I’m so excited! I’ve wanted to give a TED talk for a long time. So here we are, it’s great and thanks to MIT for having me. So I spend 200 days or so a year in the water with whales, frequently with killer whales or orca, which are the world's most widely distributed whale. They're in every ocean on the planet, and they exhibit complex social behaviors which are powered by their 15-pound brain. And their brain has spindle cells and a neocortex, which are structures associated with memory and higher level thinking. In fact, the neocortex in the orca brain actually has a greater surface area than the neocortex in the human brain. And as we continue to learn more about them, I think you can’t help but wonder if orcas had been born with opposable thumbs instead of fins, if they’d evolved that way, would they be competing with humanity to be the most dominant species on the planet? Or, given their collaborative nature, perhaps they’d be working alongside us. And then I worry if we continue on our current path with what’s happening in the ocean, will orca need to develop their own space program really, really quickly to avoid going extinct in the near future? Hopefully, not. So I’ve studied orca in the sea off Norway for 11 consecutive seasons and some of them stay on shore or near shore for a lot of the year. But the vast majority is following the herring migration, which spends most of its time out in the mid-Atlantic and only comes near shore for a couple of months in the midwinter every year. Herring is a small fish that aggregates in really large schools, and their aggregations and migrations are not static. In fact, over the last 25 or so years, the herring migration has chosen three distinct fjord systems off the coast of Norway to spend their winters. And each of these fjord systems has a very unique and different geography and also biomass. And that’s given us a really excellent opportunity to study orca adaptability and intelligence. In the late nineties, early 2000s, the fjord system that the herring chose was called Tysfjord. And Tysfjord is quite deep. And as these herring would pack into Tysfjord, a lot of them were quite deep in the bottom of the fjord. And so in order to get a meal, the orca had to dive down to the bottom and work quite hard. So they developed a group hunting strategy where a part of the pod would go down and carve off a piece of the herring shoal and force it to the surface. And once that herring shoal was trapped against the surface of the ocean, the orca would all work together and have a certain role to play to keep it there. Some would swim around the edges of the ball, some would swim under the ball to make sure that it couldn’t escape back down into the depths of the ocean. Then it made it much easier to get a meal when they were hungry, because the herring were all there and ready. And then the orca would send in their most valuable player. This was the designated hitter. So the designated hitter would then go over to the herring ball, cup its tail and swing its tail through