Hal Whitehead is Killam Professor of Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge before turning to marine biology. He prefers to be at sea on his yacht, studying the behaviour, ecology and population biology of sperm whales and northern bottlenose whales. Their social organisation and cultural transmission of behaviours is his consuming interest. His latest book, Sperm Whales: Social evolution in the ocean, is published by the University of Chicago Press.
How do you go about studying sperm whales?
It is not easy. They spend almost all their lives deep in…
