[ PBS theme music plays ] ♪♪ DYKSTRA: There's these two worlds of air and water.

Where those worlds merge... the whales are out there.

There really is this extraterrestrial quality to sperm whales.

It's just a world that we know nothing about.

[ Whale clicking ] What are they thinking?

There was one whale that sort of came a bit closer.

Nobody knew this whale, so I called her Dolores.

Just on a whim, I knocked the side of my camera housing -- tick, tick, tick-tick-tick.

And immediately, she stopped completely and turned to face me.

♪♪ [ Whale clicking ] She was so interested and so curious.

♪♪ I think Dolores is gonna take me into her world.

♪♪ [ "Nature" theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Soft, dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Whales singing ] ♪♪ DYKSTRA: There really is this extraterrestrial quality to sperm whales.

♪♪ They're as close as we have to aliens on our own planet.

♪♪ You have these 30,000-pound animals with a brain significantly larger than the human brain, larger than any other animal's brain on earth.

♪♪ What are they thinking?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Breathing heavily ] ♪♪ You know, this journey, for me, you know, started with simply wanting to see the world's biggest animal in its own environment.

When I was 15, I went to the Museum of Natural History, and I just remember seeing this replica of a blue whale.

I just made a point that day -- I said, "I'm gonna see a blue whale in its natural environment."

[ Water bubbling ] ♪♪ One of the first trips I took was to the Azores.

♪♪ We didn't find any blue whales, but along the way, we found other whale species.

Over time, I really fell in love with all of these ocean creatures.

I made other trips looking for blue whales.

I didn't find any blue whales.

I spent a lot of time in Norway with killer whales -- with orca.

[ Whales spouting ] You know, I don't come from a wealthy background.

I had to earn the money that it takes to fund these expeditions.

So I had a career as a corporate lawyer.

But it was a grind.

And there were times there, towards the end, where it felt like I was in prison.

Whales were freedom to me.

They would get me out of that jail, and watching them was like rehabilitation, and I could see into their lives.

The orca off Norway were so charismatic and interesting, especially their noisy hunting techniques.

Sometimes humpback whales would take advantage of all of their hard work, and you could see the killer whale was pretty annoyed with this.

You start to get a sense of what all those squeaks and squeals are about, when they're talking to each other.

They're clearly strategizing on, "How are we gonna do this better?"

I went to Tonga, looking for blue whales.

Didn't find any blue whales, but found humpback whales that might swim over to you and check you out and bring their calf to look at you.

And they have a whole different kind of communication.

Humpback whales sing.

[ Whales singing ] This is not simple conveyance of information.

This is emotion.

This is connecting with each other.

You know, it's music.

♪♪ It was about 10 years before, finally, in southern Sri Lanka, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, I swam with -- with blue whales.

[ Soft music plays ] ♪♪ 'Cause they're so big, they're focused on feeding.

They don't have time in their life to socialize -- at least, not with humans.

They barely do it with each other.

One sort of tilts its head as it's going past.

That's it.

That's a huge achievement to get it to notice you at all.

Blue whales had led me here.

I owe them so much.

But they seem really hard to learn from -- almost impersonal.

♪♪ ♪♪ Sperm whales -- they are all the way at the other end of the spectrum, of tolerance and social behavior.

I mean, look at them.

They are [Chuckles] this big square head, flat tail.

The tiny little flippers on the side, the blowhole on top.

This is what I think of, the word "whale."

You think of a sperm whale.

Orca communication is quite functional.

Then you have humpback whales who are singing and getting emotional connections with other whales.

And then you have sperm whales.

Here's a species that's probably doing both of those things at a very, very high level.

♪♪ I spent time with them in Sri Lanka, in the Azores.

And then you have a place like Dominica.

You've got a population of sperm whales that is more social than almost any other in the world.

♪♪ There's these two worlds of -- of air and water.

♪♪ And it really feels like a place where those worlds merge.

And you've got the blue sky and the bright blue water and the light passing between them.

♪♪ ♪♪ Some whale families were friendlier than others.

One of the first families I met was called Unit U, and they've remained my favorite family.

I still see them every year.

My favorite among them is a young female named Can Opener.

She was named that because she has a bite out of her tail that resembles a car opener.

She's incredibly important to me, and I've learned a lot from her and her family.

I'll always come back to her.

♪♪ But then something strange happened, out of the blue.