the ball of herring with such force and velocity, it would create a pressure wave that would actually knock the herring unconscious and then make it easy to just swim over and slurp up the stunned herring. So just a note on that, think about how powerful these animals are. If you were to cup your hand and swing it through the water, how fast can you swing your hand through the water? Not very fast. Certainly not fast enough to knock a fish unconscious. And now imagine your hand is the size of an orca tail, which is bigger than most average human beings. How fast could you swing something that size through the water? You probably couldn't swing it through the water at all. So it just gives you an idea of, in addition to being intelligent, they're incredibly powerful animals. So this technique worked really, really well. But unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there, because the herring migration didn’t stay in Tysfjord. A few years later, it moved and was much further north around a fjord system called Tromso. So the orca were used to this bait balling technique, and they started to employ that around Tromso in 2011 or so when the herring migration moved there. They would corral them, chase them around, get them up to the surface, try to trap them there. But Tromso has a unique problem that Tysfjord did not have. Humpback whales. So humpback whales are also very smart and they don’t want to work any harder than they have to. So the humpback whales would just hang out in the background and wait for the orca to do all the hard work: Corral this ball of herring, force them up to the surface, trap them against the surface. And then once they were there, the humpback would sneak down deep, get some momentum going, and come rocketing up through that ball of herring and try to gulp as many of them down as they could, which obviously is very frustrating for the orca, because then all their hard work gets destroyed. Now they have sonar, you know, echolocation. So they would know the humpback whales are coming even when they’re down deep and they can’t see them. And they would clear out of that ball of herring. The problem is it’s a very indelicate process because the herring would then often escape back to the depths while the orca cleared out of the way. Now, as a human cameraman who's there to document and film this behavior, I found out the hard way that my echolocation and sonar is actually not nearly as accurate as that of... “A close call for a diver in the sea off Norway, when a 35,000-pound humpback whale nearly swallowed him. Patrick Dykstra was out filming killer whales and despite the shock, he says he didn’t feel that he was in much danger at all. He says the humpback knew exactly what he was doing and moved to avoid him. He called it perhaps the most thrilling millisecond of his life. - I’d say too close for comfort for most of us. - Oh yeah, I will echo that.” So, that was terrifying, but it happened in a very brief moment. And what you're seeing there is actually the bottom throat of