Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Paul Spong was a physiological psychologist, a cognitive neuroscientist, back in the 60s and was introduced to orcas in a most peculiar way, in the form of an orca brain floating in a jar. Since then, Paul has been wondering what this animal does with that brain. Paul lives on a very small island in British Columbia, and the reason he lives there is due to its orca habitat. Called the Northern Resident Community of British Columbia orcas, they come back to the same spot every year and Paul and his team have devoted themselves to watching and studying them. Paul goes into great detail about the nature of his work, developing a facility they call orca lab, with visual, acoustic and land observation, and the various problems he's encountered while studying whales. Watch, as Paul draws a parallel between humans and orcas saying, orca society has become possibly an almost perfect demonstration of the way in which social animals can live together in harmony, which makes you, in a way, fall back on our own situation, and goes on to say, that if we understood more about what the world really is then we might learn how to take care of it better.
Paul Spong was a physiological psychologist, a cognitive neuroscientist, back in the 60s and was introduced to orcas in a most peculiar way, in the form of an orca brain floating in a jar. Since then, Paul has been wondering what this animal does with that brain. Paul lives on a very small island in British Columbia, and the reason he lives there is due to its orca habitat. Called the Northern Resident Community of British Columbia orcas, they come back to the same spot every year and Paul and his team have devoted themselves to watching and studying them. Paul goes into great detail about the nature of his work, developing a facility they call orca lab, with visual, acoustic and land observation, and the various problems he's encountered while studying whales. Watch, as Paul draws a parallel between humans and orcas saying, orca society has become possibly an almost perfect demonstration of the way in which social animals can live together in harmony, which makes you, in a way, fall back on our own situation, and goes on to say, that if we understood more about what the world really is then we might learn how to take care of it better.
