Whales and Empathy
Whales and dolphins have captured our imagination since biblical times. The epic battle between Moby Dick and the maniacal Ahab lives on forever as a powerful story of a whale’s ability to occupy our minds and influence our behavior. Even more powerful, are stories of whale empathy. The orca mother who transported her dead baby on her beak for thousands of miles before allowing it to rest in peace provides one such example. Instances of whales and dolphins heroically saving a lone human’s life are others. Just five years ago, a humpback whale rescued Nan Hauser, a female marine biologist, from a fifteen-foot tiger shark. The whale first used its snout to push Nan out of the water and then tried to protect her from the shark with its flipper. She escaped from the tiger shark, (and the whale’s efforts) unharmed. Once safe in her vessel, the whale breached. With its head above the water, the whale looked directly at Nan. Seemingly reassured, he departed. Why do we love these stories? Stories of human connections to whales feed our thirst for dramatic encounters with the undiscovered mysteries of the natural world. We all long for empathy and connection, especially perhaps, with the strange and unknown. Furthermore, cross-species expressions of empathy help us know ourselves.
Empathy is inexorably linked with a sense of self. One cannot exist without the other. The maternal hormone oxytocin helps mediate both the maternal-infant bond and the capacity for empathy. By extension, it also helps generate a sense of self. All mammals have oxytocin, including whales and dolphins. Cetaceans also have a special set of neurons, Von Economo neurons, unique to humans and higher functioning mammals such as the great apes and elephants, but not found in dogs and cats. These neurons, still a mystery, have been linked to empathy, self-insight, and intelligence. Von Economo neurons might underly the abilities of “super-agers,” lucky humans who live into their nineties without signs of cognitive decline, to defy the laws of aging. Whales and other cetaceans have three times as many von Economo neurons as humans. Aging Cetaceans may hold some secrets to aging from which we humans could benefit. The combination of von Economo neurons and oxytocin suggests whales and dolphins likely have both the capacity for empathy and some degree of self-definition. Without the empowerment that comes from a sense of self, the cognitive capacity to intervene to save another individual’s life would not be possible.
The recent spate of whale deaths off the coast of NY and NJ (now over 20 since December of 2022), has triggered our own sense of empathy, and a chance to reflect on ourselves and our society. The events have exposed fault lines between two types of environmentalists: those who, fueled by a sense of urgency, prioritize the climate crisis above all else; and those who prioritize protecting the environment first. Both share the desire to address the climate crisis, but one group retreats from assuming the ends justify the means, despite the urgency.
For many, the urgency to take action in our quest to combat climate change justifies the casualties of whale deaths, especially if the correlations are not obvious and if experts point to other potential causes that could explain these deaths. Why not believe NOAA and the media, when they state that vessel strikes and line entanglements cause the majority of whale deaths? It would seem to make sense. However, NOAA has not revealed to the public some rather critical information. They have not readily admitted to the “Incidental Take Authorizations” they have granted to offshore wind companies. These licenses include the legal permission to harm whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals. They include both Level A “takes,” permission to permanently injure a whale or other marine mammal, such as permanent hearing loss and tissue damage, and Level B “takes,” permission to cause a behavioral disturbance and, or temporary injury or hearing loss. Behavioral disturbances can include separating calves from mothers, driving whales out of normal habitats, interrupting communication, and inducing stress behaviors.
A few of these authorizations should not cause alarm, but a careful examination of the permissions exposes staggering numbers. Since 2016, when the first of the unusual mortality events began for the humpback, North Atlantic right, and minke whales, NOAA has either already given, or is in the final stages of providing offshore wind companies permission to “take” (Level A and B combined) over 700,000 protected marine mammals, including over 25,000 whales; over 500,000 dolphins; over 38,000 porpoises; and over 130,000 seals. The onset of unusual mortality events soon after the initiation of these permissions would not surprise anyone familiar with these numbers. As we speak, offshore wind companies possess active permissions to simultaneously harm over 100,000 protected marine mammals, including over 2000 whales. Most of the permissions, or take authorizations were given to the wind companies specifically to conduct the site characterization surveys–the very surveys some environmentalists associate with whale deaths.
Possible indirect connections between the surveys and whale deaths exist. Baleen whales, when frightened will swim close to the surface, making them more vulnerable to vessel strikes. In the most simplistic instance, a high-resolution geophysical survey could drive whales out of their normal habitats into areas with more vessel traffic, indirectly adding to mortality.
Seismic surveys in the mid-frequency range (the range currently employed) could also cause whale deaths through “rectified diffusion,” a physical process where the sound waves themselves cause gas bubbles to enlarge at the tissue-bloodstream interface. This can cause tissue damage by inducing the animal equivalent of the bends. Medicine utilizes the same phenomenon in sonophoresis, a technique to deliver medicines into the bloodstream.
Why would the offshore wind companies ask for “takes” if their surveys were harmless, and why would NOAA grant permission for these large number of takes, if they were confident no association between whale injuries and the surveys exists as they currently espouse?
The worst is yet to come. NOAA is granting a greater number of takes for the construction and installation of wind farms, and these have only just begun. Furthermore, NOAA has not conducted a programmatic review and does not seem to realize the absurdly large number of authorizations they have given within a single species. For instance, they will have granted permission to harass (Level B, temporary hearing loss and behavioral disturbance) almost three times the number of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales alive today.
We need to ask ourselves some difficult questions. What if industrializing the ocean with offshore wind developments in our race to solve our self-induced climate crisis creates a biodiversity crisis instead? We judge societies, and even other species, by how they treat their weakest, not their strongest, members. The story of two whales escorting a fellow female whale, who suffered from a broken spine, over a thousand miles back to their breeding grounds for her final resting place says more about whales and their culture than almost any other fact. We cannot accurately predict how the loss of these whale species will affect the marine environment, our world, and even ourselves. We know that restoring whale populations will aid our efforts to combat the climate crisis. These giants are nature’s own answer to climate change, as whales sequester millions of tons of carbon dioxide. Their fate, in either direction, might anticipate our own.
We all need to question our assumptions, keep open minds, and attempt to use our innate empathy and sense of self to intervene on behalf of the whales, even if it means giving up our dreams of “free,” renewable offshore wind energy. We have other options. We could work with nature, not against it.