Explore every episode of the podcast Whale Tales Podcast

This month we are welcoming back friend of the pod Emily Cunningham! She joins us to discuss her new book (!) Our Ocean to Save How to Protect Our Greatest Climate Ally (out now!) 📖 It’s a fantastic episode full of great discussions about protecting our oceans and also feelings. You have been warned Show […]

It’s mailbag time! We haven’t had one in a while so we have a ton of great questions – how do whales breath? how high can dolphins jump? what would happen if you tossed a bunch of human bodies into the deep ocean? Super fun cetaceany stuff – join us! Show Notes: -Living with Whales: […]

We are back this month talking about some tiny very cute (just ask Nicole) dolphins – Commerson’s! Its a short and sweet one this month but full of cool facts about these little guys. Show Notes: –Commerson’s dolphin population structure: evidence for female phylopatry and male dispersal | Scientific Reports –Communication sounds of Commerson’s dolphins […]

Surprise! We are back with another special episode for World Krill Day and we are thrilled to welcome Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau back to the podcast! Philippe and Ashlan join us to talk all about Krill – the superhero’s of the ocean. We chat about what’s changed since we last talked in 2023, the issues […]

This month on the podcast we are finally talking about Grey Whales! We talked to Dr. Clara Bird about her research on the Pacific Coast Feeding Group of Grey Whales in Oregon, Grey Whales as a whole (and the issues they are facing), and her work in photogrammetry. It’s super cool and nerdy and full […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are celebrating by talking all things Killer Whale with Nancy Black from the California Killer Whale Project. We get into all the different ecotypes and populations of Orca seen in California (hint: it’s a LOT), plus Grey Whale hunts and some amazing stories from Nancy’s 35+ years studying Killer Whales […]

This month on the Whale Tales Podcast we welcomed Dr Shanan Atkins from the Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin Conservation Network or HuDoNet. Shanan joins us to tell us all about Humpback dolphins including her work on Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphins, more on the differences between the four species and all about HuDoNet and the work […]

This month on the Whale Tales Podcast we welcomed Regina Asmutis-Silvia, the Executive Director and Senior Biologist of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation – North America. We chat about North Atlantic Right Whales, some of the super cool new technologies being used in fishing to decrease entanglement in large whales, and other research that’s happening […]

After years of exploring the deep mysteries of whales, dolphins, and porpoises… we’ve realized something. We’ve been ignoring the TRUE titans of the sea. Creatures so majestic, so misunderstood, that sailors once mistook them for mermaids. So today, we are pivoting – Welcome to: The Sirenian Podcast.

It’s Dolphin Awareness Month! We are celebrating by chatting with researcher Sarah Matthews about a species we have long neglected – Common Dolphins🐬 It’s just a bunch of dolphin girls this month so join us! Show Notes: -The Dolphin Zone: dolphinzone.org – the Cetacean Strandings Information Programme: ukstrandings.org –Marine Strandings Hotline -British Divers Marine Life Rescue: […]

We have a wonderful episode for you this month on the Whale Tales Podcast – we talk to Tom Cezimbra about Guiana Dolphins (ever heard of them?), his research with these cetaceans and his unique career journey that has led to his current PhD. We hope you enjoy it as much as did! Show Notes: […]

We are kicking the year off with a fantastic conversation with Elizabeth Zwamborn. We talk to her about Pilot Whales, Bottlenose Whales, Sperm Whales, cetaceans on the East Coast of Canada, her journey through academia and all sorts of other great super nerdy things – join us! Show Notes -Elizabeth’s other Whale Tales: https://whale-tales.org/?s=elizabeth -Flipper Slapping […]

Happy December! This month we are taking a break for the holidays but we would never leave you without an episode so we are releasing our December 2024 Whale Tales Watches episode on Mystic Christmas as a holiday gift for all of you! Last year we teamed up with The Charts & Hearts Podcast to […]

We’ve got another great episode for you this month. We welcome Dr. Jeremy Kiszka to the pod to talk about his research on cetaceans and marine ecology including cool species like Dwarf Sperm Whales. Jeremy also shares part of his career journey and offers some really great advices for young scientists. Show Notes: -The Society […]

