Cetacean Perception: Humpback Whale Re= search on Maui

Uta Wolfe, Psychology

Taught in cooperation with the University of Hawaii/ The Dolphin Institute (TDI= )

Dates

Most classes will be held at HWS Fall semester 2005. The 2-week off-campus component wi= ll be held on Maui Jan 1-15, 2006

Location

The 2-= week program would take place around the town of Lahaina on the West Coast of Maui. Research by the U of H/ TDI team is conducted primarily in the Auau channel which during the winter is a major calving ground for humpback whales and contains one of the world’s hi= ghest densities of these animals. <= /span>TDI’s more t= han 30 years of research on cetaceans' behavioral, cognitive, perceptual and social processes has produced more than 150 scientific publications and has established it as a world leader in marine mammal science. TDI’s work has been featured nationally and internationally in film (e.g. IMAX presentation "The Discoverers"), television (e.g. PBS "Into the Wild: Dolphins with Robin Williams") and print (e.g. New York Times Science Section, Disco= ver, Time Magazine). For more on t= he institute, see:

http://www.dolphin-institute.org= /

For activities apa= rt from their research and classes the town of Lahaina and its surrounding areas offer= students a variety of beaches, restaurants, shops, galleries etc. For more on Lahaina, see

http://www.theplantat= ioninn.com/lahaina.html

Number of students=

Minimum: 12; Maximum: 18

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Cost

= $2400 plus airfare. This figure includes accommodation= s, food, fees, and all program related travel on the island.=

Accommodations

8-10 students will= stay in a house owned by TDI on Maui, close to Lahaina. The rest will be accommodated in a hotel or condo in or around Lahaina.

Course description

The course examines perceptual and cognitive abilities as well as social behaviors of dolphins = and whales. It offers an in-depth, inter-disciplinary view of cetacean psycholo= gy from an ethological, cognitive and neuroscience perspective. Through lectur= es, readings and discussion of background literature and journal articles, and through involvement in research at one of the world's leading research institutes in the field, students will gain an understanding of cetacean sensory, percept= ual and cognitive processes, modes of communication and social patterns. The course's most unique feature i= s its strong experiential component which consists in involvement in on-going research on humpback whales during the breeding and calving season.

Research Component:= While on Maui, students wil= l be involved in daily research activities through both field work and data processing. Field work will be conducted from shore and from two vessels (an 18-ft = boston whale= r and a 21-foot seaswirl). Shore-based research includes repeated scanning of whales to determine how density, distribution, and pod type change over the course of a day and season. Students will learn how whales are tracked using an electronic theodolite, and how individual whales are identified by fluke matching from photographs. Research from the boats includes photographing individual whales, recording their behavior and vocalizations, measuring whale size, tracking whale locations and courses, measuring dive times, and gathering genetic information using biopsy techniques. Students will learn to take positi= on data using a GPS, take photographic records and notes on behavioral observations, record surface behavior through in-air videography with a dig= ital video camera. (Underwater videography will be conducted by trained research= ers only).

Data processing is conducted in TDI’s house and includes entering data electronically, determining fluke = matches using photographs, and comparing records of population density and pod type taken at different times of the day or season.

Class component: Seminars will be a mixture of lecture and journal-club-style discussion of material students themselves present. = Most seminars will be held during the fall semester at HWS, prior to the 2-week research program on Maui. Anothe= r 10-15 hours of class will be held on Maui, som= e of them led by one of the TDI researchers.&nb= sp;

The following is a preliminary list of topics covered:

A. General cetacean evolu= tion, anatomy, physiology, neuroanatomy; with an emphasis on the functional anatomy of sen= se organs

B. humpback whales:

§ the ecology and natural history of humpbacks

§ navigation and migration of humpback= s

o&nb= sp; magnetic sense in navigation

§ mating and reproductive behavior

§ social behavior during the breeding = and calving season

§ vocalizations (whale song)

C. dolphins

= §dolphins' visual and auditory (including echoic) systems

= §sensory learning and memory

= §interaction between echoic and visual systems

= §dolphin communication systems and language capabilities:

= o = understanding symbolic reference to objects

= o = processing of semantic and syntactic information in gestur= al language. <= /p>

= §social behavior

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Preliminary reading li= st:

Connor, R.C. (1994).<= /span> The Lives of Whales and Dolphins. New York, Henry Holt and Company

Heyning, J.E. (1995). Masters of the Ocean Realm: Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises. Seattle: University of Washi= ngton Press

Frankel, A. S., Mobley, J. R., & Herman, L. = M. (1995). = Estimation of auditory response thresholds in humpback whales using biologically meaningful sounds. In R. A. Kastelein, J. A. Thomas, & P. E. Nachtigall (Eds.), Sensory systems of aquatic animals., 55-70. Woerden, The Netherlands: De Spil Publishers

Walker MM, Kirschvink JL, A= hmed G, Dizon AE (1992). = Evidence that fin whales respond to the geomagnetic field during migration. Journal of Exp Biol.;171:67-78=

Helweg, D. A., Frankel, A. S., Mobley, J. R. Jr.= & Herman, L. M. (1992). Humpback whale song: Our current understanding. In J. R. Thomas, R. A. Kastelein, & A. Ya. Supin (= Eds.),Sensory Processes of Marine Mammals, 45= 9-483. NY: Plenum.

Helweg, D. A., Herman, L. M., Yamamoto, S., and Forestell, P. H. (1990). Comparison of songs of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangl= iae) recorded in Japan, Hawaii, and Mexico during the winter of 1989. Scienti= fic Reports of Cetacean Research, 1, 1-20.

Mobley, J. R. Herman, L. M. & Frankel, A. S. (1986). Sound playback exper= iments with humpback whales in the Hawaiian wintering grounds. Sea Grant Quarte= rly, 8(3), 1-6.

Bauer, G.B., Fuller, M., Perry, A., Dunn, JU.R., & Zoeger, J. (1985). Magnetoreception and biomineralizati= on of magnetite in cetaceans. In J.L. Kirschvink, D.S. Jones, & B.J. McFadden (Eds.) Magnetite Biomineralization and Magnetoreception in Organisms (pp. 489-507). = New York: Plenum.

Herman, L. M. and Tavolga, W. N. (19= 80). The communicati= on systems of cetaceans. In L. M. Herman (Ed.), Cetacean behavior: Mechanisms and functions, 149-209. N= ew York: Wiley Interscience.

Herman, L. M., Matus, D., Herman, E.Y.K., Ivanci= c, M., & Pack, A. A. (2001). The bottlenosed dolphin’s (Tursiops truncatus) understanding of gestures as symbolic representations of body parts. Animal Learning and Behavior, 29, 250-26= 4.

Herman, L.M., Pack, A.A., & Hoffmann-Kuhnt, = M. (1998). = Seeing Through Sound: Dolphins Perceive the Spatial Structure of Objects through Echolocation. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112, 292-305