And it started like any other time.

We were tracking along with a family that we didn't know before.

♪♪ And there was one whale that sort of came a bit closer.

And then it tilted upwards.

She's sending out a sonar pulse, scanning my body -- your kidney, your lungs, your ribcage, She's really getting a full 3-D picture of what I am, of my interior.

Nobody knew this whale.

I could see she had -- it was like a fresh wound on the side of her face from what was obviously a squid scratch when feeding on some giant squid.

When sperm whales first see each other in the Eastern Caribbean, they make a clicking sound in a very distinct pattern.

Tick, tick, tick-tick-tick, like Morse code.

[ Whale clicking ] Just on a whim, I knocked the side of my camera housing -- tick, tick, tick-tick-tick.

And immediately -- it only took one time -- she stopped completely and then slowly inverted her body and turned completely around and eventually came face-to-face with me again from maybe 2 feet away.

[ Whale clicking ] And then I tried some physical actions.

Then, I rolled in the water.

♪♪ And then I watched, and she rolled in the water.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Whale clicking ] Nobody knew this whale.

She hadn't been named yet.

So I called her Dolores.

♪♪ After about 45 minutes, she slowly rolled over and just disappeared down into the depths.

[ Breathing heavily ] There are lots of reasons that draw me back to Dominica, but she quickly became the whale that I wanted to see the most.

I was worried that I wouldn't find her.

But then she found me.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Whale clicking ] I recognized her pretty quickly, but she recognized me even more quickly, because she came shooting over.

[ Whale clicking ] ♪♪ I was trying different things.

I was making sounds in my snorkel to mimic the sounds that she was making.

[ Tapping ] I would roll, and she'd do her roll, and then look at me [Chuckles] almost like, "Was that okay?

Did I -- Did I do it right?"

♪♪ My instinct is to not physically touch any marine life.

She wasn't having any of that.

She started pushing me to just feel, I think.

It was very gentle to just touch and to get a better understanding, I think, of what I am.

She rose up.

There was nowhere I could go.

I was on her.

She just lifted me completely out of the water, on her face.

♪♪ It's exhilarating, and frightening at the same time, to be riding this whale.

♪♪ ♪♪ She was so interested and so curious.

It felt like genuine excitement from her.

And I felt the same way, obviously.

This was something I thought would never have been possible.

And now it's just a level of intimacy that I've never had with a sperm whale or any kind of whale before.

♪♪ It was just clear to me that we'd really crossed a line.

♪♪ I didn't realize how strong my feelings were until the next season.

♪♪ On Christmas day, I got the news that four hours from where I was based, in England, this incredibly tragic event was unfolding.

[ Waves lapping shore ] It wasn't even a headline story.

It was sort of a note that a group of sperm whales had stranded on the Yorkshire coast.

♪♪ You see stories about sperm whale stranding on beaches occasionally.

And -- And then to see it... Yeah, I-I've never seen a dead sperm whale before.

♪♪ There's another one.

All up and down this beach -- body, body, body, body.

There's another body.

[ Coughing ] Uh, it's just insane.

I... See, it's a young male.

There's more people in Omaha, Nebraska, than there are sperm whales on the whole planet.

You got 10 teenagers dead right here, just in one spot, in one day, all at the same time.

That's not a-a-a sad event.

That's a catastrophe.

That's like -- You know, that changes the whole world of sperm whales in one day.

[ Soft, dramatic music plays ] There's so many mysteries about strandings like this.

It's always together, within yards, normally, of each other.

It's juvenile males.

It's not because they have some disease.

It's not a question of -- of intelligence.

It's not because they don't have a basic understanding of their environment.

Otherwise, you would see one strand and the others are smart enough to not do the exact same thing themselves.

♪♪ How does that happen?

They have to be so close-knit, compared to humans, to all die at the same time, on the same beach.

Why?

♪♪ What can I do to help that not happen again?

♪♪ There is so much to be learned about them as a species that I hope would do this species as a whole a great service.

♪♪ Sperm whales spend such a short period of their life on the surface.

They spend three-quarters of their time down in these abyssal depths, completely dark, hunting and echolocating and trying to find squid.

It's just a world that we know nothing about.

♪♪ The more we learn about them and understand them, the more that we can help protect them.

♪♪ [ Seagulls calling ] Understanding what they do, in the vast amounts of their life that we can't see them, is incredibly important to understanding them.

