Roger Payne, the scientist who sparked a worldwide environmental protection movement with his discovery that whales could sing, has died. He was 88 years old.
Payne made the discovery in 1967 during a research trip to Bermuda in which a Navy engineer provided him with recordings of curious underwater sounds he had documented while listening for Russian submarines.
roger payne and his discovery
Payne identified the haunting vocalizations as the songs whales sing to each other.
He saw the discovery of whale song as an opportunity to spark interest in saving the giant animals, which were disappearing from the planet. Payne would produce the album “Song of the Humpback Whale” in 1970.
A surprise hit, the record inspired a global movement to end the practice of commercial whaling and save whales from extinction.
Payne was aware from the outset that whale song offered an opportunity to interest the public in protecting an animal that had previously been regarded as little more than a resource, curiosity, or nuisance.
He told Nautilus Quarterly in a 2021 interview that he first heard the recording in the loud engine room of a research vessel and knew almost immediately that the sounds were indeed whales.
“Despite the racket, what I heard blew my mind. It seemed clear that finally, there was a chance to get the world interested in preventing whale extinction,” he told the magazine. Payne died on Saturday from pelvic cancer. He lived in South Woodstock, Vermont with his wife, actress Lisa Harrow.
Harrow said funeral arrangements have not yet been made.
Payne had four children from a previous marriage to zoologist Katy Payne, with whom he collaborated.
In the late 1960s the duo used primitive equipment to record the sounds of humpback whales, which sometimes sing their eerie, complex songs for more than half an hour at a stretch.
The impact of the discovery of whale song on the nascent environmental movement was immense.
Many anti-war protesters of the day took saving animals and the environment as a new cause, and the words “save the whales” became ubiquitous on tote bags and bumper stickers.
Whale songs would enter the popular imagination from 1971’s “The Partridge Family”, a 1979 episode of National Geographic, which included a flexi disc with excerpts from “Song of the Humpback Whale”. It remains the best-selling environmental album in history.
Payne founded the Ocean Alliance in 1971 to advocate for the conservation of whales and dolphins. The organization operates in Gloucester, Massachusetts to this day.
It has played a role in watershed moments in the history of whale conservation, such as the 1972 passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act by the US Congress and the 1982 commercial whaling moratorium passed by the International Whaling Commission.
Ian Kerr, chief executive officer of the Ocean Alliance and a longtime collaborator with Payne, said the world had lost a great deal of environmental protection with Payne’s death. Payne had retired two years earlier.
“It was her presence and way of connecting with people that inspired her to dedicate her life to protecting whales and our planet Earth,” Kerr said.
Payne was born in New York City and educated at Harvard University and Cornell University, where he earned his doctorate. Early in his career as a biologist, he studied bats and birds.
He met his widow Harrow in 1991 at a rally for whale conservation in Trafalgar Square, London. They got married within 10 weeks of meeting.
Harrow said, “The way his mind worked was a constant pleasure.”
“He was constantly seeking answers to questions.”
read also , World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2023: Date, history, significance and all you need to know