Wholphin

The sails of Wholphin No. 4 are visible on the horizon, the poop deck is eerily clean and our sea ghost’s shackles have been freed of rust and barnacles. Tragically, the submarine we use for our website headquarters is trailing behind. So, I am playing tug boat (a tug boat can pull a submarine, right?), reviewing our latest online offerings.

A dominant trend in modern animal studies shows that a lot of qualities previously held as innately human are actually shared by a vast number of animals. Great apes will hold hands, hug and dance with each other. There’s a group of dolphins that wear safety masks made out of sponges. Ants can be shown to teach — not just mimic.

The resident orcas of North America — like Tsuxiit, the subject of former-Unicorn/current-Island Nicholas Thorburn’s docu-music-video — have developed amazingly stable cultures and traditions. The pods are centered around the mother: the female children may leave and start their own pod, but the males travel with their mothers for the entirety of their lives. Even in instances where the mother dies, brothers will kick it old school together as a group.

One of the raddest things about this system is the way they differentiate between different families. In order to prevent inbreeding, Orca families develop their own dialects. The dialects are so different from each other, even a human ear can detect the difference instantly. A lot of studies about these traditions lead researchers to believe that orcas are heavily cultural. Songs, hunting strategies, defense techniques all get passed on through generations. New ideas can be spread through the cultures very rapidly.

Some researchers refute these claims of culture, noting that these behaviors may just be mimicry, without teaching, sharing or communication. Others, like my dawg Harald Yurk, simply see this as bickering over term definitions. “It’s better,” says Yurk, “to accept ourselves as closely linked to the natural world.”

I like that mindset, a lot. And I bet Nicholas Thorburn does, too. The understated beauty of his film, Tsuxiit, says more for interspecial communication and culture than anything I could ever write.