the humpback whale as it came lunging through the ball of herring. And their leading jaw is made of really thick pieces of bone. So had it actually impacted me and that was with an ultra wide angle lens, so it was about a foot away when it came up. And then with its mouth fully extended like that, it then landed on me, thankfully, with the soft part of the lower part of its throat. And I’ll show you a couple of images here in a second, where you can see the throat of the humpback whale extended out. So that caused me to think, what would have happened if I’d gone in the throat? And thankfully they can’t swallow you because their throat is only the size of a basketball, even though their mouth is bigger than a car. But it would still be a bit of a struggle because you’d go in there, they get all that water and herring in their throat, close their mouth, use the muscles of their throat to push the water through their baleen plates, which act like a strainer like toothbrush bristles, and all the good stuff gets trapped against the back of those baleen plates, they use their giant tongue to then sweep along the plates and try to swallow everything. And it’d be then they’d realize I was in there and that they couldn’t swallow me. And I don’t know what it looks like when a humpback whale gags, but it would be a process like that and you can imagine how long that takes. And I can hold my breath for a little while, but not after just being swallowed by humpback whale. So you probably wouldn’t be in great shape when it eventually did spit you out. So my captain was there and he could have come over to pick me up. But what happened, the humpback whale goes through the herring ball, they all get out of the way, I look back in terror and I have a three minute swim or so back to the boat because we were just out in open ocean there. And herring, like most fish, seek protection in structure and they want to go around any kind of structure, whether it be a board floating in the ocean. If you see a board in the ocean, there’s often a bunch of little fish underneath it because they like a bit of structure for protection. Unfortunately, the only structure in the ocean at that place was me. And so when the herring got out of the way from the whale, they all then congregated all around me and I'm swinging and kicking my feet and trying to get them away from me while still trying to make progress towards getting back on the boat. But they figured to take their chances with me versus the humpback whale. That whale went down three more times and came rocketing through that ball, just missing me every time before I eventually made it back to the boat. And so, as I was mentioning, my captain could have come and picked me up. But he thought a better use of this time would be to take photos of this happening (Laughter) and then laugh at my expense. So these next pictures are the mouth of the humpback whale. And you’ll see in the second photo my little yellow snorkel just outside of where the mouth of the humpback whale is. In this second