Maladaption: Self-Stranding

Maladaptive behaviour is a concept that has come about because of cultural evolution; this is the choice to adapt poorly to situations and to even deny adaptation. Maladaptive behaviour is most commonly the effect of cultural evolution, but it can also be related back to genetic evolution and individual learning. As humans, we have many maladaptive behaviours that are embedded into our culture; smoking for example. The most common maladaptive behaviour in whales is self-stranding or beaching. Self-stranding, or beaching, is the idea of purposely going onto the shore and stranding themselves until the die. This action is done intentionally and it is harmful and most likely fatal. In some cases, people have tried to save the whales by bringing them back to the water and pointing them towards the ocean, but the whales just turn around and beach themselves. Scientists do not know why whales persist in the act, however, one of the theories is the idea of conformist cultures. Like humans, whales are vulnerable to the ideas and actions of one another. And if this maladaptive culture is one that they have experienced through a large part of their lives, they will adopt it. Whales in these conformist groups share a strong identity and social unity. Whales, such as orcas, pilot, and sperm, with strong social structures are prone to conformist cultures. This strong connection is why pods of whales are found stranded on beaches. However, it isn't really thought that this action is done for mainly suicide. Yes, they are killing themselves but it is because on of them may be hurt already or have made a mistake. Whatever the reason, these whales feel a need to pursue this maladaptive behaviour.

For orca whales the act of self-stranding is commonly linked to the behaviours they are taught as a calf; the idea is to purposely beach themselves so they can catch food on shore. To them, this is normal and a part of their culture; play. However, depending on how the calf was thought this hunting technique, young orcas end up permanently beaching themselves, instead of returning back to the water. This could influence the amount of whales participating in maladaptive behaviours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y

Ever wonder how they got rid of whales when they have died on the sandy beaches? The video above is a copy of an original broadcast in 1970. This is when people believed that the best option to dispose of the whale is by blowing it up. This video also displays why one shouldn't blow up a whale. Now a days, when a whale is beached they aren't disposed of. They are left on the beaches to decompose naturally and with the aid of scavenger animals. However, if the whale is causing a disturbance, the whale will be disposed of by federal ecological departments with anti-climactical methods.

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/hw/Cult_cons.pdf

The Social Structure of Whales

Whales are rarely spotted swimming alone because they are very social animals. They swim in a grouping of whales called a pod. This pod usually contains their family, but there is always exceptions. Particularly, the sperm whale and killer whale have unique and strong social structures.

Female sperm whales travel in social units for almost their whole lives. This unit contains around eleven female and baby whales, which are not all related. In this social unit, all the females treat one another as a family; they gather food for one another and even take care of each others babies. Often times while traveling, two units come together and form a group. This group stays together for more than ten days and can contain anywhere from twenty to fifty females and their young. But what is more amazing, is that all twenty female sperm whales in this group are females. Males only stay in these units for four to five years, then they go out on their own, leaving the females with their inspiring cooperative ways.

Alan Berner

However, in contrast to the close units of the female sperm whales, there is the multicultural orca. Orcas do live in pods, yet these pods consist of several females and at least one male. Also, the young stay with their mother when they grow up and families travel with each other for years. But, killer whales do eventually break off from these pods and travel on their own or with other killer whales in transit. This social behaviour can happen because of their dialect. Some pods can share up to ten calls. When these calls are shared the the whales are considered to be in a vocal clan with each other, for they share this cultural aspect together. However, the orca whale forms many other societies, as well, with orcas from another community and even different types of whales. With each of the other types of whales, the orca will take part in a different shared form of culture. In regards to the orca community, the cultural variation is a greeting. When whales from the same community meet, they line up facing the other pod and wait before approaching and socializing. When pods from separate communities meet, they "beach rub". This is simply rubbing up against rocks, which is site specific to one of the communities. Finally, when an orca whale is in transit, it comes across different types of whales. The orca will observe these whales and notice that the food they are hunting is the type in which they like themselves, or would like to try. Therefore, adapting and imitating their culture and engaging in the same hunting/foraging techniques as the whale. Which, in the end, leaves the orca with the broadest sense of whale culture.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j20266w36k7r2v14/fulltext.pdf?page=1

http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/KillerWhale.htm

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

Behavioural Variations - The Song of the Humpback Whale

Jon Cornforth

Behavioural Variations are evidences of culture that don't have any sort of relationship to genetics. A Whales song is a form of social learning, for it is taught. This song develops and changes when whales are thousands of miles apart, where there is no one near to teach.

