-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Selling more than 125,000 copies, the 1970 album “Songs of the Humpback Whale” is the bestselling nature recording of all time. Including tracks such as “ Distant Whale ” and “ Three Whale Trip ,” the 35-minute series of recordings produced by bioacoustician Roger Payne was a historical landmark during the beginning of the Save The Whales campaign . In an article published five days before Payne’s death last year, the lifelong activist asked readers to imagine what it might be like to talk to whales , writing, “If we could communicate with animals, ask them questions and receive answers — no matter how simple those questions and answers might turn out to be — the world might soon be moved enough to at least start the process of halting our runaway destruction of life.
” Now organizations like the Cetacean Translation Initiative, better known as Project CETI , are working to crack the whale code. The nonprofit organization is applying machine learning to understand communication between sperm whales, and received an initial $33 million in funding from the Audacious Project , an organization housed by TED conferences and funded by billionaires like Richard Branson and Ray Dalio. Scientists working for CETI include marine biologists, cryptographers, linguists, artificial intelligence experts and others.
By observing sperm whales and matching the sounds they make with their behavior, researchers hope to discover common .