Richard Sears | Living with Whales

Life With Strings Attached

This week's episode of Life With Strings Attached was filmed on location in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with marine biologist Richard Sears.

Sears is a Franco-American who founded the Mingan Island Cetacean Study in 1979 to study marine mammals in the Saint Lawrence, with an emphasis on baleen whales. He worked with the pioneers of whale research, from whom he learned that in order to know whales, there is no better way than to spend a lot of time at sea.

He started the first long term study of blue whales in the Sea of Cortez, collected the first blue whale identification photographs and biopsies off western Iceland, and collected data on blue whales passing by the archipelago near the Azores.

In addition, he's worked off Georgia, Panama, Costa Rica, New Caledonia, Greenland, Baffin Island, and the Mediterranean. Sears is also a lifelong guitar player and music lover, and collaborated with Nik Huber on the limited Blue Whale series. I wanted to get a better understanding of his work, hear his perspective on whale behaviour and animal consciousness, and draw some connections between his work and the world of music.

I very much enjoyed my conversation with Richard, and I hope that you do too.

Chapter

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. The B-side interest of accomplished people (00:02:21)

3. Richard’s time in France (00:08:05)

4. Richard’s work (00:12:45)

5. Consciousness in animals (00:23:50)

6. How whales communicate and migrate (00:28:45)

7. A word from our sponsor (00:36:41)

8. Migration behaviour (00:37:06)

9. What marine animals have to deal with (00:40:25)

10. How Richard’s work has damaged his optimism (00:47:10)

11. Longer-term view of time (00:58:12)

12. The Nik Huber Blue Whale (01:05:03)

13. A word from our sponsor (01:06:58)

14. The Nik Huber Blue Whale cont. (01:07:23)

15. Retirement (01:13:15)

16. More info on MICS (01:23:57)