Hiya, matey!

44
Dolphin Fun and
Games
Is it all just play?
by Peg Lopata

FEATURES
10 18 30 34 38 42
Lost and Alone Where Whales Commotion in The Last of A Whale- Floating Gold
Th Came From the Ocean the Vaquita Sized Battle

by Linda Romero by Devin A. Reese by Gail Skroback

Kirschner by Sarah Webb by Charles C. Hofer by Nora Nickum Hennessey
 FEBRUARY 2022
DEPARTMENTS Volume 26, Issue #02
James M. “Moby” O’Connor
2 Parallel U Joseph “Migaloo” Taylor
by Caanan Grall Emily “Cetus” Cambias
Hayley “Baby Beluga” Kim
6 Muse News Nicole “Flipper” Welch
by Elizabeth Preston Harrison “Monstro” Hugron
David “Keiko” Stockdale
15 A Closer Look: Kathryn “Echo” Hulick
Tracy “Namu” Vonder Brink
Entangled Caanan “Pinky” Grall
by Nora Nickum
16 Photo Op: ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION,
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Tell-Tail Signs Carl Bereiter
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
by Emily Cambias John A. Brinkman

22 Infographic: NATIONAL CREATIVITY NETWORK

Dennis W. Cheek
Whales COOPERATIVE CHILDREN’S BOOK CENTER, A LIBRARY
OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF
24 Photo Op: WISCONSIN–MADISON
K. T. Horning
From the Air FREUDENTHAL INSTITUTE
Jan de Lange
by Nora Nickum FERMILAB
Leon Lederman
26 Science@Work: UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Michelle Fournet Sheilagh C. Ogilvie
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
by Emily Cambias Jay M. Pasachoff

41 Do the Math: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Paul Sereno
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“Lost and Alone,” text © 2015 by Linda Romero Kirschner; “Commotion in the Ocean,” text © 2013

YOUR TURN by Sarah Webb; “Q&A,” text © 2010 by Robert J. Coontz and Rebecca Lasley; “Do the Math: Advanced
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40
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Q&A Chadwick/Shutterstock.com, (RB) KEVIN ELSBY / Alamy Stock Photo; 16-17 (bkg) Mila_Endo/Shutterstock.com; 17 (RC) Sallye/Shutterstock.
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20 (LT) Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo, (RB) EreborMountain/Shutterstock.com; 21 (TC) Chase Dekker/Shutterstock.com; 22-23
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Conversations (LC-2) Multigon/Shutterstock.com, (TC) Mintoboru/Shutterstock.com, (RC-2) Kumpeh_Studio/Shutterstock.com; 23 – NotionPic/Shutterstock.

com, (LB) Pretty Vectors/Shutterstock.com, (LT) Zhenyakot/Shutterstock.com, (LC) Hafid Firman/Shutterstock.com, (LC-2) A Aleksii/

with Cetaceans Shutterstock.com; 24 (TC) LALS STOCK/Shutterstock.com, (BC), (RT) Center for Whale Research / University of Exeter, taken under NMFS permit
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AARTI
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AGE 13 From time to time, MUSE mails to its subscribers advertisements for other Cricket Media products
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BORNN San Francisco and services. If you prefer not to receive such mail, write to us at MUSE, PO Box 6395, Harlan, IA
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RESTS Art and design,
INTER
neering, nano constructs,
engin
documentaries
ONCEE SAID “I just experienced
every
y conceivable version of
myseelf!”
PARALLEL U CAANAN GRALL
 Muse
)! The fi

d I r y l

fi

Percy
Jackson and the Olympians
The Heroes of Olympus
n (Harry
Potter Hunger
Games  
Divergent

of the

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/ age 12 / Southern California

A fellow
Thanks for sharing about the vaquita, Cora, and for encouraging us interdimensional
to do the same. Your wish is our command: Check out page 34 for traveler! I’ve yet
an article about the fight to save the world’s smallest cetacean and to try a fictional
rarest marine animal. If only we could wave a magic wand to keep dimension. You’ll have
these beautiful animals from soon going extinct… to give me some tips.
 g Muse 
r y

Th

y fi

Th

Muse

Muse

n fi
fi

y fl ff
ff / Always Questioning
Everything / British Columbia,  
Canada Th

Keep looking at
things from / age 13 / Maryland
a different
perspective,
because it can
lead to excellent
questions like this one. A
great benefit of electric
vehicles is that they don’t
m? Th Incredible, you’ve
produce emissions while
running. But you’re right: found a way to time
ff
Just as it’s important that travel! We don’t
electric vehicle technology quite know where
continues to advance, the HPBs came from,
we must also explore only that they easily hop
cleaner ways of generating in and out of dimensions when we
Muse electricity. least expect it.
Muse

Muse

Th

Muse

. F
ff

 
/ age 10 / Great Ga’hoole tree, island of Hoole, Sea / age 11 / The Quokka Kingdom
Of Hoolmere (from the book series Guardians of Ga’hoole

.  f y

Animal intelligence is a terrific

topic! …check out the
rest of this issue for articles
about dolphins and porpoises,
as well as whales!

