Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative)

What do you think humans lose by assuming we are the most intelligent species? Join CETI CEO and Founder and National Geographic Society Explorer David Gruber and oceanographer and Explorer at Large Sylvia Earle as they discuss the ancient intelligence that exists in our oceans. What would you want to learn from whales? Share your message for The Deep Archive at https://lnkd.in/dpMYjV6N Video: Untamed Planet Films

The ocean is full of voices, if people learn to hear them Seventy years after Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle presented the sea as Le Monde du Silence, David Gruber and Sylvia Earle argue that the ocean should be heard differently. It is full of sound: shrimp snapping, fish calling, and whales singing in patterns that science is only beginning to understand. For them, listening can help people notice what is at risk. Their case rests on long experience. Earle has spent more than seven decades exploring and defending the ocean. Gruber, a marine biologist and founder of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), has spent more than three decades studying how marine life senses its world, with recent work focused on sperm-whale communication. They argue that greater understanding can make other living beings harder to ignore. The broader picture they describe is severe. The ocean has absorbed much of the planet’s recent warming. Coral reefs, kelp forests, mangroves, and seagrass meadows have declined. Many marine species have been driven down by fishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Gruber and Earle point to whales as one reason to keep working. Many whale populations have begun to recover where hunting has been curtailed and protections have been enforced. Their most striking example comes from sperm whales. Recent Project CETI studies documented a birth in which 11 female whales assisted (https://lnkd.in/gbTq3i72). To Gruber and Earle, such behavior adds to evidence of societies shaped by kinship, learning, cooperation, and sound. Their appeal is practical. They urge support for marine protected areas, cuts in the pressures driving climate change, investment in science and conservation, and policies that give the ocean more room to recover. Their plea is grounded in a lifetime of close observation: future generations may still inherit an ocean filled with life, but the next decade will shape how much remains. 🐋 The piece: https://lnkd.in/g9XwCvZK 📷 Sperm whales by Brian Skerry/National Geographic

What might whales teach us about coexistence, resilience, family or stewardship? In a newly published op-ed, Sylvia Earle and CETI CEO and Founder David Gruber reflect on these questions while sharing a hopeful vision for the future of our oceans—and the role each of us can play in shaping it. Read “Listen to whales to improve connection, care & ocean health” on Mongabay here: https://lnkd.in/eYqsuW4Y Photo: Noah Throop/ Untamed Planet Films

“It’s transformative— to see them, see you” - Sylvia Earle Join CETI CEO and Founder and National Geographic Society Explorer David Gruber and oceanographer and Explorer at Large Sylvia Earle as they offer a window into their remarkable personal experiences with whales. What would you want to learn from whales? Share your message for The Deep Archive at https://lnkd.in/dpMYjV6N Video: Untamed Planet Films

Dive in with the CETI Dominica Marine Conservation Fellows and Alumni! See highlights from their recent diving excursion. This dive brought together past and present CETI Fellows for a fun- filled day underwater, exercising their dive skills to explore the underwater world!🤿🫧Through the CETI Fellowship, Fellows receive their PADI Open Water Diver Certification or PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Certification. Photos: Kharlen Jervier/One Off Productions.

CETI is applying advanced machine learning, state-of-the-art robotics, and underwater acoustics to listen to and translate the communication of whales in Dominica and beyond. All of CETI’s custom-developed technologies are nature-inspired and noninvasive and legal, ethical, and technological guardrails are integrated to ensure that our AI-driven efforts to understand whale communication are used for conservation and respect rather than exploitation. The principles that shape how we listen, build, and discover: 👂🏻We Are Listeners - CETI is a team of over 50 scientists across 7 disciplines, including the world's leading artificial intelligence, natural language processing and complex systems experts, marine biologists, cryptographers, linguists, roboticists, engineers and underwater acousticians. 🐳Why Whales - Sperm whales offer a powerful model system for studying non-human communication. They live in matrilineal societies with culturally transmitted dialects and produce structured, click-based vocalizations (“codas”) that are discrete and analyzable at scale. While CETI’s work begins with sperm whales, it is designed to expand across closely related whale species, enabling a comparative approach to studying communication. 🔬In the Research - We have published over 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers — from discovering sperm whales have vowel and diphthong-like structures in their coda clicks, to inventing WhAM (Whale Acoustics Model), the first transformer-based model capable of generating synthetic sperm whale codas, and gentle robotics such as the first-of-its-kind AI-powered underwater glider system capable of autonomously tracking and responding to sperm whale behavior in real time. Each discovery advances us towards realizing the future of interspecies communication. 🌟Our Collective Hope - Our findings don’t just expand our scientific understanding — they deepen our responsibility. Just as Copernicus revealed that Earth was not the center of the cosmos, we hope and dream that our collective work and mission can represent a similar shift — a recognition that we are not the only beings with rich internal and communal lives. We’re glad you are swimming along with us as we continue to listen to and learn from the whales.🐳💙 Photos: Jaime Rojo, Zahrek Gonzalez-Peltier, Amanda Cotton, Spencer Lowell

What would you want to learn from whales? Listen to some of our favorite National Geographic Society Explorers share their answers live from the National Geographic Explorers Festival last week! 🪸Titouan Bernicot 🔬Theanne Schiros 🎥Manu Akatsa 🎨Tara Keir 🌍Malaika Vaz 🌊Enric Sala 📸Prasenjeet Yadav 🤿Dr. Diva Amon We invite you to listen, reflect, and record your audio message for The Deep Archive here: https://lnkd.in/dpMYjV6N

Have you heard of Hope Spots? Sharing some ocean optimism for this World Ocean Month🌊 Mission Blue’s Hope Spots are over 169 critical places in the ocean—vital to biodiversity, resilience, and life on Earth which are championed by local leaders and grounded in science. Discover the Hope Spots here: https://lnkd.in/dJfrA-FG

Interested in working with Project CETI? The application for the role of Senior Director of Research Management is open until June 25th ⏰ 🐳 Details below!

Did you know every sperm whale’s fluke/tail is unique, just like a fingerprint? Researchers use photos of whales’ tails to identify them and build long-term records of where, when and with whom each whale is seen. This World Ocean Month, you can discover the fluke identification pictures of 20 of the most often encountered sperm whale families off the coast of Dominica in the latest CETI x The Dominica Sperm Whale Project (DSWP) Fluke Book. Drifter, whose fluke appears on the front cover, is an elder female in Unit D for which we have the longest photo-identification record. She was first identified off Dominica in 1984, and most recently identified 42 years later in spring 2026 🐳 Explore the new Fluke Book at https://lnkd.in/dJfrA-FG