When whales socialize, they don't speak in a language like ours. Their language is more of a song with notes and sounds. These songs are similar to human songs; they deal with the same themes, yet they contain so much more information that humans can't interpret. A humpback whale's song contains about 200 times more information than a human's song. Groupings of these sounds have three uses: they can help whales communicate with others, they can help whales figure out where each other are (echolocation), and they are used for mating. Every species of whale has their own specific vocalizations. For the male humpback whale, this song is long and elaborate. Some of their songs can go on for hours, especially if they are the whales mating song. This song is sung in the breeding grounds by the male. All male humpbacks sing essentially the same song, but it changes and develops as time passes, and becomes distinctive to which ocean they are swimming in. For example, all humpback whales who swim in the Pacific Ocean will sing one type of song and humpback whales from the Indian Ocean will sing another.

However, in 1997, this separation changed. This change is known as the "Australian Revolution". On the east side of Australia there was a grouping of humpback whales who sang the South Pacific Ocean song. It was in 1997 when researchers started to notice a new song that was being sung. When it came time for the whales to travel south in '97, almost all of the humpbacks were singing this new song. The next year all of the Humpbacks were singing the song. Researchers discovered that the new song that was being sung was the Indian Ocean song sung by the humpback whales on the west side of Australia. It seemed that in 1996, a humpback whale from the West side of Australia went to the East, when traveling North. This new song perked the attention of all the other males and females. Just like a fad would take over and spread like wildfire, this song did the same to the whales. More and more male humpbacks started to sing the song until eventually, all the males were singing it. Thus proving the vulnerability of a whales culture and how the are influenced by each other.

http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/species/cetaceans/sound.html

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/hw/Cult_cons.pdf

Transmission Mechanisms Between Orca Whales

Transmission mechanisms are social learnings. For whales, social learning means skills learned through teaching, imitation, emulation and experience. Just as a human parent would teach their child what to do or not to do, parental whales do the same. These teaching and knowledge are evidences to a whale's culture.

An oddity taught by a parent Orca whale to their young is the feeding technique called self-stranding hunting.

This technique is exactly how it sounds. It is when an orca will purposely go up onto the shore to catch a bite to eat. The young killer whale will watch it's mother diligently in the act, but is not allowed to actually catch the prey until it is approximately six years of age. Even then, the young whale is not left alone and is helped with the capture. Self-stranding hunting may literally strand the whales on the shoreline and therefore, could be called maladaptive behaviour, which will be discussed further in a future entry.

However, self-stranding hunting is a skill that strictly pertains to orca whales. It is a non-human teaching. Orcas also take part in many human teachings such as playing games, resting, and itching themselves and playing on rocks. It is thought that whales never sleep, so in order to regain their strength, they need to rest. But resting is a skill. When they are young, they stick as close to their mother and rest when she does. This is where they learn to stick to the surface and stick to the centre of the pod, when sleeping. When the young are all rested up, play is strongly encouraged. Games such as "Chase me Charlie" or lets roll over moms tail. These are energetic games that allow the young orca to swim rapidly, dive, surface, and splash around. All good techniques to improve their swimming skills.

Jim Maya

http://www.wdcs.org/submissions_bin/orcareport.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

An Introduction to Whale Culture

Nancy Black

Culture is one of those words with a hundred different definitions. Most of these definitions are only relevant to human and their way of life. This is because most people do not know that culture exists in non-human species such as apes, songbirds, elephants, and whales. In fact, out of these animals, whales have the strongest sense of culture. But what is culture?

The definition that most biologists use in reference to non- human culture is " information or behaviour - shared by a population or subpopulation - which is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning" (Rendell and Whitehead, 2001a). Simply, it is information gained through interactions from members of the same group - how and why they do what they do.

Now culture can be divided and thought of in two different parts: horizontally, and vertically. Horizontally, also known as shared and behavioural variations, is behavioural patterns gained form peers - eg. fads. Vertically, also known as social learning and transition mechanisms, is what is learned form our parent and elders, it is related to genetics. It is learning through teaching, emulation, imitation, and experience - eg. language. However, studying whale culture is difficult, because they are hard to observe in such a vast habitat. Furthermore, if they were to be studied in tanks, this would have a great influence on the behaviours and cultures of the whales. Basically, it would interfere with the culture they would exhibit in their natural habitat. Consequently, only three species of whales have been documented. These species are: humpback whale, orca, and sperm whale.

It is odd to think that these factors pertain to whales, but they do. Behavioural patterns, such as Orca feeding techniques, the humpback whales mating song, and their feeding styles are effects of culture. But, all whales of each respective species have specific and odd cultural traits. Some that have been around for a while and others that are changing with time - eg. family structure and maladaptive behaviour.

Thus, these are the interesting evidences of whale culture that I am going to further explore and document.

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf

http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/hw/Cult_cons.pdf