What singing orcas are trying to tell us | Pierre Robert de Latour | TEDxUniversitedeTours

Expert in orcas' behavior, Pierre Robert de Latour is first of all a freediving enthusiast. He has been diving with cetaceans since 1998, and he has performed a staggering 6,200 divings with orcas.

Cetaceans are familiar but mysterious animals and a form of civilization on its own. They are intelligent and have knowledge we don't even know about. This is what Pierre Robert de Latour is convinced of since he did an acoustic listening of humpback whales in Norway in 2016. To understand and access this unknown knowledge, the solution is to decipher their language. What if the sounds produced by orcas were more than just the simple communication between cetaceans? The acoustic of marine mammals is so peculiar that it contains unexpected capabilities. By understanding them and protecting them, we might consider following their example. Now one question remains: how many secrets does the melody of the abyss have?

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(Video) (Orcas' sounds)

(Applause)

Orcas are magnificent creatures.

They don't deserve
the nickname of "killer whales".

First of all, they are not whales,
they belong to the dolphin family.

And second, they've never
attacked any humans,

in their natural habitat, that is.

The first thing you feel
when you dive next to orcas

is an intense joy, the joy of being
accepted into their social space

and be able to observe
for a few dozen of minutes

their underwater life.

Occasionally, they get curious
and come close, very close.

In this gaze, you can spot
a vast intelligence.

You feel scanned, analyzed, scrutinized,

as if they had the power
to access our deepest emotions.

But above all, you don't feel the fear,

you don't feel the tiredness,
you don't feel the cold.

You just feel a wave of emotions
and energy that overwhelms you

and thrills you from head to toes.

I feel it more and more each year.

Today, I know why,
and I'm going to share it with you.

My first encounter with orcas
goes back to 1997.

It was two days before
an underwater fishing competition.

This encounter changed
the course of my life.

It was like an irresistible call.

Two days later, I win this competition,

and thanks to my sponsor's incentive,
I'm able to finance my first trip

to go dive with orcas in the
north of Norway a year later.

This first expedition in 1998 was
followed by a long series of others,

21 seasons without interruption
during which I accumulated

more than 6,000 underwater
encounters closest to orcas.

This experience has enabled
me to design a method

to approach and interact with them
respectfully that is a reference today.

I've dedicated most of my time

to the study of orcas' social
behavior and body language.

This presentation
refers to "singing orcas"

but I made my first underwater
recording only in 2016.

It was near Tromsø in Kaldfjord,

and it was a magical moment.

During the day just before the test,
we observed dozen of humpback whales

and several hundreds orcas
that moved in the middle of the fjord

close to our anchoring.

At nightfall, we took our aluminium craft

and we went to the site.

The atmosphere was a bit special.

There was no wind
which it's pretty rare.

The fjord's surface resembled a mirror,

and we could see on each side
of this narrow fjord,

the snow on the mountains.

It was a rather breathtaking moment.

So we stopped the engine
and I immersed my hydrophone

in the most absolute silence
at a dozen meters deep.

A hydrophone is an underwater microphone

that allows you to record
sounds while listening to them.

I connected the speaker, and then ...

Well, come with me on the boat.

(Songs of orcas and humpback whales)

A startling and perfectly orchestrated
melody rised from the dephts.

I was overwhelmed
by the beauty of these songs.

Our boat was at the interface
between two worlds,

the orcas' world and
their secrets under the surface,

and the sky and the stars above us.

In the magic of the moment, I imagined
these two worlds connected

and what connected these spaces
was the songs coming from the depths.

The northern lights started
just above our heads.

The singing increased
in intensity and harmony.

(Songs of orcas and whales)

Each orca, each humpback whale
was playing its own partition

in what I called later
"The abyss's symphony".

But above all, what was happening
was going far beyond this.

It was not just an harmonious
melody pleasant to the ear,

I felt enveloped,
permeated by those songs.

I felt a wave of energy,

the same energy that flows
when I dive in the vicinity of orcas.

While I dedicated all these years
to the sole study of orcas' body language,

I missed something important.

I realized that evening of December 2016

that sounds are of vital
importance in orcas' lives,

and that that was where
we needed to direct our research.

A few weeks after the end
of the season in March 2017,

I went to Guadeloupe to meet
Pierre Lavagne de Castellan.

Pierre is a bioacoustician
and he's the benchmark,

Mister "Song of whales
and sperm whales".

He's been in that field
for more than 30 years.

During our meetings, Pierre used to say,

"The message is in the song."

He'd hammer it like a leitmotiv,

and I was hanging on
his words, saying to myself,

"But what is this message?
What are they saying to each other?