So far, no one's been able to attach a camera to a sperm whale, other than on the top of the head.

If I could place it below the jaw here, facing forward, that would reveal a view on their life that we've never been able to see before.

The only way is for me to free-dive down and physically place it with my hand here.

There's obvious risks, going as close to its jaw and teeth and placing my hand there and putting a camera on.

If that whale runs, the next thing behind is the tail.

That's coming.

That's coming next as that whale moves out of the way, and that tail could kill you.

[ Water splashes loudly ] [ Soft, dramatic music plays ] I don't think I could get a camera down in that position on a whale that doesn't know me really, really well.

I think Dolores is gonna take me into her world.

I knew that I had to find her again.

♪♪ The area is bigger than California, and there's about 300 sperm whales living in that area, broken down into different family units and pods.

It's grandmothers, mothers, daughters, nieces, and then young males who leave the family when they're in their early teen years.

Dolores' family is called Unit Z, but they roam over a vast distance and can be extremely hard to find.

They use these clicks that we can hear on the hydrophone.

The sound is amplified, and you can hear sound from great distances away.

[ Boat engine revving ] Every time I see a tail fluke, I take a photo of it and then I'm able to identify that individual.

And if it's not one I immediately recognize, I look in the Flukebook to see who it is.

The issue is it's not the -- it's not the unit of whales that we're looking for.

Two of the families that I see the most are Units F and U.

Unit U is named after various kitchen utensils.

It's a family that I know very well.

You're born into a family unit, and you spend your life together with your family, feeding together, sleeping together, socializing together, traveling together -- really together, like physically close together, even, a lot of the time.

That's something that, you know, if you don't understand them in relation to each other and their family and other whales, you can't possibly start to understand them at all.

♪♪ We've left them now.

We're gonna head north.

I've never actually done that in my entire life.

I've never been with whales and decided, "Well, these aren't the specific whales I've tried to work with," and actually left them.

[ Boat engine revving ] ♪♪ [ Radio chatter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ I think Dolores is just a special whale.

Like any relationship, there's risks.

And if I don't see her again, that's tough.

♪♪ It's certainly one of the most fascinating and fulfilling connections I've ever had with any animal, maybe with any -- with anyone in my life.

♪♪ [ Water churning ] The numbers of sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean have been steadily dropping over the years.

And any year that I go back, I don't know if I'm gonna see the family units and the sperm whales that I recognize, because the mortality rate among the population is so high.

[ Water splashing ] ♪♪ SERAPHIN: Songs are coming from the north-northwest.

It's probably about a mile and a half, 2 miles away.

♪♪ ♪♪ DYKSTRA: It's incredibly rare to come across a group of young males.

These are not whales that would allow me to try to place a tag on one of them.

It would be quite dangerous, and I just get a sense that they wouldn't like it.

♪♪ The males are forced out of the family unit -- kicked out, essentially -- when they're in their early teens, and then they leave the family unit and they leave the Eastern Caribbean to go wander the sea and find other young males.

Even their communication can't travel that far, but they find each other... and then they form a bond that lasts a quarter of their life.

And that bond is so strong, you get situations like happened on the beach in England.

♪♪ These young males will all die for each other, and they'll all strand together.

♪♪ And then probably, we think, in their early 30s, they just break up.

They just leave.

And now they're completely solitary.

And the only time they seem to really interact with other sperm whales in this solitary life is when they show up in these resident female units to mate.

Sperm whales make the loudest sound in the animal kingdom.

It's a huge clang that comes from the full-grown male sperm whales.

[ Clang ] It's a much more metallic "tang."

[ Clang ] Sperm whales, the male just shows up, and all the females in the area, including calves -- everybody just goes to him like a magnet.

The clanging sound travels for huge distances and signals that message back to Dolores and to her pod and to all of the sperm whales in the area.

That's my hope, anyway.

[ Clanging ] They have these really ripped-up and scarred faces that come from fights with other males.

You can imagine that they have seen so much in their life.

♪♪ They are like the Pied Piper.

Every whale in the area, like a magnet to these male sperm whales.

♪♪ [ Clang ] This is my best chance to find Dolores.

♪♪ Some of them, as they age, get very white.

These huge, huge sperm whales that are this sort of bright-white color.