Send letters to Muse Mail,

1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
or email them to
muse@cricketmedia.com.
text © 2022 by Elizabeth Preston BY ELIZABETH PRESTON

PHYSIOLOGY

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PLANTS

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 MARINE BIOLOGY

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CHK, CHK, CHK, CHKCHKCHK!

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 Chirp!

Squeak!

LINGUISTICS

Th

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Los&t
l by Linda Romero Kirschner
 ildlife experts have held different
opinions on whether human
interaction with lost or injured wild
animals is helpful or hurtful. Some
caution that interfering in nature can
leave animals dependent on people,
so that they lose the ability to survive on
their own and can never return to the wild.
Others insist it is our responsibility to reach
out and attempt to help other creatures in
dire circumstances. An orca brought experts
from both sides of the table together for an
ambitious animal rescue off North America’s
Pacific Coast.
something must happen quickly. 

et
202
0 0 byy I

her dependent on them. 

P
rso
son
n
 sea. 

swam in the opposite direction! 

The Seattle Times

had saved baby Springer. 

 BY NORA NICKUM

Photo credit:
Center for Coastal Studies, NOAA
permit number 18786-01.

nfl
Th
fi o fi

s. Th
t fi d fl
o fl

Th

fi

fi
text © 2022 by Nora Nickum

f fi lives on an island and works

on ocean conservation policy for the Seattle
Aquarium. Her middle-grade book
Superpod—about orcas, her favorite
whales—is coming out in early 2023.
BY EMILY CAMBIAS

TELL-TAIL SIGNS
FLUKES AND DORSAL
FINS CAN BE REVEALING

Th

fi

A
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 Th
flukes
ff
s. Th
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fl fl

Th ff
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fi t: Th
fl
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 Where
Whale
Came From
HOW THESE MAGNIFICENT
SEA CREATURES EVOLVED
FROM HOOVED LAND
ANIMALS
hales today include the largest animal
ever on the planet—the blue whale
(Balaenoptera musculus). At 300,000
pounds (136,000 kg), a blue whale
can rival the weight of about 40 adult
female African elephants! Because of their insulating
blubber, whales can survive freezing temperatures as they
swim long distances and take deep dives. But whales were
not always so superbly adapted to open ocean life.
by
If you examine their bodies, there’s
evidence that whales came from
terrestrial ancestors—animals that
lived on land. Whales have five
fingered hand bones inside their
flippers. As embryos, whales have tiny
back legs, which go away before birth.
And whales, like humans and other
land mammals, breath air with lungs
and nurse their young. So, where did
whales come from? To answer that
question, scientists look to the fossil
record and whales’ genes—the units
of DNA that pass traits from parents
to offspring
Whale DNA shows that they are
closely related to hooved mammals,
such as deer, giraffes, horses, camels,
and cows. DNA points to hippos as the
closest relative from that group, which
means that whales and hippos shared
an ancestor more recently than any of
the others. For decades, scientists had
 Pakicetus

Am
mbulocetus

Ambulocetus

Ambulocetus
Rodhocetus

Rodhocetus

Pakicetus Rodhocetus

Pakicetus
Indoyhus

Pakicetus
Indohyus
Indohyus

Basilosaurus

Indohyus
 Basilosaurus
Dorudon’s

Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus

Dorudon Dorudon

Basilosaurus
Dorudon
text © 2022 by Devin A. Reese

, Ph.D., discovered her

fascination with other species as a kid

snakes. Later, she conducted research on

turtles. She is now a science writer in
Alexandria, Virginia, where she has raised
three primate offspring.
 INFOGRAPHIC DESIGNED BY HARRISON HUGRON

Whales
Some Breathtaking Facts

Humpback whales are especially acrobatic,

jumping out of the water, or breaching, despite
their massive size. Engineers have studied their
flippers to create more efficient wind turbines.

A Cuvier’s beaked whale has

been recorded to have dived 1.9
miles down (2,992 m). It can
hold its breath for more than
three hours.
Narwhals can survive winters in areas with
mostly ice and less than5% open water.

+
Whales and dolphins usually havve
three or four stomach chambers..
The Baird’s beaked whale can
have 13 stomachs.
 Blue whales are the largest creatures ever to have lived on Earth. They can grow to a length
of 100 feet (30 m) and weigh330,000 pounds (150,000 kg), larger than any dinosaur.

Sperm whales are the loudest animals on Earth. Its massive sound-producing nose—which can make
up to a third of its entire body—can produce more sound than ajet airplane on takeoff.

Whales migrate longer distances than any other mammal. Gray whales can travel up to
166,700
700 miles (26,800
(26 800 km) in one year
year—which
which is more than halfway around the globe!