picture, there's my little snorkel running away from this whale and my face after it happened. So, you know, the moral of the story is choose your co-workers very carefully on any project. (Laughter) This was terrible for the orca, right? It’s hard work, they get all balled up, it goes to the surface and these humpback whales come in. So in a fascinating adaptation within that same season, rather than make bait balls, they started, they did it a bit, but much less and instead they started pushing the herring up against these shallow beachy areas. So in this next image, you’re going to see all the black in this image is herring. So instead of making balls, they forced the herring up against the shore in these shallow beachy areas where they could then still continue to feed and keep them there. So they still use their same designated hitter technique, they had to modify it a bit for the very shallow water, but they would corral it all, push it against the shore. And while this still did benefit the humpback whales, it was much less destructive to what the orca were trying to do because the humpback whales could swim through that herring still and they could lunge and try to get a few. But when that happened and the humpbacks went into the herring, the orca would just move out a bit but still keep it on the beach. They would just go to the edge of the shoal and keep the herring pushed up against there. Now we can’t talk to orca or we can’t talk to orca yet. That’s important. So I can’t ask them, “Did you change your strategy because these humpback whales are there?” But I can say from my many years of observation, it certainly seemed that way. And the reason it’s important to note that we can’t talk to them <i>yet</i> is because there are several really exciting, really important studies going on to try to decode whale language and actually talk back to them. So I think within our lifetime we are going to achieve it. And so it’s interesting thought exercise to wonder what exactly they would say to us. We do know that they’re incredible at collaboration and teamwork. So perhaps they would have some important lessons for humanity, if we eventually do get there and get to ask them these important questions. But again, not the happy ending we were hoping for, because the herring migration in 2017 moved again to where it currently is today, which is again much further north, this time in an area called Skjervøy. The issue with Skjervøy is you still have the humpback whale issue to deal with, but Skjervøy’s fjords do not have nearly as many shallow, beachy areas as Tromso. So you’ve got the humpback whale issue, you can’t drive the herring up on shore. So they had to devise a third strategy. So this time the orca decided to target a less advanced species to do the hard work for them - human beings. So there’s a lot of purse-seining that goes on around Skjervøy, this is a purse-seine boat. They put their neck down deep, put it around the herring, corral it, pull it up to the surface, drop a pump in and pump the