Is Anyone Listening?

This is a very well written and refreshing book about non-human communication. While a substantial part of the focus is on Dolphins where the author Denise is personally involved, there are many examples and discussions about other animals as well.

We are learning more about non-human communication. As Denise says, for long we have evaluated animals against human communication standards, based on our belief of human exceptionalism. Our communication features requirements include - time displacement (ability to talk about the past, present & future), abstract idea transmission, combinatorial signals (recombinant parts of sound to form words), recursiveness (phrases within phrases) and others. Instead, we need a different standard for animal communication evaluation – animals have been far more aware and complex in their communications than we have been willing to give them credit for. Why is the ability to understand animals important? Denise quotes the philosopher Arne Naess who said "Nature has a right to exist for itself". We have shamelessly disavowed animals their rights.

There are excellent examples of how animals behave and communicate, as also understand and reach out to other species besides their own. Denise has many experiences with Dolphins – she was surprised when she was able to guide them to a boat to be photographed. Dolphins have been known to work with fishermen to catch fish. There are many others who have worked with different animals since many years. Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey’s work confirmed that chimps & gorillas are intelligent social animals. Cynthia Moss spent decades with elephants who use low frequency sounds for communication. Elephants in Sri Lanka became restive before the Tsunami struck, leading people up the hills. Dolphin whistles encode a good amount of detail, and especially useful for it as sound travels faster in water. There are also dialects to dolphin and many other animal communications. Monkeys can make predator specific calls, so can some other birds and animals who many times use complex loaded signals. Many animals can guess human intent based on our gaze. Animals have the ability to understand other species’ languages over time, though they communicate in their own way.

New technology is accelerating progress. I was surprised to learn that Neural networks and Machine Learning have been in use to study animal communication since quite long, though limited due to comparatively smaller data sets. There are many other challenges such as the need to isolate sound to individuals, correlate it to situations & behaviours. It is still unclear if animals use languages with grammar rules, but we might soon know.

The key is to treat animals as individuals deserving of respect & love, rather than objects or tools for humans. They deserve at least some of their habitat being left to them. For instance, Dolphins travel 10-20 miles in a day, have large network of friends and family, and teach young dolphins how to survive. They hence belong in the wild or need sanctuaries and it is cruel to isolate them for human gawking.

This is a well-researched and compassionate book which I much recommend. It is packed with interesting facts, learnings from research and the work being done.

Entertaining and approachable, this book focuses on just one part of animal behavior and shines a light on an aspect that hasn’t been well understood. Not for lack of trying but because we didn’t have the means to prove many of the theories. In a few short years, we have obtained the resources to study this in depth and Herzing shows how modern technology such as AI has changed his work. He has been working with wild dolphins for decades, and it is clear how much he loves and respects every one of them. The language is always clear and easy to understand, and the author uses examples from other animals to illustrate the similarities and differences amongst the ways we all communicate. The huge leaps in technology lately makes the author optimistic as to what’s to come and he shares this enthusiasm with his subjects and the readers.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/University of Chicago Press.

"I suspect it [the disconnect from considering the consequences of our actions to other species] comes from a deep disconnect with the idea that we are part of nature, not above it, and this disconnect has destructive consequence to the natural world." - Herzing

Rarely ever have I enjoyed a work of non-fiction as much as I have enjoyed Herzing's Is Anyone Listening. Rarely ever have I felt so connected with another species on this planet. I learned so much about the nuances of dolphin culture and communication like for instance the existence of dialects within different dolphin pods. Herzing posed many a question that made me think, that made me talk to my husband and my coworkers. I started to remember the names of some of the dolphins, giggled when Denise accidentally signaled to a dolphin that she was ready to mate and got concerned when the dolphins were suddenly no where to be found. Additionally, other than expected, this book also mentioned many other animals which are highly interesting such as elephants or squid, a species which is often overlooked or labelled 'disgusting'.

However, I also learned, and I loved the repeated inclusions of this statement in the book, that humanity is an egocentric species who values domination and control more than peace and symbiosis. Simply thinking of a human capturing a dolphin (or any being) for their own pleasure is actually rather disgusting. This book helped me understand just how wrong it really is. While I was emotionally aware, Is Anyone Listening has opened my eyes that much more to the obscene abuse of power with which humans approach the natural world.

The book also taught me that humans are impatient; often, when a task seems too difficult, too daunting, they move on. This is why dedicated researchers are such a blessing as they do not simply give up when the results are inconclusive or the technology faulty. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that WE ASSUME, humans assume; and I am glad that there are people out there who don't just assume but try to know and understand.

Thank you to NetGalley, Denise L. Herzing and the University of Chicago Press for this ARC & thank you Denise + Team for respecting the dolphins' space and natural habitat.

For forty years, the author has studied dolphin communication, pioneering two-way interactions with Atlantic spotted dolphins. This book explores the astonishing realities of interspecies communication, drawing parallels with other animal research and highlighting the potential for understanding animal languages using advanced technology.

This wonderful book presents animal communication in a new and revealing way. It’s a pleasure to read.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

A refreshing guide into the maze of nonhuman animal communication, written with a verve and passionate understanding particularly suited to a field on the brink of transformation. My full review can be found on Open Letters Review.