NOVA Season 11 Episode 1 Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales

NOVA season 11 episode 1, titled "Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales," explores the ability of two of the most intelligent animals on the planet to communicate with their own kind. The episode focuses on the work of two scientists who have dedicated their careers to studying apes and whales and decoding their complex communication systems.

The first half of the episode follows primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh as she works with a group of bonobos at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Georgia. Savage-Rumbaugh has been studying bonobos for over 20 years and has developed a unique relationship with them, treating them more as equals than as subjects of her research. She and her team have taught the bonobos to use a special form of sign language called Yerkish, which they use to express their wants and needs.

The footage of the bonobos interacting with Savage-Rumbaugh and her team is fascinating, showing the animals using complex sign language to communicate with humans. One bonobo, Kanzi, seems particularly fluent in Yerkish, using it to ask for food, play games, and even tell jokes. Savage-Rumbaugh believes that bonobos are capable of not just communicating with humans, but of understanding us on a deep level.

The second half of the episode shifts its focus to whale songs and the work of Roger Payne, a biologist who has been studying humpback whales since the 1960s. Payne discovered that humpbacks sing elaborate songs that can last up to 20 minutes and contain complex patterns of sound. These songs are not just random noises, but rather a form of communication between whales.

Payne's research team uses hydrophones to record the whale songs and analyze their patterns and structures. They have discovered that the songs vary depending on the region where the whales are located, suggesting that they may be dialects unique to certain populations of whales.

The episode concludes with a segment on the relationship between humans and these two intelligent species. While our communication with apes and whales may still have a long way to go, Savage-Rumbaugh and Payne both believe that we can and should strive to understand these animals better. Only then can we truly appreciate how unique and intelligent they are, and how important it is to protect them and their habitats.