I am a biologist who has spent his life studying whales. Back in the 1960s, a colleague, Scott McVay, and I discovered that the long, hauntingly beautiful, uninterrupted streams of sounds that humpback whales make (sometimes for hours at a time) are actually rhythmic, repeated, patterns of sound, and that means that they are, properly speaking, songs.

Later, in the 1970s, my then wife, Katy Payne, showed that unlike the vast majority of birds, humpback whales change their songs. They are inveterate composers who tinker with phrases, and constantly compose new material, until after about 5 years the song is entirely different from what they were singing five years earlier.

Katy Payne and Linda Guinee (a woman who worked in my institute, Ocean Alliance), later discovered that when humpback whales compose complex songs, they often use rhyme in the song. They could hear the rhymes, just as you can hear rhymes even in a language you don’t understand.

The fascinating thing about their discovery is that humpback whales seem to be using rhyme as a way to help them remember what comes next in their complex songs. Troubadours used the same trick: they put rhymes into the epic poems they memorized because it helped them remember them.

In 1970 I published a theory showing that the loudest, lowest sounds that whales make can carry across oceans before they become lost in background noise. Two decades later Chris Clark proved this theory to be true. Listening through Navy hydrophones located off the Virginia coast, Chris Clark found that he could hear the lowest notes in the songs of humpback whales that were singing as they migrated out of the Norwegian sea into the Atlantic, thousands of kilometers away.

So… it is accurate to conclude that humpback whales are singers, composers and poets whose songs travel across entire oceans.

I have recorded humpback whales all over the world, and in doing so have found that every ocean basin has a unique song that all the humpback whales that live there sing. The most beautiful songs I ever heard came from humpback whales around Bermuda. A Bermudian friend of mine, Frank Watlington, made some of the best recordings. Later, I also recorded some lovely songs during the springs of the late 1960s. The whales were passing Bermuda as they migrated between Caribbean breeding grounds and feeding grounds much further to the north—singing as they went.

It was those particular songs that inspired two chamber music works, and two orchestral pieces. Singer, Judy Collins used them to accompany a song called “Farewell to Tarwaithe” on her album: Whales and Nightingales, and the song became a hit. Musician Paul Winter also used several phrases from these recordings to create five of his compositions, two of which became hits in Japan. It is these same songs that were on an LP I released called Songs of the Humpback Whale (still the bestselling natural history recording ever made). And it is the songs of these same Bermuda whales that were included on a flexible record that was included in the ??? issue of National Geographic Magazine. Because the National Geographic Society had ten and a half million subscribers at the time, they had to order ten and a half million records. And that established another kind of record—one that has never been broken: their order was (and still is) the largest single print order in the history of the recording industry.

All of which I believe says that the Bermuda whales of the 1960s were not just ordinary singers they were great singer/composer/poets, and before they vanished had generated a huge following of fans.

A Humpback whale feeding.

Photo: Chris Johnson

But alas… there is a whale fishery still operating in the Caribbean, and some of the great singers that passed Bermuda were probably seen there. So although the fishery only kills a few humpbacks each year it wouldn’t have had to kill very many to destroy these greatest of known singers. After all, the man who shot John Lennon only killed one man in his life but what an appalling loss.

I believe that sometime between the late 60s and early eighties, the Caribbean whale fishery probably killed the greatest humpback whale singer/composer/poets whose songs had so captivated the world. It could explain why today’s humpback whale songs are such pale copies of those of the ‘60s—and why the North Atlantic is so musically lackluster today.

Or you may prefer to conclude, as some have suggested, that since the Beatles were also at their height during the 1960s, the muse for people and for whales must have been particularly active at that time. However, I find it more likely that the high musicality in both our species during the 60s is a coincidence. Indeed, I imagine that it is unsurprising that I have heard only a few, great, humpback whale singer/composer/poets, in my life. For after all, there have only been a few, great, human singer/composer/poets during my lifetime as well—and there are one hundred thousand times as many people on earth as there are humpback whales.

So how are the whalers in your country reacting to the extraordinary rarity of humpback whales, and to the even greater rarity of their greatest singers? The government of Japan recently announced that it had given your whalers a permit to kill fifty humpback whales this year in the name of science (you can be certain that the number they kill will increase in the future). And what does Japan intend to do with the singer/composer/poets it will kill in such a savagely cruel way? It will eat them. (I suppose that the Beatles might have provided several meals but it wouldn’t have been a very creative response to what else they had to offer to the world besides food calories.)

Although there is a zero quota in place for commercial whaling, Japan is doing what it claims to be “Scientific Whaling”. Here’s how it works: the International Whaling Commission allows nations to issue permits to its scientists to kill whales for research purposes. So Japan has simply changed the name of what it is doing from ‘Commercial Whaling’ to ‘Scientific Whaling’ and the world now has to stand by helplessly, watching Japan kill whales for what is, as the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission has pointed out repeatedly, a commercial hunt, not needed science.

On December 30 2002, while Roger Payne's whale research vessel Odyssey sailed from the Seychelles to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, they were joined by a mother and calf pair of humpback whales. The whales rode the bow of Odyssey for over 4 and a half hours. Read the Odyssey log and watch spectacular video footage of the event.

