So you want to work with marine mammals?

Well, so here we are. Pretty much everybody likes marine mammals don't they? Some people love them, we mean really love these critters, and us Ivory Tower types often use fancy words to describe this love of marine mammals, mainly to confuse the general public - words like "positive social construction." - Huh?

Anyways, this boils down to the fact that most people also have a very romantic idea of what it is like to be a marine biologist who studies whales and dolphins - and we are here to shed some light on that dreamy, but erroneous mental landscape.

There are many bad - B - A - D - reasons for wanting a career working with marine mammals and we thought it might be useful to go through a couple of those right away.

1. I want to communicate with whales and dolphins.
Well, Milton Love pretty much got it straight in his ode to budding marine biologists when he wrote:

"Believing this is simply the Kiss of Death. This is the verbal equivalent of reaching down your throat, pulling out your own intestines, wrapping them around your neck and choking yourself."

We here at the Read Lab concur with this sentiment, and suggest that everyone head on over to the Love Lab website and get a healthy dose of reality from Milton about the good and bad reasons for wanting to be a marine biologist of any sort.

Whales and dolphins use sound for lots of things, including communication, but people here at the Read Lab pretty much all agree that they aren't spending much time trying to communicate with the general public - or indeed us pointy-headed scientists - and we see and hear a lot of marine mammals! That being said, we'd suggest that everyone who thinks that talking with whales and dolphins is a super-keen idea should have a quick look at an account of what it might be like if our rubbery study animals did decide to take more notice of us, and what we do with the oceans and critters that inhabit it (Love the Onion!).

2. I want to swim with whales and dolphins.

This is simply a variation on the first BAD reason, and is even more likely to be the Kiss of Death for those seeking a career working with marine mammals. First of all, you must remember that most marine mammals you will encounter are indeed wild animals. Trying to swim with large marine mammals, like whales, is silly, illegal, and dangerous.

Swimming with smaller marine mammals is also problematic (and illegal). Sure, dolphins appear very friendly, but just ask their relatives the harbour porpoises - they aren't so nice. Bottlenose dolphins in some areas are known to attack and harbour porpoises and even dolphin calves. The killing of dolphin calves is called infanticide and has an evolutionary rationale, but dolphins kill porpoises for no apparent reason (but we are studying it, of course). Dead porpoises and dolphin calves - the victims of this abusive behaviour - occasionally wash ashore. We at the Read Lab have seen a few of these porpoises and dolphin calves and and it isn't pretty (for example, see Dunn et al. 2002. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 38: 505-510).

3. I want to study marine mammals because they are smart.
Sure, some marine mammals have big brains, and some even have brains that are comparatively large for their body size - but the jury is still out on whether marine mammals are really all that smart. Take right whales for example. They are big, slow moving and kinda dopy. We can't remember the last time someone told us that right whales were smart. They do float well though.

That's depressing you say?
It's OK - there are some really good reasons for wanting to study marine mammals, and it might be fair to relate the top few on the lists of Read Lab members:

• It's a job - you'll need one of those.
• You get to live and work by the ocean
• Marine mammals are vastly understudied, so there is lots to do.
• You get to go to conferences in cool places.
• Your parents will be proud, unless they are Doctors, Lawyers or scientists that study plankton.