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Charles Siebert

Charles Siebert, a contributing writer for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, writes extensively about animal behavior and human-animal relationships. He has written six books, including Angus: A Novel, Heroes of the Environment and The Wauchula Woods Accord.

Noc (in 1995) strongly “wanted to make a connection,” says former naval trainer Michelle Jeffries. “I think that was part of the thing behind him mimicking speech.”

The Story of One Whale Who Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Animals and Humans

While captive in a Navy program, a beluga whale named Noc began to mimic human speech. What was behind his attempt to talk to us?