Photo: Chris Johnson

The claim by your country that what it is doing is supportable as science is a unique outrage that brings with it a unique disgrace. I spent years of my life attending meetings of the International Whaling Commission—the body that fixes quotas on whaling. From that experience I can say with confidence that it would be difficult if not impossible to assemble a committee of scientists that was more favorably disposed towards whaling than the members of the Scientific Committee of the IWC. Yet, so weak is the science your country is doing on the whales it kills that that same Scientific Committee of the IWC has repeatedly asked the IWC itself to ask your government not to issue permits to your whalers because the research is not necessary to assess the size of whale populations or to set quotas on whaling. And each year a majority of the nations of the IWC has voted to have the IWC make that request, and each year, your government has ignored that request and gone ahead and issued a permit to your “scientists.”

It is Japanese scientists’ failure to persuade its fellow scientists in the rest of the world of the value of their so-called scientific whaling which finally caused Japan, back in the 1980s, to stop respecting that most important of democratic principles: majority rule, and to start killing as many whales as she wanted to, regardless of what the rest of the world thought.

Watching one country force its unpopular views on the rest of the world is an ugly spectacle. When my country behaves that way, it is clear to everyone, including the people of your country, how offensive such behavior is. I abhor seeing my country do it, and I abhor seeing whaling nations do it. The world’s whalers do NOT own the world’s whales. They do not have the right to kill whales whenever they want to. Long ago Japan signed the legally binding International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which established the principle that whaling would be done by mutual agreement—not by unilateral action.

When I first started studying whales 39 years ago, Japan, was one of a dozen countries that together harpooned 33,000 whales a year—a rate of killing so outrageously excessive it had caused the near collapse of many whale populations. Nevertheless, it took more than a decade of argument to overcome the foot-dragging tactics of the whaling nations and to pass a zero quota on whaling (often incorrectly referred to as a “moratorium”). But Japan, Norway and Iceland voted against the zero quota, so when the other countries quit hunting whales, all of the world’s whales were at the mercy of Japan, Norway and Iceland. Each of those three whaling nations exploited a loophole in the IWC agreements that enabled them to keep right on hunting whales.

And now Japan is going to kill Humpback whales—the singer/composer/poets—a species the rest of the world values and protects—a species whose songs helped to inspire the world to avoid the catastrophe of the mass extinction of whales.

All the whaling nations had to do to turn the moratorium into a bonanza for themselves was to ignore the wishes of the rest of the world. Now they hunt whales without any competition from the other nations that obey the will of the majority. Meanwhile, conservationists have gone on to other causes because they believed (foolishly, as it turns out) that Japan, Norway and Iceland were honorable nations that would play by the rules. But when it comes to whaling Japan, Norway and Iceland are not honorable nations, and do not play by the rules. They do what they like.

A curious humpback whale approaches a whale watch boat in Gloucester, MA USA. Dr. Roger Payne advocates regulated whale watching as a sustainable economic alternative to whaling. Read his Voice from the Sea report entitled - "The Economic Value of Whales in Their Living State" -   Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3.

Photo: Cynde Bierman-McGinnis

Greed is a powerful thing, and as time passes, it always increases. It is unsurprising that having gotten rid of its competition, Japan wants ever more whales. Now she wants to kill the world’s most beloved whale—the humpback—the creature whose songs helped to inspire humans to stop short of bringing whale species to extinction. If she carries through with this plan it will be at a colossal cost. Millions of people will not just be mad at Japan, they will be enraged with Japan.

Though some cultures kill songbirds for food, the Japanese don’t; your citizens value songbirds more for their songs than for their calories, and let them live. So why is Japan willing to kill humpback whales that also sing beautiful songs? I believe it is because your countrymen are unfamiliar with the songs of humpback whales—don’t know how beautiful they are, and so don’t realize what a crime they are about to commit by killing these whales, and therefore don’t perceive how angry it will make millions of people who do know about these songs, and who do love them and the whales who sing them. You have seen how intensely offensive America’s war in Iraq is to millions of people. Killing humpback whales will also be intensely offensive to millions of people.

So this is what I propose: I have put one of the great 1970s songs of the Bermuda Humpback master singers on the website of my institute: OceanAlliance.org and have arranged with the company that markets it (Living Music Records), to let you download it free. I am relying on the youth of Japan. I believe in you. I believe in your open mindedness, and I want you to hear these songs. If you like them, I hope you will tell your parents and your leaders about them and why you don’t want to see your country be the one that kills the whales that produce such music.

I hope you enjoy what you hear. Thank you.

Dr. Roger Payne

Dr Roger Payne is the president and founder of the Ocean Alliance - non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of whales through reserch and public education. He has studied the behavior of whales since 1967. His BA degree is from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. from Cornell.
Payne's honors and awards, include: a knighthood in the Netherlands, a MacArthur Fellowship, the similar Lyndhurst Prize Fellowship, the Joseph Wood Krutch Medal of the Humane Society of the U.S., The Albert Schweitzer Medal of the Animal Welfare Institute, and a United Nations, UNEP, "Global 500" Award. His films have received seven major awards including two Emmy nominations.
Dr. Payne is the senior scientist of the Voyage of the Odyssey, a multi-year global scientific and education expedition studying whales and ocean pollution.
He can be reached at - rogerpayne@whale.org

Links:

• For more information about the Ocean Alliance - click here.
• Explore previous Voice from the Sea pieces from Dr. Roger Payne:
  • Is Scientific Whaling Motivated by Curiosity? - report
  • Research Pretenders - Rubbing the Name of Science in the Mud - report
• Read a previous Odyssey report from the Seychelles about an encounter with a singing humpback whale.
• What is the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary? Learn more.
• What is the International Whaling Commission? Click here read more.

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