"The recovered recordings 'not only allow us to follow whale sounds, but they also tell us what the ocean soundscape was like in the late 1940s,' Tyack said. 'That's very difficult to reconstruct otherwise.' A preserved recording from the 1940s can also help scientists better understand how new human-made sounds, such as increased shipping noise, affect the way whales communicate."
"The song is that of a humpback whale, a marine giant beloved by whale watchers for its docile nature and spectacular leaps from the water, and was recorded by scientists in March 1949 in Bermuda, said researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The recording predates scientist Roger Payne's discovery of whale song by nearly 20 years."
"Just as significant is the sound of the surrounding ocean itself, said Peter Tyack, a marine bioacoustician and emeritus research scholar at Woods Hole. The ocean of the late 1940s was much quieter than the ocean of today, providing a different backdrop than scientists are used to hearing for whale song, he said."
Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discovered the oldest known recording of humpback whale song, captured in March 1949 in Bermuda during sonar testing. The recording predates Roger Payne's famous whale song discovery by nearly 20 years. Beyond the whale vocalization itself, the audio captures the ocean soundscape of the late 1940s, which was significantly quieter than today's ocean. This historical recording enables scientists to understand how whale communication has adapted to increased human-made noise, particularly shipping sounds. The preserved audio provides a unique baseline for studying how environmental acoustic changes influence whale behavior and communication patterns.
#whale-communication #historical-audio-recording #ocean-soundscape #marine-bioacoustics #human-made-noise-impact
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