And then it really gives you an understanding of what Melville was talking about in "Moby Dick" with these -- this white whale.

It's not really a myth.

Big old male sperm whales are often very white.

♪♪ I look to the left, and there she is.

And I can't mistake that tail for any other tail.

[ Chuckles ] So I know, you know, this is -- this is Dolores.

♪♪ She did sort of, as she was turning, took a look at me, and I'm sure she knew I was there, and I'm sure she recognized me.

But after looking for her for so long, I guess I was hoping that she would acknowledge me and would come over.

Um, but -- but she didn't.

She's following this big male, and she's probably at an age now where she might be thinking about having a calf of her own.

And so, you know, she didn't come over to me.

♪♪ At that moment, as I saw her tail disappear in the distance, I knew then that my year-long plan of placing this tag on her was not gonna happen.

♪♪ Following a big male like that and ending up hundreds of miles from your known area is dangerous for them.

♪♪ Ship strike, fishing-gear entanglement, ocean pollution -- we know that it's us.

♪♪ That day when she disappeared offshore with that big male is the last time I've seen her.

I just want to learn about the rest of your life that I can't see at the surface.

And I know they would show us that part of their life.

♪♪ I think if they could take you down to see how their lives go, they would do it, but they can't, obviously, and we can't survive those pressures.

Is there another whale who could be that messenger?

We've seen Unit U for 10 consecutive days, and the most social of that group is Can Opener.

♪♪ Maybe 2018 -- 2017, 2018 -- I was delighted to see that she had a calf.

It was almost like she'd grown up a bit, like, "Hey dude, I got responsibilities now.

I can't be hanging out, playing with you in the boat.

I gotta take care of my baby."

She was still lovely, and she was still quite calm around me, but she would definitely pay a lot more attention to the calf.

She was not going to follow the big male, because she's already nursing a calf.

The scientists named the calf Hope.

♪♪ I probably know, on an individual level, 15 sperm whales.

But there's two that I think I could place a camera on and not upset them: Dolores and Can Opener.

Is she willing to be the vehicle to take this camera down to the depths and to start to answer questions about how they work together and what their bonds are like when they're not on the surface?

I hope so.

♪♪ ♪♪ Gail's a professional underwater camera operator, there to, hopefully, document this interaction.

You may see her from the boat and know, "Oh, that's her.

I can start it and take it in with me."

JENKINSON: You were talking about deploying this close to the head.

There's gonna be some action going on there, isn't there?

DYKSTRA: Yeah, yeah.

JENKINSON: How difficult do you think it's going to be?

DYKSTRA: It does make me a bit nervous, so if you're with me, I think we both have to be aware, as soon as I place this, the next thing coming is the tail.

So, we've got to back up immediately, so that if she does react, we don't get smashed.

JENKINSON: Okay.

DYKSTRA: Whale.

♪♪ I'll go in, Nigel.

I'll take the tag.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ She felt it for sure, but she didn't change direction, she didn't speed up, she didn't roll, nothing.

Just continued on past.

♪♪ Yeah, she was okay about it.

She handled it very well.

She didn't react at all, really.

It's on the side.

So it's definitely a view that's never been seen before.

But it's back.

It's back a bit.

I can't... She's still up.

Oh, that's the calf.

It's like the front third, but it's definitely not right behind the mouth.

But at least to see her reaction was good.

The tag is designed to release after a set period of time -- in this case, eight hours -- and then it floats to the surface, then I use a satellite tracking device and a VHF radio to locate it on the surface of the ocean.

So, I think it's there, isn't it?

So that's St. Joe?

SERAPHIN: St. Joe?

Never.

[ Wind blowing ] DYKSTRA: We have the frequency.

We programmed it in.

It's got to be around here.

Now it's saying this way.

SERAPHIN: Patrick, it's louder.

It's louder this way now.

Getting it?

DYKSTRA: No.

Keep trying?

♪♪ We'd all but given up hope of finding it.

But just as we turned to head home, a beep came on the radio.

♪♪ ♪♪ Good deployment there.

You can see her eye there.

So, the next big question is whether the light sensor actually turned the lights on at depth.

Good.

[ Whale clicking ] You can hear her starting to echolocate now.

You get these other clicks coming in as if there's either another whale there or somehow she's making a different sound.

[ Whale continues clicking ] Must be other whales down there.

I've not heard that before.

