I’ve always been interested in communicating with animals. My second novel, Canine Champions, is about a boy and a dog with a telepathic link.

But that’s more science fiction than reality. What about the real world? What is the status of our attempts to communicate with animals? And increasingly, their attempts to communicate with us?

In the former case, probably the most famous communication experiment was with Koko the gorilla. Born in the San Francisco zoo, Koko was a female western lowland gorilla who, for over four decades, was taught to use gestures based on American Sign Language. This research was very controversial and what was learned has always been debated, but apparently some interspecies communication was taking place. (Koko’s full story is told by The Gorilla Foundation at https://www.koko.org/.)

But the real reason I’m writing this is recent media reports of orcas approaching us. For example, an article entitled “Killer Whales [Orcas] Spotted Giving Gifts to Humans in Random Acts of Kindness” by James Knuckey appeared on July 5, 2025 on the Express website. The article explains that according to a new study, over a twenty-year period and in four oceans, at least 30 cases have been recorded of wild orcas offering people prey such as fishes, birds, and mammals. (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2077937/killer-whales-spotted-giving-gifts-humans).

So what gives? We know these fellow mammals are very intelligent and known to share food among themselves. These could simply be acts of kindness or maybe a way of saying “Let’s do lunch,” but more logically some type of counter gesture is expected from us. Is this behavior a type of “pay it forward” in anticipation of a future benefit?

This is pretty unusual and we have no way of knowing what’s expected from us or exactly how to reply, but the possibilities are really fascinating. If you plan on swimming in the ocean, you could get an unexpected invitation to communicate with another species.