Some whale species live longer than any other mammal on Earth.
200
The bowhead whale inn the Arctic can live for more than years.
BY NORA NICKUM

FROM THE AIR

DRONE VIEWS OF
WHALES DELIVER
SOME SURPRISES

n fl

Orca photo credit: Center for Whale

Research/University of Exeter, taken
under NMFS permit number 21238.
The endangered Southern Resident orcas are
known to be very social animals. But research
drones in Washington State recently revealed
they don’t just interact randomly with family
members in their pod. They have buddies!
Michael Weiss from the Center for Whale
Research captured aerial footage of young
orcas rubbing heads and backs and surfacing
to breathe simultaneously with pals of the
same sex and similar age.
Two young males named Nova (also known
as J51) and T’ílem I’nges (J49), for example,
aren’t close relatives. But Weiss’s video showed
them frequently hanging out.
“I wouldn’t hesitate to use the word
friendship here,” Weiss says.
Meanwhile, marine biologists Holly
Fearnbach of SeaLife Response, Rehabilitation,
and Research and John Durban of Southall
Environmental Associates take photos from
drones to monitor the body condition of these
whales, which helps them better understand
the health of the population. They alert
management agencies when individual whales
look particularly thin or are heavily pregnant,
so boaters can be urged to give them more
space to find food. Fearnbach says that they
can monitor the health of Southern Residents
throughout the year, which can help them
detect any changes.
Photo credit:
Clara Bird, taken
under NOAA permit
number 16111.
Photo credit: Center
for Whale Research/
University of Exeter,
taken under NMFS
permit number 21238.
Leigh Torres, a marine ecologist at Oregon
State University, uses drones to photograph
gray whales’ bodies and track their health over
time. Examining videos taken by the drones,
she noticed gray whales sometimes pointed
vertically in the water with their tail flukes up,
like they were doing underwater headstands.
It’s likely a maneuver to get food from crevices
between rocks, different from what scientists
understood to be their usual method of plowing
along the bottom to suck up food. “They use a
bunch of different bizarre feeding strategies,
and the drones helped us see that,” Torres says.
Torres was even more surprised to see
footage of gray whales swimming upside-down.
“I’ve seen it for minutes at a time,” she says. “It
must help them feed or see things better.”
Now, Torres’s team is looking at individual
gray whales’ body measurements alongside
observations of them doing headstands, upside-
down swimming, and other behaviors. Clara
Bird, a graduate student, hopes to discover if
whales get fatter and healthier when they use
particular strategies to find food. “This research
question is especially exciting because it
combines all of our drone data,” Bird says.
Who knows what else might be revealed in
text © 2022 by Nora Nickum
the coming years? With drones in many ways
just getting started, more surprises could be on
the horizon.
works on policies to support recovery of
the endangered orcas, including by reducing noise
from ships and small boats. She’d like to be friends with
an orca and watch a gray whale do gymnastics.
 Loud and clear!

Can you hear me?

By Emily Cambias

MICHELLE FOURNET
MARINE ECOLOGIST

She conducts research for the K. Lisa Yang

Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University
in Ithaca, New York. Fournet is featured in the recent Apple+
documentary Fathom, which shows her collecting and examining
humpback whale vocalizations. She began by telling us: “My job
means that I get to listen to the voices of whales, and seals, and
also fish in order to understand how they’re talking to each other,,
what they may be saying, and how human activity changed the
way that animals underwater communicate with each other.”
I WAS EXPECTING THE
WHALES AND THE
SEALS, BUT I WAS NOT
EXPECTING THE FISH!
Th
HOW DO YOU HEAR SOUNDS
UNDERWATER? DO YOU JUST
STICK A MICROPHONE IN THE
WATER AND LISTEN?

t fi
l fi

e fi Th

. Th
HOW DOES A FISH MAKE
SOUND? DOES IT HAVE
VOCAL CORDS?
Th

. Th
Th

e fi SO, IN OTHER WORDS, YOU’RE PUTTING THE

fi , fl HYDROPHONE IN THE WATER AND PLAYING WHAT
YOU THINK MIGHT BE A “HELLO” TO SEE IF THEY
fi SAY “HELLO” BACK.

fi

bup-buuup-bup-buuup
fi k. Th
Th
Th . Th whup
brrrrrrrup-pop

AND DO THEY SAY HELLO BACK?

ARE THERE ANY OTHER CALLS THAT YOU’VE

IDENTIFIED?
t. Th . Th

e fi

s fi
 n fi

YOU MUST ALSO BE

PICKING UP A LOT OF
HUMAN NOISE LIKE
SHIPS AND SIGNALS.

YOU ALSO MENTIONED SEALS—ARE YOU PLAYING

ANYTHING TO THEM?

s. Th

d fi
f fi
gs. Th
. Th

e fi

o fi

n fi
g. Th
 . Th

x. Th
ff

. Th

IT SEEMS ALMOST LIKE BEING IN A CROWDED ROOM

AND SHOUTING YOUR FRIEND’S NAME TO GET THEIR
THAT REMINDS ME OF A ATTENTION, VERSUS BEING IN AN EMPTY ROOM
STUDY IN WHICH THEY WHERE YOU CAN HAVE A LONGER CONVERSATION
FOUND THAT CITY BIRDS WITH YOUR FRIEND IN A NORMAL VOICE.
SANG MUCH LOUDER
THAN BIRDS OUT IN THE
COUNTRYSIDE, BECAUSE
OF ALL THE HUMAN
NOISE AROUND THEM.
HAVE WHALES CHANGED
THE WAY THAT THEY
CALL TO EACH OTHER
BECAUSE OF HUMAN
ACTIVITY? COULD YOU TREAT US TO A WHALE ENCOUNTER THAT
YOU REMEMBER?

