Podcast: What Has the Whale to Say? / with David Gruber, Project CETI

David Gruber on decoding sperm whale communication and reimagining our relationship with nature.

| "The whale has no voice," Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick. "But then again," he went on, "What has the whale to say?"

Turns out he was wrong: not only do sperm whales have voices, but these massive, amazing mammals talk constantly to each other. They are humongous creatures: males can be 18 meters long and weigh 45 tons. Think something the weight of an industrial dump truck, but twice as long. Despite their massive size and the capacity to dive more than a mile into the depths of the ocean, they apparently are quite sociable.

How amazing would it be if we could decipher what they are saying? That's the passion of David Gruber, a marine biologist and technologist who organized and leads Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative). He has gathered a team of 50 global scientists and technicians dedicated to understanding what the sperm whales are saying to each other---not so we can talk to them, but so that we can understand how they think about the world we share.

David is also one of the recipients of the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize (https://tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.o...) , who was honored for his work with CETI and his underlying drive to help humans and nature co-exist.

Listen as he discusses what drives him and CETI here: https://tallbergfoundation.org/podcas...

Learn more about Project CETI here: https://www.projectceti.org/