herring into the hold. But that’s not a perfect process. Some herring falls out of the net, some falls off the deck of the boat, some out of the pump. So if the orca do this and just hang out underneath the fishing vessel when the herring is being pumped, enough falls out that they get a free meal. Again, a very exciting and interesting adaptation. Now, orca had been feeding around fishing vessels in the past, that’s not a completely new behavior, but the amount that they begun to employ at once the herring moved up to Skjervøy increased significantly as a percentage of their diet. So, you know, we often think of intelligence as the ability to make decisions and to adapt and to change. And so it’s clear that these are extremely intelligent animals that we really hope to one day be able to talk to. But there’s a bit of a concerning pattern here, if you look at this map. You’ve got the migration in the late nineties, in Tysfjord; you’ve got it around 2008-2009 up to 2016, Tromso; starting 2017, Skjervøy. So where does it go from there? We don't fully understand the herring migration, but we do know that they are seeking certain temperatures of water, and what’s north of Skjervøy? The North Pole and what’s north of North Pole? The Moon perhaps. So you know, eventually you’re out of north, certainly if you're going to stay on this planet. So the concern is that the temperature of water the herring are seeking may no longer exist. But there is hope. There are things we can do, we can regulate, pay attention to our carbon emissions and to global warming. We can donate to certain organizations like Blue Ocean Trust and Norwegian Orca Survey. But whatever it is we decide to do I certainly hope that the choices that we humans make allow orca to have a planet on which they can still live, because they’re incredibly amazing, intelligent animals. Thank you. (Applause)
我好激动!我早就想 做一个TED演讲了。 我来了,这太棒了。 感谢麻省理工大学邀请我。 我每年有 200 天左右都 和鲸鱼一起待在水里, 通常是杀手鲸,也就是虎鲸。 它是世界上分布最广的鲸鱼, 存在于地球上的每一片海洋。 它们 15 磅重的大脑能够 支持它们做出复杂的社会行为。 大脑中有梭形细胞和新皮层, 这些结构与记忆力和高级思维有关。 事实上,虎鲸大脑中的新皮层 比人类大脑中的面积更大。 随着我们逐渐了解虎鲸, 我想你们肯定忍不住设想 如果虎鲸有对生拇指 而不是鱼鳍的话, 如果是这样进化的, 它们会不会和人类竞争 成为地球上的主宰物种? 或者,鉴于它们的合作天性, 也许它们会成为我们的搭档。 但我担心如果我们继续当下的道路, 海洋将会发生些什么。 虎鲸需要快速制定一个 它们自己的航天计划 来避免在不久的将来灭绝吗? 希望不是这样。 我在挪威附近海域连续研究了 十一季的虎鲸, 它们当中的一小部分 几乎全年都待在岸边或近岸, 但绝大多数都跟随鲱鱼洄游, 大部分时间在大西洋中部生活, 每年只有隆冬的几个月近岸。 鲱鱼是一种以很大规模 成群游动的小鱼, 它们的结群和洄游不是一成不变的。 实际上,在过去大约 25 年中, 鲱鱼选择了挪威沿岸 三个不同的峡湾系统过冬。 每一个峡湾系统的地理条件 和生物量都各不相同。 这给了我们一个绝佳的机会 来研究虎鲸的适应性和智力水平。 在九十年代末和二十世纪初, 鲱鱼选择的峡湾系统叫 蒂斯菲尤尔(Tysfjord)。 蒂斯菲尤尔峡湾很深, 这些鲱鱼涌进蒂斯菲尤尔以后, 常常会待在峡湾底部很深的地方。 所以为了得到食物,虎鲸得潜到 峡湾底部,费力一番。 所以它们想出了一个群体狩猎策略, 一些虎鲸潜到深处, 从鲱鱼群里分割出一部分 然后迫使它们到海面上来。 一旦这些鲱鱼被困在海面, 虎鲸就会齐心协力, 各司其职,使鲱鱼留在那里。 一些虎鲸负责把守鲱鱼群周围, 另一些则在底部看守, 确保它们不会重新潜入海底。 这使得它们能够在饥饿时 更容易地饱餐一顿, 因为鲱鱼已经到嘴边了。 随后虎鲸会派出它们的主力, 也就是指定的打手。 它会去到鲱鱼群那里, 抬起尾巴,又快又狠地向鲱鱼打去, 掀起的压力波力度 足以将它们打晕, 虎鲸便可以轻松地去 狼吞虎咽那些昏迷的鲱鱼。 我们可以注意到 这种动物的力量有多么的强大。 如果你弯起手掌,在水中摆动, 你能够摆多快呢?并没有很快。 肯定不足以把鱼打晕。 但想象一下你的手 有虎鲸尾巴那么大, 也就是说比一般的人类还要大。 你能以多快的速度 在水中摆动这么大的东西? 你可能根本无法在水中摆动它。 所以这说明,虎鲸不仅聪明, 力量也大得惊人。 这套办法非常有效。 但不幸的是,故事并没有到此结束, 因为鲱鱼没有停留在蒂斯菲尤尔。 