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What Did One Pilot Whale Say to the Other?

During the summer of 2010, WHOI biologists and engineers, working jointly with the Spanish nonprofit Alnitak in the Alboran Sea between Spain and Morocco, attached non-intrusive digital recording tags (DTAGs) to pilot whales to capture vocalization and motion data. The project aimed to better understand the animals’ behavior and the possible impacts of underwater noise. The work was a continuation of the MED 09 expedition the previous summer and was conducted under permit #14241, issued by NMFS under the authority of the MMPA and the EPA.(Photo by Nicholas MacFarlane, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)