. Th

ff s. Th

e. Th
. Th

e. Th is an assistant editor for Muse. She has seen whales from a

distance, but has only ever heard their songs in her dreams.
 by Sarah Webb

in the Ocean
 All ocean animals that have a
backbone can hear, Darlene Ketten
says. She studies hearing in humans
and many other animals at Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution in
Massachusetts.  animals relate to their environment,
You depend on your ears to
communicate with others. You
also rely on sound to know what’s
around you, as when you walk down
a dark hallway or when you realize
that someone is sneaking up behind
you. Ocean creatures have to rely
on their ears even more, since light
doesn’t penetrate very far into water,
and the deep ocean is very dark. For
this reason, Ketten says, “Virtually
all marine animals have hearing as
their primary sense.” Whales and
dolphins rely on sound to find food, to
communicate, and to find a mate.
We humans spend most of our time
on land. But the sounds we create,
particularly with our ships, add to the
underwater din. The amount of noise i
the oceans has doubled every 10 years
for the last 40 years. Researchers are
trying to understand how our din affect
animals—and how to keep them safe.  piles, deep underwater. To place those
Imagine that you’re standing in a
noisy gym. Other kids are playing
and cheering. It’s so loud that even if
your friend tried to warn you about a
basketball headed toward the back of
your head, you wouldn’t hear her.  in some cases. Scientists became
Animals face the same challenges
when humans add noise to their
environments. The biggest problem
is not that sound will harm fish and
whales physically, but that they won’t
be able to hear important messages,
says Arthur Popper. He studies fish
and their
hearing at the
University
of Maryland.
The extra noise can change how these
he says. “It affects their ability to get
the world around them, something
called the acoustic scene.”  Ketten says, leading them to flee the
Humans add a variety of sounds
to the oceans. As large ships carry
cargo to ports around the world,
their motors rumble just like trucks
on a highway. Human military and
fishing vessels use sonar, a tool that
bounces sound waves off of objects in
the ocean, to find out what’s nearby.
Seismic air guns are tools that use
compressed air to create loud noises,
sending waves like earthquakes
through the ocean floor. Scientists use
the sounds these air guns produce to
study the earth below the ocean, and
oil and gas companies use them to
look for new sources.  and sonar just to protect them.
As humans build bridges or place
wind turbines to harness energy, they
have to set heavy supports, called
supports safely, the construction
teams drive the piles deep into the
ground below rivers and harbors.
Just like the jackhammers on a
construction site on land, that process
creates a racket in the water.  know very little about how these
Underwater noise can be deadly
particularly interested in the
problem of noise in the ocean after
several events in which beaked
whales washed up on beaches and
became stranded. These strandings
happened when naval ships had
been using sonar nearby. Some of the
whales died, but scientists still don’t
understand exactly what happened to
them. The sound might have been like
nails on a chalkboard to the whales,
ocean.
Whale strandings related to sound
are rare, though. In the vast ocean,
animals can often escape from loud
noises safely, by simply swimming
away. But what if a loud noise occurs
someplace an animal really needs to
be? If it’s too noisy where humpback
whales feed, or if loud noises steer sea
turtles off course, we could change ho
they live—and whether they survive.  
Many marine mammals and
sea turtles, and some species of
fish, are endangered. We can’t
stop all our drilling, construction,
But a U.S. government agency, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has written
guidelines so that human activities
have as little impact as possible on
these animals.
Building these guidelines has
been challenging, says Amy Scholik-
Schlomer, a biologist at NOAA. We
animals live and how they respond to
noise. But scientists are finding ways
to learn more, which will help Scholik-
Schlomer and others create better
guidelines.
Studying animal hearing and behavior
changes isn’t always easy. Scientists
can’t give whales hearing tests in
the ocean, for instance. We can’t
deliberately expose them to loud
noises to see what might happen,
because those experiments would
be unethical. And even if they were
ethical, they might not be practical
with such large animals in the
ocean—we can’t exactly follow a
whale everywhere it goes.
One way to understand animal
hearing is by studying the ears of
animals that have died. Ketten and
her colleagues have studied the
ears of whales, dolphins, and other
animals to better understand how
they work and how the environment
might have affected them.
The scientists can see that
dolphins and whales have evolved
ears that are good at hearing in
water, rather than air. The shapes of
their heads and the tissues that they
use are different from ours, Ketten
says. Dolphins devote a larger part
of their brains to hearing. On top
of that, “their ears are much more
complex,” she says. “There are about
a million little structures in a cubic
centimeter.”
Not all animals hear the same
ranges of sound. Dolphins, for
example, can pick up higher-
pitched sounds than humans can.
Humpback whales can hear lower
sounds. Sea lions, seals, sea turtles,
and many fish fall somewhere in
the middle.
For different animals, scientist
are most concerned with the dangers
of sounds that are within their
hearing range. If a sound is higher
or lower than what they can hear,
it won’t affect them. Most human
produced sounds are in the lower
ranges, which means that baleen
whales—species such as humpbacks
that have rows of plates in their
mouths to help them filter food—ar
