Beluga Whale Mimics Human Speech

A new study by scientists Scientists are talking about a beluga whale. They recorded this whale making sounds like a human. The sound was like someone singing in the shower. At first, they thought it was a human voice.

Who said that? One day in 1984, a diver came out of a tank at the National Marine Mammal Foundation

Beluga whale in San Diego, California. Photo by Jason Pier in DC, Flickr He asked, “Who told me to get out?” It turned out that the cries of "out, out, out" Beluga whale mimics human had come from Noc. speech Noc was a beluga whale.

Adapted from The Vancouver Sun No staff member had said anything. So, for several years, they recorded Level 3 the whale’s sounds.

We know humans can change After four years of copying people, the sounds they make. the whale went back to making They change these sounds to copy whale sounds. Noc died five years ago. other sounds that they hear. This skill is called mimicking. Whale Sounds It is also called vocal learning. Whale sounds are usually high-pitched The ability to mimic is important sounds. when learning a new language. But when the animal made human-like Some people can also mimic animal sounds. sounds, In the past, people did this while hunting the sounds were very low. for food. ( . . . continued on page 2)

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Some scientists have studied the sounds of white whales in the wild. Sometimes the sounds were like shouting children. Staff at the Vancouver Aquarium said they heard something strange. They said one of the white whales said its own name. Kavna, age 46, a Beluga whale, died last August, 2012. Vancouver’s beluga She lived at the Vancouver Aquarium since 1976. The Vancouver Aquarium’s beluga whale, Photo by Jason Payne, The Vancouver Sun Kavna, was a favourite with the public. The marine mammal care team Other animals can mimic had been caring for Kavna since 1975. Dolphins, parrots and a harbour seal Many visitors came to see her. have mimicked human speech. She died in August, 2012, at age 46. Hoover, the seal, lived in Boston. The name “Kavna” means He was the first non-human mammal "female spirit of the deep" to produce the sounds of human speech. or "the one down there" in Inuit languages. Hoover’s story The name refers to the Inuit legend of the Hoover produced sounds like “hello there”, mother of sea mammals. “how are ya”, and “get out of here”.

The sound of a laugh followed these phrases. George and Alice Swallow found Hoover in 1971. The seal was an orphan. So they took him home. For a while the Swallows kept him in their bathtub. He ate so much fish that they called him Hoover. Hoover is the name of a vacuum cleaner.

Children’s entertainer Raffi with Kavna, the Beluga whale, at the Hoover moves Vancouver Aquarium, 1980. Raffi’s song Baby Beluga became a hit Hoover soon got too big for the tub. with adults and children. He moved into a pond in the yard. Photo by Brian Kent, The Vancouver Sun files Then he started to mimic human speech.

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Beluga whale, Noc, imitating human speech: Hoover moved later to the New England http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2240 Aquarium. His foster parents told 9-first-analysis-of-beluga-whale-mimicking- the aquarium staff that Hoover could talk. human-speech.html No one believed it. After a few years,

Hoover’s talking became more clear. Raffi wrote a song called “Baby Beluga” and Then scientists became interested. visited Kavna: They studied the seal’s sounds. http://www.childhonouring.org/index.php Hoover died of old age in 1985.

He is still the most famous seal in the world. Listen to Hoover, the “talking” seal:

http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/ exhibits/individual_exhibits/harbor_seals_ex hibit/hoover.php

New England Aquarium, in the eastern U.S., where Hoover lived: www.neaq.org/

Einstein the Parrot:

Hoover, the “talking seal” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ht0a2- Photo Boston Globe, New England Aquarium OnA