Observing and Quantifying Cetacean Behavior in the Wild: Current Problems, Limitations, and Future Directions

Abstract

Behavioral research and analysis is prone to both error and bias, particularly in the early stages of a discipline, in part because it is widely (and erroneously) believed that “behavior” is rather simple and can be easily described or quantified. However, since the 1970s for terrestrial animals, and since the late 1990s for marine mammals, systematic protocols of data gathering and ever more sophisticated modeling and multivariate statistical techniques have been described, largely to reduce problems of bias and pseudoreplication. With modern observational protocols, often enhanced by sophisticated multivariable data-gathering tools, the future for more accurate assessments, and therefore interpretations, of the sophisticated social behaviors of wild cetaceans seems assured.

A subgroup of dusky dolphins “boisterously” leaping. Without behavioral context, it is difficult to know whether these leaping animals represent a mating group, with often several males chasing a female in probable estrus; or whether it is a feeding group, with dolphins leaping to rapidly and simultaneously access a school or shoal of small fish just below the surface. (Off Kaikoura, New Zealand, summer 2011–2012, by Anke Kügler)