often at the greatest risk.
Animals can lose their hearing
temporarily or permanently if
they’re exposed to loud noises.
Although researchers can’t study live
whales and dolphins in a laboratory,
they can study fish. Arthur Popper
is one of the researchers studying
fish hearing in the lab. He and
his colleagues have developed an
instrument called the HICI-FT (he
pronounces it “hissy fit”) that allows
scientists to expose fish to levels of
sound similar to those that occur
during pile driving. This lets them
study how those sounds affect fis
that can’t swim away.
In some cases, the loud sounds
temporarily damaged their hearing.
But unlike humans and marine
mammals, fish can repair the
sensory cells in their ears and
add them their whole lives,
Popper says. That unusual
ability made the hearing damage
temporary rather than permanent.
To protect animals, humans might
sometimes need to move our work
to another location. Another option
could be for humans to drill for oil
or build wind turbines only during a
certain time of year. While humans
work in a particular area, scientists
are often standing by to watch what
happens to the animals.
But there are other ways to
protect wildlife. One way to muffl
loud underwater sounds is to create
an air barrier with a curtain of
bubbles, says Popper. Because sound
waves travel more slowly through air,
these bubbles help put the brakes on
the noise. It’s like closing a door or
adding soundproof padding to a room.
Monitoring systems are helping
researchers find whales underwater,
he adds. Scientists have placed
networks of hydrophones—underwater
microphones—in areas where
whales gather, such as Stellwagen
Bank National Marine Sanctuary off
the coast of Massachusetts. These
networks let ships know that whales
are in the area so that they can slow
down or change direction. They also
record underwater noises—both
those made by animals and those
made by humans. 
While we try to keep marine animals
safe from the racket we make, there are
still a lot of things we don’t know. For
example, we know almost nothing about
how sea turtles live or how they use the
sounds around them. This is becaus
sea turtles spend years of their lives
swimming in the ocean far from human
observers. Their hearing might chang
over the course of their lives, since
their bodies (including their ears) grow
continuously, from the size of a half-
dollar coin up to 900 pounds (400 kg). 
We also know very little about
hearing in invertebrates (spineless
animals such as sea stars, jellyfish, o
crabs). And these animals are often food
for larger animals. So, if a sound affect
squid, for example, it could also affec
the sperm whales that feed on them. 
Every small change can cause a
chain reaction involving many species
in the food web. So, understanding the
complex effects of our noisy activities
will be hard. But as we learn more
about ocean animals and their hearing,
we can figure out how to help wildlife
that can’t help but overhear us.
, a former chemist, is the
associate science media editor at the Krell
Institute. There, she writes and edits articles
about large-scale computational research
projects. Her personal sound environment
in Tennessee includes her husband, two
cats, and what we can only assume is a
pretty noisy Senegal parrot.
 The
of the
Vaquita
by Charles C. Hofer
ust south of the U.S.-Mexico border,
in the Mexican state of Sonora, sits
a region of breathtaking natural
beauty. It’s a world where the desert
meets the sea. Off any coastal highway lies
the seemingly endless Sonoran Desert,
punctuated by giant saguaro cactus.
On the other side of the road are the
warm waters of the Gulf of California,
home to a dizzying array of marine
life. Legendary ocean explorer Jacques
Cousteau dubbed these waters “The
World’s Aquarium.”
But all is not well in this marine
paradise. One of the Gulf’s most beloved
residents is teetering on the brink of
extinction. The vaquita, which in Spanish
THE WORLD’S
SMALLEST
PORPOISE
FACES
EXTINCTION.
means “little cow,” is the world’s smallest
cetacean. It’s also the most endangered
marine mammal on Earth.
Known to science only since 1958, the
vaquita might vanish before we ever fully
understand it. The species’ population has
dropped a staggering 98 percent in the last
two decades. An estimated 600 vaquita
roamed these waters in 1997. A decade
later, about 250. By 2015, just 60 vaquita
remained. Today, scientists estimate that
around 10 vaquita live in the wild. “Every
time I see one, I wonder: Is this the last one
I’m going to see?” Bob Pitman, an ecologist
who studied cetaceans for many years at
NOAA Fisheries, has told journalists. “Is
this the last one anyone’s going to see?”
The vaquita is one of seven porpoise
species known worldwide—and it’s by
far the smallest. An adult vaquita barely
reaches five feet long (1.5 m) tip to tip.
With a blunt nose, dark eye rings, and
small stature, the vaquita strikes many
people as cute and charismatic. This
petite cetacean is found in only one small
corner of our vast world—the shallow
waters of the Upper Gulf of California.
Here the vaquita feeds on the Gulf’s rich
variety of marine life such as small fish,
shrimp, squid, and octopus.
Other than diet, little is known about
the habits of the vaquita or its role in
the marine ecosystem. Unlike dolphins,
vaquitas tend to be shy. Their elusive
behavior, along with their low population
numbers and small stature, make them
difficult to study in the wild. To surve
for this rarely seen species, scientists use
subaquatic listening devices to detect the
unique squeaks and squeals that vaquita
use to communicate with one another.
Like some other critically endangered
animals, the vaquita has a low rate of
reproduction, which hasn’t helped its
long-term prospects. Females don’t reach
reproductive age until they are three to
six years old and then typically give birth
to one pup every other year. This slow
reproductive rate will do little to reverse
population trends.

