Denise Herzing Marine Mammal Behavioral Biologist

For more than 30 years, Denise Herzing has observed Atlantic spotted dolphins in their natural habitat, the waters near the Bahamas. She is interested in developing new ways for human to communicate with wild dolphins.

- Alice Andre-Clark

WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN STUDYING MARINE ZOOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL BIOLOGY?

I had a tendency to wonder about the natural world, and I wanted to be out in nature and doing science. I was intrigued by the ocean. [Undersea explorer] Jacques Cousteau appeared on TV, and Jane Good all was tromping around with chimps, and I just thought that would be a very lovely way to spend your life. When I started the Wild Dolphin Project, I really wanted to spend at least 20 years out in the wild observing a wild dolphin society and trying to understand their communication system— and tell the story of how they live in the wild.

When [dolphins are] comfortable with you, and they just let you observe what they’re doing, that’s amazing. It’s kind of like a peek into a culture if you were an anthropologist and you saw some strange human rituals. You might not understand what they’re doing, but letting you into their culture is a privilege, really. It’s our job to try to interpret.

WHAT MAKES DOLPHINS PARTICULARLY INTERESTING ANIMALS TO STUDY?

Dolphins are kind of the primates of the ocean. They’re social, they’re smart, and they have complex relationships and societies. But they’re also alien because of the habitat they live in, so we don’t really recognize their body signals the way we do with our own. So they’re intriguing just from that sense of how does a species evolve in a different environment and still communicate and use its intelligence.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT DOLPHINS’ INTELLIGENCE?