Roger Payne, the US scientist who galvanised a worldwide environmental conservation movement with his discovery that whales sing, has died. He was 88.
His wife, actress Lisa Harrow, said he died of pelvic cancer on June 10, 2023 in his home in South Woodstock, Vermont, New Zealand.
While on a research trip to Bermuda in 1967, a navy engineer provided him with a recording of underwater sounds he observed while listening for Russian submarines. Payne identified them as songs whales sing to one another.
The naval officer was Frank Watlington, an underwater acoustics specialist, who played the recording to Dr. Payne in the engine room of the research vessel over the generator noise.
There were no breaks between the songs which last for hours and repeated in about 30 minutes intervals.
The team included his first wife, zoologist Katy Payne, and Scott McVay. With Dr. Payne, they used a sound spectrograph to analyze the recordings. He and McVay published their findings in the journal Science in 1971.
In 1970, their recording of humpback whales was released as an album, “Songs of the Humpback Whale.” It is the best selling environmental album in history.
The album inspired a global movement that led to national and international bans on commercial whaling.
In 1971, Dr Payne founded Ocean Alliance to protect whales and dolphins.