Like so many stories about endangerment

and extinction, the tragic story
of the vaquita is one of greed and
mismanagement, where wildlife loses
out to the livelihoods of humans. The
decline of the vaquita is tied to another
vulnerable species found in here in the
Upper Gulf: the totoaba, a fish similar in
size to the vaquita. Unlike the vaquita,
however, totoaba is a rich prize in illegal
markets. The swim bladder of the totoaba
text © 2022 by Charles C. Hofer

is a delicacy in the black markets of Asia.

It’s believed to possess fantastic medical
cures for anyone who eats it (although no
science supports this claim). Regardless,
some people are willing to pay a high
price for this dubious medicine. Just one
totoaba swim bladder can fetch up to
$25,000 on the black market.
 The largest
porpoise is the Dall’s porpoise and the
smallest is the vaquita. Here are a few
porpoises (not drawn to scale).

» Educate yourself and others. Read about

their stories and write letters of support to
your political leaders.
» Purchase with care. Learn about the
seafood you eat before buying or ordering it.
» Travel wisely. The places you and your
family visit and the money you spend there
can help support tourism-related jobs and
protect wildlife.
» Don’t pollute. Think about what you
consume and what you do with waste
material. Every small action can help.

Efforts to save the last of the vaquita
have had mixed results ever since
conservationists sounded the alarm in
1995. That’s when the species was firs
declared endangered in Mexico. As the
population spiraled downwards, the
Mexican government created a vaquita
refuge in the Upper Gulf in 2005. This
sprawling area would be a protected
zone, with limited fishing and increased
law enforcement.
In 2015, Mexico enacted even stricter
rules within the refuge. Gillnets were
banned. Law enforcement patrols
increased. And the Mexican government
started paying fishermen not to fish i
the areas within and surrounding the
refuge. The local fishing communitie
were very much in favor of these strict
regulations. The image of the vaquita
has become an icon here in the Upper
Gulf. Images of the vaquita adorn murals,
schools, and government buildings in
fishing towns like San Felipe and El
Golfo de Santa Clara. Many of the local
fisherman take pride in the vaquita and
want to help protect the species.
But these efforts were undermined b
the government’s lack of enforcement.
While the honest fishermen followe
the rules by staying out of the protected
areas, illegal fishing operators—calle
poachers—moved right in. With no
competition, poachers were now
free to scour the sea in search for the
prized totoaba—and whatever species
happened to get caught in their deadly
gillnets. “Realistically, it’s the essence
of San Felipe; there’s nothing else to do
but fishing,” says San Felipe fisher Al
Valverde in the documentary Souls
of the Vermilion Sea. “But the essence
of respect for the sea has been lost.”
Overfishing ravaged the Upper Gul
and once again, the vaquita’s spiral
towards extinction picked up speed.
Along the shores of the Upper Gulf,
at the edge of the vaquita’s range, sits
the Intercultural Center for the Study
of Deserts and Oceans, a research
and educational facility. A big part
of CEDO’s mission is to help grow
strong communities that strike a
balance between protecting natural
resources, like a healthy fishery, whil
still supporting livelihoods (jobs) that
depend on that fishery. It’s this balanc
between community and the natural
world that might prevent the next
tragic story like the vaquita’s. “It is a
painful story, to witness an extinction,”
says Nélida Barajas Acosta, CEDO’s
executive director. “Let’s learn from it
so that it does not happen again.”
In our busy, modern world, we
often forget where our food comes
from. We purchase seafood from the
frozen food aisle at the grocery store,
but these resources originate in places
like the Upper Gulf of California. With
the world’s increasing appetites for
seafood, sustainable fishing practices
are more important than ever.
Sadly, the vaquita’s story isn’t
unique. Other cetaceans are also facing
extinction. The Ganges River dolphi
in India and the Atlantic humpback
dolphin off the coast of Africa are othe
marine mammals with rapidly declining
worldwide populations. Although they
come from vastly different parts of th
world, all three of these cetaceans have
one thing in common: They share thei
waters with communities that get their
livelihood from the sea. Building resilient
human communities with strong
management practices is the best way
to avoid over-fishing and destroying
fishery that so many lives—human an
animal—depend on.
is a wildlife biologist and
writer in Southern Arizona, not far from where
the vaquita lives. He’d like to thank his good
friends at CEDO (www.cedo.org) for their help
with this feature article. Their tireless work will
help ensure the tragic story of the vaquita is
 kum
Nic
a
Nor
b y

