot. This mother dog was not particularly friendly with me under ordinary circumstances. I was a bit nervous about sticking my hands near the screaming baby, but the mother didn’t attack me, and I got the baby unstuck, and then the mother stopped barking and started jumping up and down alongside me inside the enclosure, as if to play, full of nervous energy, and seemingly “grateful”.
I’ll probably be flamed by animal behaviorists. I can’t prove these interpretations. But I also can’t prove that my next door neighbor has any human sentiments.
I agree. My sister and I once found a long haired collie dog caught in a barb wire fence at the rear of our property. The dog hair was very tangled with and wound around the wire, and the dog struggling resulted in one of the front legs also getting wound up in wire. So, while I left my sister to keep the dog calm, I fetched up some scissors and a pair of wire cutters. Cutting the hair removed most of the problem, but I also had to cut a section of the wire so I could unwrap the front leg, and then trim the hair to remove the wire from the leg.
The dog was so happy to be free, but didn’t run home. Instead, she followed us up to the house, and hung around for three days (then again, we did brush and feed her) until her owner turned up, and asked to hand over the dog. I could see the dog was reluctant to leave us, and I suspect the owner was not a kind one, but what could we do?
Expecting humans to be the only animals with emotions is just exceptionalism, in my opinion. Sure there will be different degrees of ability, but that is no reason to dismiss animals as “just animals.” I can’t do quantum mechanic equations, so I guess a physicist could argue that I only look like a human, but any actions I perform are just anthropomorphism.
As for the whale; on a whale watching trip we (the watchers) were asked to wave with big arm movements to the whale, and so the whale would see us and then the whale waved its flipper back at us. Nice 🙂
What a privilege for those people to save that fabulous animal, and you wouldn’t have to pay for a drink for years!
I have no trouble believing that a whale could feel gratitude, the question is whether it would be able to realise that the humans who’d helped it would get pleasure from its display and that this would therefore constitute a reward for them which it was in a position to provide, and thus it did so out of a feeling of obligation and gratitude. I don’t see how a whale could understand that humans like watching breaches, but if whales’ breaching behaviour is meant to convey social information to other whales then a whale may assume it would convey social information to people as well.
Not much doubt about the joy though, it wouldn’t take an hour of intensive splashing to get your circulation back, and I would think that whale songs would be a better way of asking where the rest of the pod is than breaching etc, but I could be wrong don’t know much about whales.
I’m pretty sure tail slaps a breaching make sounds that are louder and carry farther than whale song, and have been shown to be used for communication.
Do you have any links to research regarding tail slaps carrying farther than whale song?
This is from whalesong.net:
A little interpretation of experimental data and thoughts about near shore interference:
http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask99/0413.html
Some general thoughts:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050223140605.htm
Personally, I think if the whale was trying to say thank you it wouldn’t have been swimming away (the wouldn’t have needed to follow it.) The kid on the boat may have had it right, it may have been thrilled to be free and was jumping for joy. Or maybe it was getting it’s circulation going again, or maybe both of those at once. It seems odd for any mammal, except a house guest, to say thank you by leaving.
Hey, I know that guy! Michael Fishbach would offer whale watching trips at reduced rates for the fundraising auctions where I used to work. Still well out of my pricerange (considering that they didn’t include accommodations and I live where he does, in central NC.)
Too cool…
That was Awesome!
Some think whales breach to remove parasites.
Perhaps the whale was left with irritation or abrasions where the net had been binding it, and was behaving as if that was due to parasites – trying to knock them off.
This reminded me of a Radiolab show with a very similar story of a humpback caught in crab traps off of San Francisco Bay seemingly thanking its human liberators.
http://www.radiolab.org/2010/jan/11/
I think one has to balance a legit concern to not anthropomorphize with an openness to what non-human animals could be capable of. Whales are big-brained, social mammals, after all.
Could he be breaching to attached other whales? Is breaching ever used to communicate?
It doesn’t matter why the whale was so active–this video made me weep with joy that people are so kind. With all the crap going on in the world, this kind of thing gives me hope. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.