Paul Spong

Dr. Paul Spong is a neuroscientist and cetologist from New Zealand. He has spent more than 30 years researching orcas (or Killer whales) in British Columbia, and is credited with increasing public awareness of whaling, through his involvement with Greenpeace.

Paul Spong was born in Whakatane, near the north-east coast of New Zealand, in 1939. He studied law at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.
In 1963 Spong enrolled in the Brain Research Institute (BRI) at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) for post-graduate studies in psychology. His work at the BRI included analysis of human brain wave patterns and tracking information pathways. Spong's doctoral thesis was on sensory stimulation, perception, and human consciousness.

In 1967 Dr. Murray Newman, of the Vancouver Aquarium, asked Dr. Patrick McGeer, head of the Neurological Lab at the University of British Columbia (UBC), to find a "whale scientist" to assist him at the aquarium. Dr. Spong was selected as the candidate to work at the Vancouver Aquarium with orca whales (Orcinus orca) after a successful interview and a recommendation from the head of the lab at UCLA.

Dr. Spong arrived in Vancouver, with his wife Linda, in April 1967. This was two months after Skana, the orca that Paul would be working with, had been bought by the Vancouver Aquarium from The Pacific Northwest Boat Show.

Dr. Spong started his research on Skana by testing her eyesight. This was done by rewarding the whale (with a herring filet) every time she distinguished between one or two horizontal lines. However, Paul soon noticed that Skana's enthusiasm had waned and her success rate fell to 0%. After some research, Dr. Spong contemplated whether the whale was trying to communicate with him and giving him wrong answers on purpose. This was the first breakthrough Paul had in understanding orcas' complex communication system.

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