BA
AGA
CLIM
CHA
A
Th
 Tiny crustaceans such as
copepods are moving away
from waters warmed by climate
change and heading north where
it’s still cool. North Atlantic right
whales that feed on them must
travel farther—which takes

ATTLE
more energy. Right whales “are

out how to make a living in this

new ocean,” says expert Andrew
Pershing. “But the decline in

AINST
the number of babies they are
producing suggests that this is
not easy for them.”
Meanwhile, as Arctic ice melts,
people can access areas they

MATE
couldn’t easily get to before.
Whales like belugas will experience
more pollution and ship noise in
places that used to be clean and
quiet. For baleen whales, there will

ANGE
also be fewer krill—shrimp-like
crustaceans—to eat in those areas,
because krill rely on sea ice for
shelter and microbial food
sources in the winter.
To the south, in warmer
waters, the places where some
humpback whales mate and
give birth will become too warm.
They’ll have to move to new
locations.

ways to start adapting to climate

change, at least for the time
being. For example, as the ice
melts, orcas are venturing farther
north in search of food. That isn’t
good news for belugas, though, as
they now have a greater chance of
becoming an orca’s dinner!

works on ocean
conservation policy for the Seattle
Aquarium. She lives on an island, and
when she’s not writing about whales,
she’s watching for them or wondering
about them.
 BY ROBERT J. COONTZ AND REBECCA LASLEY

Q:
Why do most
of us only feel
comfortable
singing in the
shower?
—Zoë O

A:
Q:
When I touch
something
hot, why does
it take a few
seconds for my
finger to hurt?
Wouldn’t I
move my hand
faster and have the withdrawal reflex
a smaller burn Th
if it hurt right
fi away?
Th —Maisie W.-G.

A:
 
ff

ouch
—Robert

Send them to Muse Q&A,

1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
—Rebecca or email them to
muse@cricketmedia.com.
BY IVARS PETERSON

d fl

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s fl
d fi  
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s fl
Th

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Th e a fl
fi

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likes looking for math
in surprising places, then writing about
it for Science News magazine
Th (www.sciencenews.org). He prefers
d fl h fl showers to baths.
 P A Y TO K EEP Y OUR
C A N
IT EL ED AT THE BEACH
P E
EYES
ouple walking along a
each in western South
ustralia in 2006 spotted
omething unusual.
huge, solid, grayish
g in the sand. At first
they thought it was a tree stump or a
rock, but the crusty, waxy lump was
something much better: whale vomit.
Think you’d be unhappy to stumble
across a big pile of desiccated whale
puke? The couple who found it was
thrilled—not because they’re big vomit
fans, but because such a find can
actually be quite valuable.
!
hardens, and turns a grayish color.
It even takes on a sweet fragrance.
Nicknamed “floating gold,
ambergris has long been used in the
making of perfume—and some of the
most expensive perfumes, at that. That’
because ambergris is used as a fixative
a chemical that absorbs the scents
and helps keep them from changing
or evaporating. Today, because it is so
rare and expensive, many companies
use synthetic chemicals, instead of
ambergris, in their perfumes. But real
ambergris often still works the best. 

The nicer-sounding name for whale

vomit is ambergris. It comes from the
French term ambre gris, meaning
“gray amber.” Specifically, it is vomit
from a sperm whale. Ambergris is made
of all the things that sperm whales can’t
digest, including the beaks of squid
and cuttlefish, a sperm whale’s favorite
foods.
Being lighter in weight than ocean
water, the vomit usually floats along
the surface. At first it is smelly, soft, and
black, but after being exposed to the
sun and salt water, it loses its foul odor,
 is a retired social
studies teacher who enjoys writing about
science. She lives in New York state, where
she has yet to discover any valuable chunks
  of vomit lying around—whale or otherwise.
 text © 2022 by Peg Lopata