几年以后,它们迁徙到一个 名叫特罗姆瑟(Tromso)的 更北的峡湾系统。 虎鲸已经习惯了这种饵球策略, 并在 2011 年左右开始在特罗姆瑟 使用这种方法, 那时候鲱鱼洄游到了那里。 虎鲸围堵、追赶鲱鱼, 将鲱鱼逼上水面,使其无处可逃。 但是特罗姆瑟有一个 蒂斯菲尤尔没有的问题。 座头鲸。 座头鲸同样非常聪明, 它们喜欢不劳而获。 座头鲸会在外围守株待兔, 等待虎鲸做完那些苦工, 围住鲱鱼群,迫使它们游到水面, 把它们困在那里。 一旦到了这个环节, 座头鲸就会潜入深处, 凝聚力量,然后猛地冲进鲱鱼群 尽可能地大快朵颐。 这让虎鲸感到非常懊恼, 因为它们的一切努力前功尽弃。 虎鲸有声呐,一种回声定位, 即使座头鲸在并不可见的深处, 也可以知道它们来了, 并且会冲散鲱鱼群。 这个过程挺卑鄙的, 因为鲱鱼会借着虎鲸 清除障碍的时机逃回海底。 而作为一个人类摄影师 在拍摄这一行为的时候, 我发现我的回声定位 和声呐并不像它们那样准确…… “一名潜水员在挪威 附近海域遭遇险情, 一头 35,000 磅的座头鲸 几乎将他吞没。 帕特里克·戴克斯特拉 (Patrick Dykstra)正在拍摄虎鲸, 尽管感到很震惊, 他说他完全不觉得危险。 他说座头鲸很清楚 他正在做什么,并且避开他。 他说这可能是他人生中 最惊心动魄的一毫秒, - 对绝大多数人来说这个 距离实在是太近了, - 是的,没错。” 这个场景十分恐怖, 但发生在很短的一瞬间。 你所看到的实际上是 座头鲸向鲱鱼群扑过来时 喉咙的底部。 它们的下巴由非常厚的骨头组成, 实际上它已经撞到我了, 那是用超广角镜头拍摄的, 它大概离我有一英尺远, 嘴巴大张,然后落在了我身上, 幸好是喉咙下部柔软的部分。 我接下来会给你们看几张图片, 你可以看到座头鲸张开喉咙的画面。 这让我不禁思考, 如果我到了它喉咙里会发生什么? 谢天谢地它们并不能吞下你, 因为它们的喉咙只有一个篮球大小, 即使血盆大口比车还大。 但是你还是会备受煎熬, 因为你进到了座头鲸嘴里, 它们把海水和鲱鱼一起吞进嘴里, 闭上嘴,运用喉咙肌肉的力量 使海水从鲸须板滤出去, 鲸须板是一种 像牙刷刷毛一样的过滤器, 所有东西都被困在 鲸须板的后面, 而它们会用巨大的舌头 沿着鲸须板一扫而过, 试图吞下所有的东西。 直到这时它们才能注意到 我在那里并且不可食用。 我不知道座头鲸 吐东西的时候是什么样子, 但总之这是一个过程, 你可以想象一下要花多长时间。 我可以屏一会气, 但在被座头鲸吞进嘴里以后 那是另外一回事。 所以最终它把你吐出来的时候, 你可能状态比较糟糕。 我的船长就在那儿, 他原本可以过来救我, 可实际上呢?座头鲸冲过鲱鱼群, 鲱鱼四散奔逃,我惊慌地回头看, 有大概三分钟的时间游回船上, 因为我们就在公海上面。 而鲱鱼和大多数鱼一样, 会寻求坚固结构的保护, 它们会去任何结构附近, 不管是一块漂浮的板还是什么。 如果你在海上看到一块木板, 在木板下往往会有一小群鱼, 因为它们喜欢找点东西来保护自己。 不幸的是,我就是那片海上 它们唯一可以依靠的东西。 所以当鲱鱼在逃脱鲸鱼以后, 它们全都聚集在我周围, 我拳打脚踢试图挣脱它们, 与此同时继续向船游去。 但他们想依靠我来抵御座头鲸。 座头鲸又潜下去再冲进鲱鱼群三回, 每一次都没撞上我, 最后我终于成功游回了船上。 我刚才也提到, 我的船长明明能过来救我, 但他觉得用照片记录这精彩一刻 是更好的选择。 (笑声) 以及笑话我。 接下来的这几张照片是座头鲸的嘴, 你能在第二张照片里看到 我小小的黄色呼吸管, 就在座头鲸的嘴边。 第二张照片里是我小小的呼吸管 正在逃离这头鲸鱼, 以及这一切发生后我的表情。 所以,这个故事给我们带来的教训是 做任何项目都要谨慎选择你的同事。 (笑声) 这对虎鲸来说是当头一棒,对吧? 它们费了那么大力气 把鲱鱼逼到海面, 然后座头鲸过来坐享其成。 所以在同一季中, 它们又做出了奇妙的适应, 与其使用饵球策略,它们开始…… 饵球策略也用,但减少了很多, 取而代之的方法是把鲱鱼逼上浅滩。 在下一个画面里, 你看到的黑色的部分是鲱鱼群。 它们没有选择把鲱鱼聚集成饵球, 而是迫使它们游上浅滩区域, 在这里它们依旧可以进食 并让鲱鱼无法逃脱。 它们用的还是同一套策略, 但需要根据浅水区做一点调整, 它们会把鲱鱼围住,推上岸边。 这仍然能够让座头鲸从中获利, 但对虎鲸的打击性比以前小多了, 虎鲸可以游进鲱鱼群, 猛冲一气,吃上几口。 但在座头鲸进入鲱鱼群的时候, 虎鲸只需要向外移动一点, 把鲱鱼继续困在海滩上。 它们会去浅滩的边缘, 把鲱鱼推上岸边。 我们不能和虎鲸对话, 或者说至少现在不能。这很重要。 所以我不能问他们, “你们是否因为座头鲸的存在 而改变了策略呢?” 不过根据我多年的观察, 我敢说肯定是这么回事。 而至于我说至少现在还 不能和它们对话的原因 是因为有一些非常激动人心, 意义非凡的研究, 试图解读鲸鱼的语言, 并且与之对话。 我觉得这在我们有生之年 能够实现。 想象一下它们会对我们说什么 也是非常有趣的思维训练。 我们知道它们是非常善于协作的, 所以没准它们能给人类 带来些重要的经验, 如果我们终于有机会 去问它们这些重要问题的话。 但这也不是我们所期待的完美结局, 因为在 2017 年,鲱鱼再一次迁徙, 到了如今它们所在的地方, 一个更靠北的叫做 谢尔沃于(Skjervøy)的区域。 谢尔沃于的问题在于 这里仍然有座头鲸, 但是没有很多特罗姆瑟那样的浅滩。 这就意味着座头鲸来的时候 不能把鲱鱼困在浅滩上。 所以它们得设计出第三个策略。 这一次虎鲸决定依靠 一个较低等的物种 来帮它们做事—— 人类。 谢尔沃于附近有很多人用网捕鱼, 这是一个撒网的船。 渔民把网撒下去, 撒到鲱鱼附近,围住它们, 收网到海面,然后用吸鱼泵 把鲱鱼抽进船舱。 但总会有些漏网之鱼。 一些鱼从网逃脱, 一些鱼掉下甲板, 还有一些逃出吸鱼泵。 虎鲸可以在捕鱼船底下待着, 在鲱鱼被抽上船时, 有足够多的鱼掉下来 让它们可以吃上一顿免费的午餐。 又一个令人兴奋和有趣的适应行为。 虎鲸原本就会在捕鱼船附近觅食, 这并不是一个全新的行为, 但在鲱鱼来到谢尔沃于以后 它们使用这种方式 在进食中所占的比率大幅提高。 我们常常认为 智慧意味着有能力做出决定 来适应和改变。 所以我们很清楚地知道 它们是绝顶聪明的动物, 而且我们有望 有一天能够和它们对话。 但有一个趋势让我们有点担心, 如果你看一下地图, 你会发现在九十年代末 鲱鱼在蒂斯菲尤尔; 2008-2009 到 2016 年间在特罗姆瑟; 2017 年开始在谢尔沃于。 那么下一站是哪儿呢? 我们不能完全理解鲱鱼的洄游, 但我们知道它们 在寻找一个特定的水温, 谢尔沃于的北面又是什么呢? 北极点,那北极点更北呢? 也许是月球吧。 所以你看,最终你会无处可去, 如果你想继续留在地球上的话。 所以我们的担忧是 鲱鱼所寻找的水温不复存在。 但仍有希望。 我们可以做一些事情去改变, 关注碳排放和全球变暖问题。 我们可以向一些机构捐款, 比如说 Blue Ocean Trust 和 Norwegian Orca Survey。 但不论我们决定做什么, 我都迫切希望 人类所做的决定 能让虎鲸继续在这个星球上生存, 因为它们是了不起的, 绝顶聪明的生物。 谢谢。 (掌声)