Give me some examples, some colorful details

[laughs] Well, first of all, you know, you're surrounded...

Uh, it- it's not a very big place, you know.

These are animals that are diving th- 3,000 or more feet down, and the ocean is crushing them.

Like, their lungs collapse, and their ribs get compressed, so this is not a place where you're gonna have lots of space, and it's gonna be full of things that even the sperm whale can't digest, like squid beaks, you know? I've, I've laid beside an actual giant squid corpse that we found off the Azores, and that squid beak is, you know, bigger than the size of my fist.

So imagine a parrot beak the size of your fist and hundreds or thousands of them surrounding you.

I mean, these are like teeth being pushed against you in every direction while it's trying to digest you.

Shane, do sperm whales know what they're eating? Like-

So, I mean, is that something that you think we should be considering with with conservation and repopulating and maybe even other animals?

Yeah, I mean, the answer is flat out yes.

You know, I think for the last 10 years, that's been a big movement in the conservation world is this idea that animal culture matters for conservation.

And it's partly because, you know, culture in two ways, right? There's just the learning from the animals that are around you, you know, your grandmother's way of doing something.

Right.

Absolutely.

Right.

incredible.

Wow, and not just, and not just the Lady Oracle line of direct relations.

Yeah.

Well, that's it, right? Genetics can't explain it alone, right? The- they, they sort of took turns in terms of, you know, f- uh, Fruit Salad's family and, and Lady Oracle and Rounder, who's the mom, her family supporting the calf.

Everyone participated.

In fact, one of the surprises of the whole day was that Allen, who is also Lady Oracle's son, which is Rounder's brother, uh, also showed up even though he had already sort of split from his family as a young male does.

So him being there was a surprise as a whole, let alone all of the amazing details of the interactions between the females that were caring for mom and then baby.

Do we know if this happens in other family groups? Like, could this be a cultural practice of this group alone?

Ugh, that's such a fantastic question.