Early monday morning ten sperm whales were spotted beached along shore in the Aceh Province of Indonesia. Approximately 50 volunteers organized through conservation groups entered the water and worked through the night to attempt to rescue the whales. While six of the sperm whales were rescued, four of the whales unfortunately died. Beachings are not very common in Indonesia, however, a group of 29 pilot whales stranded in 2016 close to Jakarta.
Wetpixel’s friend, underwater photographer and all-round good guy Keri Wilk has a few late availability spots open for his annual Dominica sperm whale trips. Interacting with sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) is strictly controlled by permit on the island and Keri has 3 of them! If you want to document these amazing creatures, this is an amazing opportunity.
When the subjects of scientist Hal Whitehead’s research expeditions, sperm whales, returned to the Galapagos Islands after a 10-year absence he quickly assembled a new team to study the old whales. However, once the team began listening to the whale vocalizations, they discovered these were not the old whales they’d previously studied. They discovered this through the whales’ dialects.
Underwater photographer and “whale whisperer” Tony Wu has written a personal account of his encounter with a large breeding aggregation of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) on bioGraphic. He notes that the reason for these large gatherings are still unknown and that despite whaling no longer being a threat to their survival, ship strikes and plastic ingestion still makes the species’s survival uncertain.
Outside has published an article about an innovative new expedition that is seeking to interpret the complex language codes of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus).
Our good friend and awesome photographer, Keri Wilk, is running two trips to photograph sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Dominica this coming February and March. He has just let us know that a few spots have opened up due to very last minute cancellations, so they are up for grabs immediately.
Wetpixel senior moderator, Shawn Heinrichs (shawnh), has captured a dramatic underwater encounter between orcas and sperm whales off the southern coast of Sri Lanka. The images have been featured in Wired magazine. (Video added).