What I'm really listening for when they really try to nail a squid, the pace picks up dramatically.

It goes, tick, tick, tick, rrrrr.

She's speeding way up.

You can see how fast she's swimming now.

There's one.

Yeah.

So you see, her head moved a lot right there.

So that probably was an attack.

We just can't see that because of where the camera is placed, but that probably was a successful hunt.

What's that?

So, something is in the water there.

Potential squid flying past frame there.

[ Whale clicking ] Here went something.

I've never seen that before.

That, in and of itself, is fascinating.

There's objects down there, probably squid, that are going past, that are bioluminescent and appearing green in the frame.

So, now she's surfacing, you see some light now appearing.

And I'm -- Ah, so, these are social clicks now.

She's probably looking for the calf now.

Ah.

Here's, uh -- Here's Hope coming back.

That's fascinating.

So, she joins her.

There's still probably -- I'll check the data.

Oh, moved the tag.

[ Whale clicking ] She bumped the tag with her tail there.

You see, it reoriented it a bit.

Ah, now it's pointing much more downward.

[ Chuckles ] Thanks, Hope.

[ Whale continues clicking ] [ Whale spouting ] My instinct, and I think a lot of people's instinct, is, "Well, we should continue.

We've learned a lot from that.

We should go further.

We should push the envelope and try to learn more."

A few days later, the next time I saw Can Opener, I thought, "Well, let's see how she reacts another time."

This time, I really wanted to make an effort to get that tag really low and really down by the jaw.

♪♪ I showed her the tag, so she would know what was happening, and held it up and she looked and I showed her again and she looked, and I thought, "Okay, well, she's okay with it."

[ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Dramatic music intensifies ] ♪♪ ♪♪ It was scary.

[ Chuckles ] ♪♪ ♪♪ All she has to do is clip you with something hard -- the side of her head, top of her head, her jaw, her tail, her pec fin, something solid -- knock you out, you could drown, break your arm, break your ribs.

Could be fatal.

Yeah, look, [Chuckles] I want to learn about these animals and I want to bring their story to the world and I want to do what we can for them.

There's no guarantee here.

This may be a terrible idea.

♪♪ Maybe there's some vanity and ego for my own sake, but I think, at least, it's more so for understanding these animals and what more insight about their lives that it would give us.

Probably I should have stopped there.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Um... [Chuckles] ♪♪ I was a little bit nervous 'cause the tag was ready, everything was ready, and she came right over to me.

Then, when I saw she had Hope, her young calf with her, which made me hesitate a bit, and then she opened her mouth as I was right next to her, which I don't think was aggressive, but it was -- it was enough to -- to make me back up and not, uh -- to not try to put the tag on.

[ Sighs ] Yeah, I don't know -- I don't know why it's affecting me in this way, but it was, uh, a strange emotion.

But [Sighs] yeah, in that moment, uh, yeah, she seemed to send the message that that's not the time to -- to do it.

So I didn't do it.

[ Sighs ] ♪♪ I am wondering, is this my worst fear realized?

Have I upset her in a way that is gonna impact our relationship?

She's going to not trust me after a decade of building trust.

♪♪ Sticking scientific instruments on them and treating them like a science experiment has been a mistake.

♪♪ Perhaps it's the energy or something deeper that -- that I -- that I give off.

But I certainly was not giving off the right feelings at that time.

And -- And she knew it.

♪♪ She has no reason to trust humans at all.

More than half of her family has died in the last 10 years, caused by human beings.

♪♪ A lot of these were alive when whaling was actively being conducted.

What do they remember from then?

A lot of intense whaling was done from rowboats with spears where the whales should have easily outmaneuvered the humans.

That's not how it went.

Even in small boats with spears and sails, we killed thousands of them -- tens of thousands of them.

The only way that was possible is because they have such strong bonds.

You kill one, the others don't run away.

They come over to try to help, and then you kill them, too, and then more come over.

And it makes scenes like you see in these whaling books completely believable.

♪♪ When you see how much they care about each other, even if that means stranding on a beach and dying, even if it means going over when a whale gets harpooned, they will do it.

Their bond is that strong.

They will stay with each other through this incredibly traumatic experience.

They don't run away and take a breath and try to get out of there like humans would do.

♪♪ I remember standing next to a dead sperm whale and looking down the beach and seeing another one and another one and another one.

It really changed me.

♪♪ We don't understand them at all.