by Peg Lopata

and Gam s

T
he young dolphin
gives a quick flip of
its head, and as if
by magic, a silver
ring appears in
front of it. The donut-shaped
bubble is two feet (about
a half a meter) across and
doesn’t immediately rise
to the surface. The dolphin
pushes the shiny donut, and
after a few moments, creates
another. Sound like fun?
Definitely! But is the dolphin
just playing, or is something
more going on?
The creation of these rings, accordin
to some scientists, is play. Diana Reiss,
a professor of psychology at Hunter
College, New York, says, “We can never
be sure, but I’m pretty convinced what
they are doing with the bubbles is a
conscious, playful act. It seems like it’s
fun for them.”
Both wild and captive dolphins
form bubble rings as they expel air
from their blowholes. Sometimes they
blow a second bubble ring that joins
the first, making the first larger. “
have observed that on occasion they
will then swim through the larger ring,”
says Reiss. They may also play with th
ring, flipping it over and over   physically. It’s called locomotor play. It’s
Reiss says the way dolphins create
and play with bubble rings indicates
that it’s not just instinctual behavior.
Instead, they are planning ahead,
imagining what their actions will
do and then watching the outcome.
According to Reiss, this kind of
behavior indicates that young dolphins
engage in creative play and learn from
it. So do young human children.  But their movements may in fact
But what exactly is play? One
scientific definition refers to behavio
that are clearly not purposeful. Thi
Your
bite
the b to
behavior can be observed when
dolphins play what could be called the
“Burst My Bubble” game. Heather Hill,
a professor of psychology at St. Mary’s
University in San Antonio, Texas, has
studied the game. “One dolphin makes
a bubble and then sometimes another
dolphin who is watching sometimes
bites the bubble,” she says. “Then th
watching dolphin makes a bubble and
the first dolphin bites that bubble.” Hil
says this is a good example of dolphins
at play. It even looks like they know
how to take turns.
Dolphins seem to play what look
like games. But it’s primarily the
younger ones that come up with new
ways to play. They also are more likel
than adult dolphins to copy these new
“games.” As they mimic one another,
the complexity of the play increases.
Like children, young dolphins learn
from their peers and practice what
they learn.
Young dolphins, like human kids, play
fun, but it also improves physical skills.
Did you ever do a cannonball in a pool?
Did you try to jump higher or tuck
into the smallest ball to make an even
bigger splash? Then you’d understan
that a young dolphin’s spins, swirls,
and leaps help them become stronger
and faster, have quicker reaction times,
and become more agile.
serve a greater purpose. For example,
young dolphins may charge at one
another by sprinting, then body slam
turn
ubble
! urn on
me to
each
hes
elp young
o p ins prac ice e moves they’ll
need to escape a predator, perfect their
hunting skills, find a mate, or fight.
could be that whatever they are playing
at is practice for overcoming real
challenges that will help them
to survive.
Young dolphins, like children, like
to challenge themselves. The lat
Stanley Kuczaj, who was a behavioral
psychologist at the Marine Mammal
Behavior and Cognition Laboratory at
the University of Southern Mississippi,
used to say that play helps dolphins
get better at skills. Kuczaj observed
one dolphin releasing a bubble closer
and closer to the surface—in effect
challenging itself to catch the bubble
before it floated to the surface
Dolphins also seem to play with one
another and can play cooperatively.
Using drones, scientists recently
monitored bottlenose dolphins to
track their behavior underwater. The
saw that dolphins are careful observers
of peers. Male dolphins are able to
figure out who will be helpful and wh
won’t be, and thus whom would be
good team players. Young dolphins are
forming social relationships. As Kuczaj
said, “Play helps young dolphins sort
out their relative social standings.”
For example, during games of chase or
“keep away,” a dominant dolphin
often emerges.
Though their play may look full o
fun, it could also be purposeful. As
Hill admits, “Certainly their behaviors
could be practice. So, for me trying to
distinguish practice from just pure fun
is obviously hard to do.” Is dolphins’
play truly just for fun or preparation
for survival in the sea? Or could it be a
bit of both? What do you think,
young human?
is a freelance writer living in
Somerville, Massachusetts. She says her
idea of play is to visit new places.
 CONTEST

NEW CONTEST
Conversations with
Cetaceans
If you could say something to a
whale, dolphin, or porpoise, or ask
them a question, what would it be?
Might it be something about them
or us, or climate change? What do
you think we humans could learn if
we could talk to these species?
Send us your message in written
form, and we’ll pick our favorites
for our very own message bottle: / 11 / New York
this page!
ANNOUNCING
CONTEST WINNERS!
1. Your contest entry must be your
very own original work. Ideas and In September, we asked
words should not be copied. you to share a picture of
2. Be sure to include your name, what you might find un-
age, and full address on your entry.
der your home. To those
3. Only one entry per person,
please.
who dug deep, we thank
4. If you want your work returned,
you. Here are some of
enclose a self-addressed, stamped our favorite buried trea-
envelope. sures.
5. All entries must be signed by a
parent or legal guardian, saying
that this is your own work and / 10 / Massa
no help was given and granting chusetts
permission to publish. For detailed
information about our compliance
with the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act, visit the policy page
e
at cricketmedia.com/privacy.
6. Your entry must be received by
February 28, 2022. We will publish
winning entries in the July/August
2022 issue of Muse.
7. Send entries to Muse Contest,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611 or via
email to muse@cricketmedia.com. ew York
/ 12 N
If entering a digital photo
or scan, please send at 300 dpi.

AN
NSWERS
RUNNERS-UP

The false story is Honorable Mention

“The Orca-stra.” This month’s runner-up is
Lily M., age 11, Georgia.
 BY KATHRYN HULICK

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Your

Smithsonian

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IS THIS THING
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t fi Her new book, Welcome to the
Future (Quarto, 2021), explores how AI
works and what a future with
advanced AI may look like.
BY DOLL FINN

DOLPHIN DISPATCH
Dear hu
man kid,

I’d tell y
ou what
my name
up with is, but I’
whistles m still w
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What do
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fish righ s quid and . My mo
t out of fish. Sh m’s
I swim u the ope e’s so q
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And wha
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”? May elp you
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t in wat somethin
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Your frie a il.
nd,
A spinne
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calf
 February 2022 Volume 26 Number 02 cricketmedia.com $6.95

but you can hear

over really long
distances.