We are joined by returning guest Ashley this month to hear all about the whale watching season in the Salish Sea in 2025 – spoiler alert there were a LOT of different Killer Whales around this year! *Please note this episode was recorded on September 30th, 2025. Show Notes: -Read Ashley’s Whale Tales -Bubble Net Feeding in the […]

Today on the Whale Tales Podcast we are chatting with Dr. Anaïs Remili, an ecotoxicologist. She shares about her research in contaminants in cetaceans, currently focused on Killer Whales and while that part might be as upbeat as some of our other topics, Anaïs also talks about making potions, seal poo and a whole lot […]

Super nerdy episode this month! We sit down paleoecologist and biogeographer with Nick Freymueller to talk Bowhead Whales, Arctic fossils, his research on how species respond to climate change and many other nerdy things. Cue up the theme to Jurassic Park and let’s dive right in! Show Notes -21st Century Sea Ice Loss Will Upend […]

We are very excited to welcome Trevor Branch to the podcast this month. Trevor is a Professor at University of Washington who runs models and does research on a number of things including Blue Whales. We chat Blue Whales and all kinds of whales – and how they are all ruled by Orcas? Join us […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are back this month and talking about – you guessed it – orcas! To celebrate Orca Month we are taking this episode to discuss the Killer Whales in the North East Pacific and how they are designated and also why? WHYYYYYYYY (prepare for some rants!) Show Notes: -Fun Flipper Fact […]

We are back and are finally covering Minke Whales (how have we not talked about these lil guys yet?!) Put on your mittens and grab your lightsabers (this will all make sense we promise!) as we dive right in. Show Notes: -Minke Whale Unusual Mortality Event along the Atlantic Coast: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-life-distress/2017-2025-minke-whale-unusual-mortality-event-along-atlantic-coast -Minke Whale Vocals: https://minkewhaleproject.org/behaviour/vocalisations […]

The Whale Tales Podcast is back this month (celebrating our sixth anniversary!) with more amazing guests – Danielle Brown the Director of Research as well as Chris St Lawrence, Communications and Outreach Lead from Gotham Whale in New York. We discuss their work with Gotham Whale and their Wanted program, matching and IDing Humpbacks off […]

We are back with another mailbag episode (a dolphinny one to celebrate Dolphin Awareness Month🐬) answering questions that were asked by you! Thank you to tsuchidayosh.bsky.social, samgree.n, bluetideproject, Eleanor Thom, lindsyvg.bsky.social‬, astrapionte, patrick0fveraa, amendoza3090, meganndautism, Perri, Autumn and Dorothy for sending us your questions! Show Notes: -A Very Rare Type D Sighting: https://whale-tales.org/a-very-rare-type-d-sighting-26-1-25/ -Vascularization of […]

This month on the Whale Tales Podcast we welcomed Dr. Cindy  Elliser and Kat White from Pacific Mammal Research who tell us all about Harbour Porpoises in the Salish Sea including what they’ve found in their incredible long term work (which you can read about it their latest publication!). While we do get pretty detailed […]

We are very excited this month to welcome Daren Grover, the General Manager of Project Jonah in New Zealand! Daren talks to us about marine mammal strandings and what Project Jonah does to help stranded cetaceans plus a wonderful overview about the whales and dolphins found in New Zealand. Show Notes: Website: https://www.projectjonah.org.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectjonah/ […]

We are very excited to welcome Jackie Hildering, Co-Founder and Education & Communications Director for the Marine Education and Research Society, aka The Marine Detective to the pod this month! Join us for a wonderful and thoughtful conversation about Humpbacks in BC, research and community building.  Show Notes: -The Marine Detective website: https://themarinedetective.com/ -The Marine […]

We are back this month with a super exciting episode featuring the incredible humpback researcher Stephanie Stack! She joins us to talk about research on Humpback Whales as well as her now very famous article “An observation of sexual behavior between two male Humpback Whales.” Full note in Marine Mammal Science: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.13119 Photographers of Humpback […]

