We are an international group of audio engineers, researchers, physicists, cinematographers, journalists, freedivers, and ocean lovers who believe cetaceans have an incredible capacity for intelligence and communication.
In the past seven years, we have collected dozens of hours of wild cetacean behavior and click communication audio and video footage, the largest collection of its kind. We provide this data in an open-source platform free-of-charge to physicists, linguistic scientists, and any other professional researchers interested in better understanding cetacean echolocation and click communication.
Our approach
What's allowed our team such intimate access to these animals is that we freedive with them. Unlike noisy scuba or ROVs, our freediving approach doesn't scare off the animals. They don’t swim away, and they don’t attack. They become curious. Often, they welcome us into their pods and send us communication clicks. They are, in essence, reaching out to us. DAREWIN’s natural and unobtrusive freediving approach offers us a rare glimpse into one the least understood — and fascinating — creatures on the planet.
Our team
Fabrice Schnöller
Fred Buyle
Olivier Borde
French engineer and freelance biologist and acoustic researcher, Schnoller is founder of Click Research. He develops new research programs with 360° video and audio captation and VR/AR tools.
Professional photographer and world-renowned freediver, Buyle also commits much of his time working with marine scientists studying sharks, dolphins, and whales. Discover his work on Nektos.
Olivier Borde is a journalist and photographer who has documented spem whale encounters for DAREWIN since 2011.