In the current global economic recession, people all over the world can agree that it is hard to turn down a free meal. This seems true for the sperm whales as well. In the Gulf of Alaska, a population of sperm whales has recently honed in on long line fishermen and started to strip lines of the catch with a behavior termed depredation. Dr. Sarah Mesnick and several of her colleagues at Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla were originally drawn to the problem because it provided an opportunity to get close enough to the sperm whales to get tissue samples.  Her focus later shifted to studying the depredation behavior. She says that by studying the behavior, “we can learn about animal innovation and the transmission of social information.”

              Depredation is a complicated behavior. The individual sperm whale must locate specific vessels among many present, time their arrival to the hauling period, negotiate getting fish off the longline, and avoid getting entangled. To Dr. Mesnick, sperm whale depredation is not only an interesting issue of interaction with fisheries; it also can provide insights into cetacean learning and culture. Her research demonstrates that what started as an individual innovation by a couple of brash males, has now spread to nearly the entire population. The complexity of the behavior makes it unlikely that each individual whale learned it on its own. The innovative behavior spread so quickly that it could not have been genetically inherited. Thus, some form of social(cultural) learning may have been involved. 

                Depredation, crop raiding and, “human-wildlife conflict (HWC)” refer to the taking of fish, domesticated animals, or crops by wildlife. The recovery of certain animal populations has led to a new paradigm in conservation biology: facilitating the coexistence of humans and animals. These issues frequently involve animal and human cultures overlapping and co-evolving. Dr. Mesnick believes that a solution lies in “controlling the human side of the equation through temporal and spatial management of human activities."

              The diffusion of the behavior in such a short amount of time, among unrelated and relatively solitary males suggests a horizontal cultural transmission of behavior. From bellbottom pants to Facebook and Twitter, horizontal, or peer-to-peer transmission is readily apparent as a significant component of human cultural transmission.  The impacts of exploring cultural transmission in depredative behaviors transcend taxonomic, scientific, and international boundaries. Dr. Mesnick views the depredation problem as providing insights into a much larger problem facing scientists, policy makers and society. She believes “it's an example of what happens when animals and humans go after the same food, a limiting resource in which both are trying to minimize energy expended and maximize catch.  It's also an example of the difficulty of resolving such issues when both parties involved are hungry, large-brained and social - it turns into an arms race, with each trying to outsmart the other.”