We are joined by returning guest Ashley Keegan this month to hear all about the whale watching season in the Salish Sea in 2024! (plus special guests Judith Scott and WhaleWise pop in to tell us an amazing story from earlier this fall) Show Notes” -Read Ashley’s Whale Tales -An Encounter with an Entangled Humpback: […]

Surprise! We are popping into your feeds today with an extra special episode to celebrate World River Dolphin Day (today!) We were joined by friend of the pod, Emily Cunningham who is now the River Dolphin Conservation Lead at WWF and is here to talk all things river dolphins, especially the threats that they face […]

Just a bunch of whale nerds this month on the Whale Tales Podcast – we are joined by Kate Hruby and Kevin Campion from Save the North Pacific Right Whales to talk all things North Pacific Right Whales and learn more (as much as we can?) about these rare, sneaky whales.   Show Notes: -Save the […]

Break out your Britney because we did it again! It’s another Oops All Stories episode featuring incredible stories from all over the world (and THREE new species for the library!) from some amazing Storytellers! Thanks to Vanessa: https://www.instagram.com/vaneprigo/ Selby: https://www.instagram.com/selbywilko/ Sigrún: https://www.instagram.com/shelguwildlife/ Judith: https://www.instagram.com/judith_scott_photography/ Sara: https://www.instagram.com/frostythezoologist/ and https://x.com/YukonFrost Blue Dolphin Tours: https://www.instagram.com/bluedolphintour/ Elizabeth: https://www.instagram.com/offshoreorca/ WhaleWise: […]

The Whale Tales Podcast is back this month with two incredible guests! We welcomed researchers Caroline Weir and Morgan Martin to the pod to talk about their paper “Peale’s dolphins (Lagenorhynchus australis) are acoustic mergers between dolphins and porpoises” (as featured in this month’s Patreon Journal Club!) as well as all things Peale’s Dolphins! We […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are celebrating all month long on the Whale Tales Podcast with four special episodes each highlighting a specific Orca (or OrcaS) from around the world with a truly terrific tale. Today we are wrapping things up with the currently very famous Gladis-or should we say Gladises? Show Notes: – Killer whales […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are celebrating all month long on the Whale Tales Podcast with four special episodes each highlighting a specific Orca (or OrcaS) from around the world with a truly terrific tale. This week we are talking the notorious Port and Starboard! Show Notes: –Confirmation of the occurrence of a second killer […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are celebrating all month long on the Whale Tales Podcast with four special episodes each highlighting a specific Orca (or OrcaS) from around the world with a truly terrific tale. Today we have a short and sweet episode about Old Thom (not to be confused with last week’s episode about […]

Happy Orca Action Month! We are celebrating all month long on the Whale Tales Podcast with four special episodes each highlighting a specific Orca (or OrcaS) from around the world with a truly terrific tale. First off we have Old Tom and his pod “The Killers of Eden.” Show Notes: -Eden Killer Whale Museum

The Whale Tales Podcast is back with another amazing guest Joëlle De Weerdt from Association ELI-S who is here to tell us all about humpbacks in Nicaragua and the research she is doing on them for her PhD. If you want to hear us loose our minds about humpbacks (again, probably not for the last […]

Super exciting episode this month with an incredible guest Erin Gless, executive director of Pacific Whale Watch Association! We dive deep (fun puns!) into the history and mission of the PWWA and the work it does in the Salish Sea plus TWO Fun Flipper Facts!???? Show Notes: Pacific Whale Watch Association: https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/ PWWA Social Media […]

Dolphin filled episode this month – we’ve got dolphins facts and more dolphins facts and a dolphin story and dolphin themed call to action. It’s the only way we know how to celebrate Dolphin Awareness Month! Show Notes: –Lauryn Fly Instagram –Behavioural laterality in foraging bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) by Kaplan et al. –The Life […]

We are back with another mailbag episode answering questions that were asked by you! Show Notes: -Perucetus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perucetus -Podcast episodes with notes on become marine biologists and/or featuring marine biologists: https://whale-tales.org/podcast/episode-032-community-science/ https://whale-tales.org/podcast/episode-015-killer-whale-research/https://whale-tales.org/podcast/episode-013-the-story-of-us/ -Best marine biology universities (western centric): https://gyanberry.com/blog/best-global-universities-for-marine-biology-in-2022-2023/ -A Conversation with “Twain”: https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-have-20-minute-conversation-with-a-humpback-whale-named-twain/, https://peerj.com/articles/16349/ -A Surprise Whale https://whale-tales.org/a-surprise-whale-6-23

