Shane Gero: Understanding the societies of animals

Shane Gero is a Canadian marine biologist and Scientist-In-Residence at Canada’s Carleton University and is also affiliated with both Dalhousie University in Canada and Denmark’s Marine Bioacoustics Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark. 

In 2005, he founded The Dominica Sperm Whale Project and has since spent thousands of hours in the company of sperm whale families. 

Gero’s research is motivated by a desire to understand animal societies, specifically how and why they form, and what happens when they fall apart. His current field expeditions play sounds back to the whales to discover how whales recognize and speak to each other. 

Gero hopes to create a new dialogue around the conservation of whale populations that is about more than just numbers, but about recognizing biologically important divisions between communities of whales, respecting their identity and including cultural diversity in our definition of biodiversity.