Interspecies Communication with Whales

Interspecies empowers artists to re-invent the human relationship with animals, with the goal of healing our own species' emotional, spiritual, and cultural ties with nature. Our best known work brings musicians from around the world together with wild whales and dolphins, to explore the potential for interspecies communication. We are not 501c3, and do not seek donations. Here's a more detailed page about what we do.

The organization, Interspecies Communication existed as a functioning US nonprofit, and 501(c)(3) for over thirty five years. It was founded and directed by Jim Nollman with the support of many foundations, individuals, and governmental organizations. In 2013 the board of directors decided that both the nonprofit status and the organizational framework no longer seemed relevent, since all the principals were eyeing retirement. The website now serves as a legacy of Jim Nollman's work in the world. It includes writing, music, philosophy and artwork. Enjoy browsing.

CD alert. Jim Nollman has just released a CD of deconstructed traditional music, which will soon be available everywhere you buy music. Just do a search on "Nollman". It's not your average collection of fiddle tunes. For a taste, here's his version of Thomas Payne's favorite hornpipe, Rights of Man, performed on mandolin, piano, beluga whale and French sweetheart.

Have you seen the film, The Cove? Read this story about Interspecies first field project, to stop a dolphin drive fishery in Japan.

Interspecies Art

Browse this site awhile, and you are bound to notice that every page features original art. Some of the images are wavelet graphs representing actual animal calls, and created by Mark Fischer who has been working with Interspecies for several years. Other images are by Interspecies' founder, Jim Nollman who sells his "animal portraits" in various galleries. A third category is imagery by many different artists which has appeared in 30 years of the Interspecies newsletter. Here's just a peek of the art on this site:

Browse our library...

...and discover essays about: Turkey songs, earth art, eco-ethics, nature films, lion protocol, the cetacean nation, whale petroglyphs, sentient gardening, wasp altruism, cougar survival

Our musical instrument scrapbook features photos of guitars, drums, mandolins, and technology used in our work over the past 30 years.

Listen to this musical interaction between a guitarist and orcas, recorded off Vancouver Island in 2002.

This website features many recordings of whales interacting with musicians on the ocean. This example, produced in 1979, showcases a blues guitar and an orca. This one, from 2001, showcases jazz and 300 dolphins.