Observing and Quantifying Cetacean Behavior in the Wild: Current Problems, Limitations, and Future Directions

Behavioral research and analysis is prone to both error and bias, particularly in the early stages of a discipline, in part because it is widely (and erroneously) believed that “behavior” is rather simple and can be easily described or quantified. However, since the 1970s for terrestrial animals, and since the late 1990s for marine mammals, systematic protocols of data gathering and ever more sophisticated modeling and multivariate statistical techniques have been described, largely to reduce problems of bias and pseudoreplication. With modern observational protocols, often enhanced by sophisticated multivariable data-gathering tools, the future for more accurate assessments, and therefore interpretations, of the sophisticated social behaviors of wild cetaceans seems assured.