Happy 2024! We are kicking the year off with a journal club (that you may have already heard if you are a patron of ours) on the paper “Harassment and killing of porpoises (“phocoenacide”) by fish-eating Southern Resident killer Whales (Orcinus orca)” by Giles et al, plus a handful of clips from our friends! Content […]

Welcome back to the Whale Tales Podcast! Today we are joined by Olivia Brodhurst and Crystal Lacey to talk all about the Whitsundays and the East Australian Humpbacks you can find there! Show Notes: Whales of the Whitsundays: https://www.tourismwhitsundays.com.au/blog/whales-in-the-whitsundays/ Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: https://www2.gbrmpa.gov.au/learn/animals/whales-and-dolphins World Cetacean Alliance: https://worldcetaceanalliance.org/ Whitsundays Whale Heritage Area Candidacy: […]

For this months episode of the Whale Tales Podcast we talked to Emily Cunningham, marine biologist and conservationist  about her research, Humpback community science in the UK and so many other things – it was amazing and we are so excited to share it with you! Show Notes: -Emily’s Website: https://emilycunningham.co.uk/ -Motion for the Ocean: […]

We are joined by returning guest Ashley Keegan this month to hear all about the whale watching season in the Salish Sea this year! Show Notes: –Ashley’s Stories

Journal Club is back! And so are these little guys – who are everywhere apparently – we are talking about Harbor Porpoise Aggregations in the Salish Sea by Dave Anderson et al. Show Notes –Full paper –Back on the Water with Grey Whales. –Diving behaviour in Harbour Porpoises –Tea Bag Ghosts (video)

Welcome back to another episode of the Whale Tales Podcast! Following up on our Cetacean teeth episode we are taking a look at the other set of cetaceans – The Baleen Whales! Show Notes: -The Naming of Things: The Disorder of the Order of Whale Names: https://whale-tales.org/the-naming-of-things-the-order-of-whale-names/ –A Summer in Húsavík, the European capital of […]

Surprise! We are popping into your feeds today to help celebrate the second ever #WorldKrillDay with a special episode all about those lil guys who have a big impact – krill! Specifically today, Antarctic krill. ???? Join us and our incredible guests as we learn all about krill and the super important role they play […]

Welcome back to another episode of the Whale Tales Podcast! This month we are talking all things Odontocetes -or rather the chompers that gave these Toothed Whales their name! ???? Show Notes: -The Naming of Things: The Disorder of the Order of Whale Names: https://whale-tales.org/the-naming-of-things-the-order-of-whale-names/ -The Naming of Things: The Ginkgo Toothed Whale: https://whale-tales.org/the-naming-of-things-ginkgo-toothed-beaked-whale/ -Development […]

Just in case our Orca Action Month mini eps weren’t special enough for you we have an extra special super fun episode today (maybe our fav of all time?) – that’s right it’s Oops All Stories! ???????? The Stories: -An Evening Encounter with Type B Gerlache Orcas in Antarctica: https://whale-tales.org/an-evening-encounter-with-type-b-gerlache-orcas-in-antarctica-3-1-23/ -Christmas Eve Orcas: https://whale-tales.org/christmas-eve-orcas-24-12-22/ -Incredible […]

We are back, celebrating Orca Action Month with a short episode this week discussing the Galapagos Orca community.

It’s Orca Action Month! We are celebrating Killer Whales this month with a mini episode each week looking at specific orca ecotypes or communities – this week we are discussing Norwegian and Icelandic Orcas! Show Notes: -Norwegian Orca Catalogue: https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/The_Norwegian_Orca_ID-Catalogue_2016_Version_2_/4205226/4 -Icelandic Orca Catalogue: http://orcaguardians.org/orca-id-catalogues/ -Krisztina’s Whale Tales: https://whale-tales.org/category/storytellers/krisztina/ -Judith’s Whale Tales: https://whale-tales.org/category/storytellers/judith/