Research is crucial for implementing appropriate policies and actions to conserve whales and educate people about them.

The Alliance's Ocean Research Program has the following objectives:

• determine baseline levels of pollutants in the ocean environment;
• investigate sperm whales' diving, feeding and migratory behavior using multi-beam scanning sonar and satellite tagging;
• conduct bioacoustic research and develop methods of acoustic census taking;
• create a digital database of photo-identified whales to share with cetologists and oceanographers worldwide.

Why research is crucial - an example:

We need to study a species for at least one and a half times the duration of its life expectancy in order to begin to understand its life cycle. For example, six stone harpoon heads have recently been found in living bowhead whales. As stone harpoons have not been used for between 135 to 150 years, we will therefore need to observe and study whales for over 200 years.