♪♪ They can see without seeing, and it sounds crazy, but sonar and echolocation sounded crazy a hundred years ago.

Perhaps they've exceeded humanity in their ability to connect with each other.

What is this connection?

If I could ask them, what is it?

The best is if they could just tell me.

And it sounds crazy, but it's really not as far off as people think.

Perhaps in five years, we'll have machines that decode the whale language and communicate it back to them.

Places like MIT and NASA are spending huge amounts of money using supercomputers and algorithms to fully decode that language.

And I'm on the other end of the spectrum, communicating an emotional connection to them, communicating an emotional bond.

♪♪ You know, I ask myself, "Can I really communicate, other than just saying hello, which I've tried to do?"

[ Whale clicking ] If somebody comes up to you and says hi, you say hi back, and then you wait for them to say something.

But in this case, I never did.

I couldn't.

And they were very patient.

♪♪ There's so many things that they still have to show us.

I just have to be willing to listen and learn what lessons these whales are trying to teach us.

♪♪ After several days, we found this huge number of sounds, and then eventually we arrived and could see -- could see why.

There was at least 15 whales in a full super socialization, rolling and clicking, and some vertical.

It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen.

♪♪ At some point, I realized -- I don't know if I drifted towards them or they drifted towards me, but all of their heads were together in the center, and then I was in their socialization.

♪♪ The bodies of the sperm whales are on both sides, and the tails are way back there.

And you know, this is something completely different.

This is like being invited into the most intimate family reunion.

♪♪ To be accepted into this family, it's an incredibly emotional experience.

♪♪ I wonder if it's them trying to show me what that bond is and what that feeling is.

In that moment, I became the tag.

♪♪ Dolores and Can Opener have spent a lot of time out of their life to help me learn about them, to show me things about them.

We continue to go out every day, but on none of the past several days have we seen Can Opener.

♪♪ Did she leave?

Did she go offshore?

Did she go to another island?

They venture far and wide.

♪♪ I hope that she's forgiven me.

♪♪ And after days of not seeing her, she showed up again.

[ Whale spouting ] I love sperm whales, but I love her as an individual.

♪♪ ♪♪ And at first, I was like, "Oh, this is great.

You know, she's -- she's coming over to -- to say hello.

She's forgiven me."

It wasn't -- It wasn't a problem.

And then -- And then she stopped maybe 10 feet away, 15 feet away, and didn't come any closer and was -- She normally would come up beside, and this time, she came head-to-head, straight on at me.

♪♪ ♪♪ And then she just took a big vertical breath and dove straight down... and didn't come any closer.

And then I really thought, "Oh, man, maybe she's upset with me."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ And then I just looked over and I see -- I see the calf, Hope, there next to me.

And I hadn't -- I hadn't registered, I was so focused on Can Opener that I hadn't registered her -- her presence.

♪♪ Normally, she'd leave the calf with a babysitter -- another female whale in the pod -- who she leaves the calf on the surface with, while she does a foraging dive.

This is her greatest treasure in -- in life.

And she was entrusting her to me while she went down, miles deep, to feed.

♪♪ ♪♪ I spent the next 45 minutes floating around with Hope, and we were hanging out and she came over -- not too close, but a little bit over.

And then I just floated on the surface.

♪♪ Eventually, Can Opener popped back up.

And I didn't even realize, "Oh, it's been about 40 minutes, so it's time for Can Opener to be back up."

And then off they -- off they went.

♪♪ And that was it.

I've become a babysitter.

♪♪ Oh, wow.

[ Chuckles ] Whew.

Ah.

[ Waves lapping boat ] ♪♪ She literally just stopped, with me in front of her.

I assumed she was -- she was contemplating whether she could trust me or not.

[ Whale clicking ] That was, uh -- That was a powerful moment.

♪♪ I've spent a lot of time with my eyes watching sperm whales and with my ears listening and trying to use those senses to understand them.

But, clearly, that's not enough.

You can't hear, and you really can't even see, this -- this bond that connects them together.

I think it has to be felt to be understood at all.

♪♪ The whales are out there, and these are the things that they're trying to tell us.

♪♪ If humanity treated each other the way that sperm whales treat each other... it'd be a much better world.

♪♪ [ "Nature" theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ To learn more about what you've seen on this "Nature" program, visit pbs.org.

♪♪ ♪♪