Roger Payne, scientist who discovered whales can sing, dies at 88
- His haunting 1970 album, Songs of the Humpback Whale, galvanised a global movement to end commercial whaling and save the marine giants from extinction
- Many anti-war protesters of the day took on saving animals and the environment as a new cause, and the words ‘save the whales’ became a ubiquitous slogan
Roger Payne, the scientist who spurred a worldwide environmental conservation movement with his discovery that whales could sing, has died. He was 88.
Payne made the discovery in 1967 during a research trip to Bermuda in which a Navy engineer provided him with a recording of curious underwater sounds documented while listening for Russian submarines. Payne identified the haunting tones as songs whales sing to one another.
He saw the discovery of whale song as a chance to spur interest in saving the giant animals, who were disappearing from the planet.
Payne would produce the album Songs of the Humpback Whale in 1970. A surprise hit, the record galvanised a global movement to end the practice of commercial whale hunting and save the whales from extinction.
Payne was cognisant from the start that whale song represented a chance to get the public interested in protecting an animal previously considered 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 instantly that the sounds were indeed whales.
“In spite of the racket, what I heard blew my mind. It seemed obvious that here, finally, was a chance to get the world interested in preventing the extinction of whales,” he told the magazine.