Denise Herzing (1957–present)

Marine Biologist and Dolphin Communication Researcher#

Dr. Denise Herzing is the founder and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project, the longest-running underwater study of a wild dolphin community in the world. Since 1985, she has spent every summer with a community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas, building individual relationships and documenting their complex communication, social structure, and cognitive abilities.

The Wild Dolphin Project#

Operating from the research vessel R/V Stenella, Herzing and her team have:

• Identified and tracked over 300 individual dolphins across multiple generations
• Documented the full repertoire of dolphin vocalizations, including signature whistles, burst-pulse sounds, and echolocation clicks
• Recorded complex social behaviors: alliances, cooperative foraging, play, discipline, and inter-species interaction with bottlenose dolphins
• Demonstrated that dolphins have individual names (signature whistles) and use them referentially

CHAT System#

Herzing developed the Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) system, a wearable underwater computer designed to facilitate two-way communication with dolphins. CHAT:

• Translates specific dolphin whistles into human-understandable signals
• Allows researchers to produce dolphin-like sounds in real time
• Tests whether dolphins can learn to associate specific sounds with objects and concepts
• Represents one of the first rigorous attempts at interspecies communication technology

Key Findings#

• Dolphins have a multi-modal communication system combining sound, body language, and touch
• Young dolphins learn communication skills over a period of years, similar to human language acquisition
• Dolphins engage in referential communication — pointing with their bodies to objects and using specific sounds in context
• Cross-species play between spotted and bottlenose dolphins involves communication negotiation

Sources#

• Herzing, Denise. Dolphin Diaries: My 25 Years with Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas. St. Martin's Press, 2011.
• Herzing, Denise. "Profiling Nonhuman Intelligence." TED Talk, 2013.