Indigenous-Led Whale Tour Blends Ancient Knowledge With Modern Science

Off the coast of Shellharbour, Australia, a whale-watching tour is doing something different. Tour guide Dr. Jodi Edwards sings to whales in her Indigenous language as the boat heads out to sea. She has been leading these special tours along the New South Wales South Coast for years. The tours connect visitors with ancient Aboriginal knowledge about the ocean and its animals.

On one recent tour, something remarkable happened. Dr. Edwards began singing in language, and moments later, a humpback whale leaped out of the water. A passenger named Kim Kirchberg-Sawicki was on the boat that day. 'Whether it was coincidence or simply perfect timing, it created a connection that everyone on the boat seemed to feel,' she said. It was a moment nobody on board forgot.

Dr. Edwards is not just a tour guide. She is an Indigenous research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security. She explains to visitors how whale behavior today was shaped by the landscape of the Illawarra coast thousands of years ago. About 60,000 years ago, the shoreline was around 17 kilometers farther out to sea. As the water rose and food became harder to find, people moved closer to where the land meets the water today.

Kim Kirchberg-Sawicki came all the way from Connecticut in the United States to join the tour. She is the founder of Sustainable Seas Technology, a nonprofit group that helps commercial fishers stop accidentally trapping whales in their nets. She has spent most of her career studying data and whale behavior. But she wanted to hear a fresh perspective, and Dr. Edwards's tour gave her exactly that.

Kirchberg-Sawicki was impressed by how well Indigenous stories matched what scientists already know. 'I was surprised at how naturally the cultural stories and scientific observations complemented one another,' she said. She said both ways of knowing are just different approaches to understanding the same environment. She left with a stronger appreciation for how knowledge can be passed down carefully through many generations.

Kirchberg-Sawicki believes every country should listen to Indigenous people when it comes to protecting nature. 'Conservation is strongest when it brings people together rather than separating them,' she said. She has worked with fishers, scientists, governments, and coastal communities around the world. Each group sees something different, and Indigenous knowledge adds an important piece to that bigger picture.

In 2024, Dr. Edwards received a $300,000 grant from the Australian federal government. The money supports her project called Unbroken Whispers. This project studies how Indigenous songlines — traditional songs that carry knowledge about the land and sea — have helped protect whales and dolphins for hundreds of years. The research focuses on species like southern right whales, humpbacks, orcas, and dolphins.

Dr. Edwards is careful to explain that her work is not about saying one type of science is better than another. She says Indigenous science and Western science follow the same patterns. Both are based on long-term observations of the natural world. The difference is that Indigenous science places those observations inside stories, which are then passed from generation to generation. Together, both ways of knowing can make conservation stronger.