For the first time, scientists have captured the sounds made by White Gladis \u2014 the name is a nod to the animals\u2019 old scientific classification, Orca gladiator \u2014 and her companions.<\/p>\n
The results reveal that boat-tampering is not the only thing that sets them apart. The recordings show that they communicate using a dialect unlike any previously recorded: a newly identified orca language, learnt rather than innate, and unique to this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been studying these orcas for 30 years,\u201d said Renaud de Stephanis, a marine biologist who leads the research organisation Circe.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil now they were thought to be very silent. But now we\u2019ve learnt that their calls are totally, totally different to any others. From a cultural conservation point of view, that\u2019s just amazing. It\u2019s like suddenly finding a new [human] language in the middle of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The orcas\u2019 silence, it seems, was tactical. These whales specialise in hunting bluefin tuna, an alert and skittish prey. Making a lot of noise would send supper fleeing. Only with new, cutting edge acoustic equipment have Stephanis and his colleagues been able to eavesdrop on their calls.<\/p>\n
Orcas, in general, are a vocal species. To the untrained ear, their clicks, whistles and pulsed calls sound broadly similar wherever they are heard.<\/p>\n
In fact, said De Stephanis, orca pods around the world \u201cspeak\u201d in recognisably different ways, much as humans do. But the newly recorded calls, he explained, do not merely represent a different orca \u201caccent\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Structurally, they are markedly different from those of orcas in the North Atlantic or Pacific. What the research seems to reveal is less a regional twang than a separate branch of the linguistic family tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like the difference between Arabic and Latin,\u201d De Stephanis said.<\/p>\n
In just a few hours of recordings, a research team led by Dr Javier Almunia of the University of La Laguna identified four distinct call types, none of which match those heard elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Young whales learn calls from their mothers and pod-mates. The sounds help co-ordinate hunting, travel and social life, binding individuals into cohesive groups.<\/p>\n
The discovery of a new dialect gives an added twist to conservation work. If a pod dies out, it is not only its genetics that vanish. Its vocabulary goes too, along with a broader body of traditions, including knowledge about where to feed, how to hunt and how to survive in a particular sea. To lose a population of orcas is to lose a unique way of life.<\/p>\n
The research was funded by the Loro Parque Fundaci\u00f3n. The findings, accepted for publication in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, showed the newly identified calls belong to a group of about 40 individuals whose home range stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar and up the Atlantic coast of Iberia. Occasionally, they will venture as far north as the English Channel, De Stephanis said. <\/p>\n
About 15 of them have been implicated in the \u201corca uprising\u201d, a term coined after nearly 700 reported interactions between the whales and boats, several of which ended with the sinking of sailing vessels.<\/p>\n
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The orcas might simply view the boat parts as toys, experts say<\/p>\n
There is no evidence that Gladis and her pod are attacking humans or that they intend to harm people at all. In fact, wild orcas have never been seen treating people as prey.<\/p>\n