What are they trying to tell us?"

I left Guadeloupe with
more questions than answers.

I went back to France and I started
to do research on the internet

to try to understand these concepts.

I had no knowledge about sound.
So I googled "what is a sound?"

A sound is a wave. Okay.
What is a wave?

A wave is an oscillation
through a transfer of energy.

Okay.

It's defined by its
amplitude, its frequency.

It can be visualized by a graph.

There are electromagnetic waves,
mechanical waves,

stationary waves ...

All of this didn't really speak to me.
I didn't see how I could use it.

But one day, as I am searching
about stationary waves,

I stumble upon the work
of Ernst Friedrich Chladni.

Ernst Friedrich Chladni is an engineer,
physicist and musician

who discovered how to visualize sounds.

He had the idea to use a copper plate,

attached to a stand,

on which he put a thin layer of sand,

and on the periphery of which
he used his violoin bow.

Look at the result, it's surprising.

(Video) (Grindings of violin bow)

In this experiment, we can observe

that the sand moves
on the surface of the plate

and forms a geometrical figure.

These geometric patterns are called
"Chladni's figures" or "Chladni’s plate".

Chladni made a whole catalog
of several thousands of them

because what's interesting

is that each frequency
produces a specific image.

Now where it gets truly exciting

is when Alexander Lauterwasser,

who is a German researcher
and nature photographer,

discovered recently that the shape
of some living species

was the exact copy of Chladni's plates.

On this picture from his book
"Water Sound Images,"

we can see a flower with
its corresponding Chladni's figure.

It can also be the back of a turtle,

or this picture taken under a microscope
of the Diatom Arachnoidiscus

that is the exact copy
of the Chladni's figure

corresponding to
5,000 Hertz frequency.

From his discovery
Alexander Lauterwasser theorizes

"the shape of living beings
originates from sound vibrations."

The shape of living beings
originates from sound vibrations.

A few years before him, Hans Jenny,
the Swiss scientist,

worked on the effects of sound on matter,
especially on liquids and semi-liquids.

Here's one of his experiments.

We can see that under the effect
of a sound vibration,

this semi-liquid paste that usually sits
at the bottom of the speaker

rises up, sets itself up
despite the gravitational force

and follows specific movements.

According to Hans Jenny, these movements
are not chaotic nor random,

they are perfectly organized
and reproducible.

When I saw this experiment,
I immediately made a connection

with old pictures that I took
of my first expeditions.

They show a thin liquid film

that is thrown forward from
the orcas' lower jaw while they swim.

Initially, I paid no attention
to these pictures,

but now I could see a link
with Hans Jenny's experiments.

There is no reason for this phenomenon.

I asked a hydrodynamic engineer
specialized in fluid dynamics.

According to him,

these shapes can't exist
in the absence of an outside force.

Could orcas be creating
this phenomenon?

Could orcas be producing this frequency

that enables them to produce
these ephemeral artistic shapes?

I've been studying orcas since 1998.

These creatures belong
to the cetacean family.

They have a bigger brain

that is potentially more powerful,

more efficient than that of humans.

They're conscious of themselves
and of their surroundings.

I saw them solve complex problems,

especially by adapting their hunting
strategy depending on circumstances

in an extremely reactive way.

They are organized in society,

in family groups that are led
by the oldest female, the matriarch.

Orcas possess acoustic organs.

They pass on their knowledge,
their culture, their language,

from generation to generation
for millions of years.

Our civilization is 5,000 years old.

Our technology has not
reached 200 years of age yet.

We, humans,

are dominating the world.

We control almost all of the living.

We think we know everything,
but there's still so much to discover.

Pierre Lavagne de Castellan, him again,
has observed multiple times

humpback whales
getting together in groups

and giving acoustic
massages to each other.

These recent observations show

that whales but also dolphins and orcas

have developed throughout evolution
know-hows that enable them to use sounds

for something other
than simple communication.

I pursue my research
with the hope, maybe a bit foolish,

of understanding these phenomenons

because what I feel
when I dive close to orcas,

this well-being that I feel,

is due, in my opinion,
to the sounds they produce.

Our oceans are endangered
because of human activities:

the consequences of climate change,

noise pollution, chemical pollution,

overfishing, sea traffic, plastic ...

It's time to change our habits
to reduce these threats.

Let's save our oceans
while we still can.

Let's protect orcas,
this luminous oceanic civilization.

Let's uncover the secrets
of their language.

We will gain access
to their knowledge

and then, yes,

we shall be able to heal ourselves
with the songs of orcas.

Thank you.

(Applause)