For 30 years, field projects have carried Interspecies onto several oceans and into many foreign countries. Here's a brief history of our better known projects.

2. The Orca Project (1976-present)

A twenty-five-year search to explore the aesthetic common ground between orcas and human beings. Live music is the basis of our communication outreach between species. The project is based in the straits off Vancouver island, with over 200 people participating overall. Our orca Project has been the subject of magazine stories, TV shows and videos. Sponsors have included The Threshold Foundation, ABC News, and The Slifka Foundation. To facilitate contact between species, IC has developed a unique underwater sound system, installed in a boat, serving as a telephone line to the whales. This gear remains available to other groups attempting to interact with wild cetaceans. Hear the recordings.

3. Alaska Humpback Project (1996-1998)

During the winter months, in tropical waters, male humpback whales sing their evocative songs to attract females. The best singers––perhaps those who tell the best story, or who embellish the basic melody most creatively––attract the biggest audience. No one knows what they are singing about, although it has been postulated that individual songs bespeak the singer's lineage. In the summertime, on their feeding grounds of southeast Alaska, both genders sing. This variation of the song may actually stun schools of herring upon which the whales prey. Humpback biologist, Roger Payne, compares humpback songs to epic poems, pointing out that each unique song contains distinct rhyming elements. A song may last up to twenty minutes and then get repeated, verbatim. Our own 3 years work with humpbacks developed as a collaboration with distinguished biologist Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation. Hear somne of these sounds used in in our Belly of the Whale Project.

4. ZeroCircles Project (1998-99)

Conceptual artist, Daniel Dancer, oversaw this far-reaching project of constructing zeros out of found materials in several US national forests, as a means of symbolizing and promoting the "zero cut" proposal which would end all logging in the US forest system. With over 50 zeros completed in 50 federal forests around the country, his art has attracted much media attention as well as many other artists and children who are creating their own zeros. For more info on this very worthy project, read ZeroCircles in our online library.

5. Japan Cetacean Consultancy (1992–present)

For several years, IC has been consulting closely with the Japanese ICERC network, promoting events, art and media to help transform the Japanese public's perception of living whales and dolphins. The longterm program has been overwhelmingly embraced by the mass media within Japan and images of leaping whale and smiling dolphins can now be seen on subway and airport kiosks, while whalewatching and dolphin swim programs are springing up in many places. In 1996, the IC/ICERC team demonstrated the potential of interspecies music on a whalewatching boat that had only recently been converted from whaling, with the on-deck viewing platform fabricated on top of an old harpoon mount. For more info about IC's japan connection, read Not Touching Ferns in our online library.

6. The Wild Heart (1984–present)

As much as IC sponsors field work, it also nurtures creative ways to bring its underlying philosophy before the general public. With Gigi Coyle in 1987, IC co-hosted a well-received San Francisco gallery show of artwork created by participants on various IC field projects. Collaborating with the German University, ZEGG, in 1994-95 we co-hosted three week-long whale communication workshops aboard their research vessel, Kairos. In 1996, distinguished performance artist, Christian Swenson, and IC director Jim Nollman, collaborated on a performance about animals that included live and tape music, dance, theater, slides, and costume. The resultant show, The Wild Heart, subsequently toured Europe, including a performance at an international whale conference in Brussels. C. Swenson has an extensive background in mime and dance and, in The Wild Heart, he transforms himself into the archetype of whale, raven, wolf, turkey, dolphin, rose, hummingbird, water, air to interact with Nollman's Everyman.

7. Iki Island, Japan (1977-1980)

IC consulted with Greenpeace on one of the environmental group's first overseas projects. During the preceding ten year period, Iki fishermen had slaughtered over ten thousand dolphins under the guise of protecting their fish stocks. The issue proved to be a classic case of human over-exploitation of resources with another prey species used as a convenient scapegoat. We eventually split from Greenpeace over strategy differences, and returned to Iki funded by, among others, The Animal Welfare Institute and The World Wildlife Fund. For one entire winter, an IC team worked directly with fishermen to test acoustic methods to keep dolphins away from individual fishing boats. For the best account, read The Charged Border. Eventually, the team mediated between the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the international environmental community. Something worked, although it took far longer than any of us imagined. Today, Iki island supports a successful dolphin-watching business.

8. The Art of the Arctic (1986-1993)