Scientists have discovered recordings of humpback whales taken nearly 80 years ago. The haunting song was captured on 7 March 1949, making it the earliest known recording of a whale song.
"This recording was captured by WHOI scientists near Bermuda but they didn’t know what they were hearing at the time so they never catalogued it,” says Peter Tyak, a marine bioacoustician and emeritus research scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in a video shared on Instagram.
Humpback whale song has become such a familiar sound for many people around the world that it seems strange that marine scientists might not recognise it. But – before this recording was discovered – the earliest known whale song recordings were picked up by the US Navy’s underwater microphones in the 1950s.
Marine biologist Roger Payne shared these beautiful sounds with the world in the 1970s through his album Songs of the Humpback Whale.
All the while, this recording was waiting, overlooked, in storage until WHOI archivists found it while digitising audio from early underwater recorders. “They immediately knew how significant it was,” says Tyak.
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The sounds had been captured when researchers were collaborating with the US Office of Naval Research on several acoustic experiments, such as testing sonar systems and measuring the volume of explosives. It was still the early days of recording noises underwater and researchers didn’t yet know much about where different sounds of the sea – such as whale song – came from.
"Data from this time period simply don’t exist in most cases,” says Laela Sayigh, a marine bioacoustician and senior research specialist at WHOI. "The ocean is much louder now, with increases in both number and types of sound sources. This recording can provide insight into how humpback whale sounds have changed over time, as well as serving as a baseline for measuring how human activity shapes the ocean soundscape.”
In the nearly 80 years since these humpback whale vocalisations were recorded, lots has changed. The ocean is a much busier and noisier place, because of things like ship traffic, construction and oil and gas exploration.
Technology has also progressed leaps and bounds. The 1949 audio was probably recorded using an early experimental underwater recorder known as the WHOI 'suitcase'. It was then etched onto plastic discs using an office dictation machine: a Gray Audograph.
Today, marine scientists can record the ocean soundscape through gliders, passive acoustic buoys, hydrophones and even autonomous ocean robots.
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As marine mammals that swim long distances across ocean basins, whales can be hard to study. Listening into their activities can help researchers learn more about their lives.
“Underwater sound recordings are a powerful tool for understanding and protecting vulnerable whale populations,” says Tyack. "By listening to the ocean, we can detect whales where they cannot easily be seen.”
Rediscovering this momentous recording so many years after it was captured is a great illustration of why data should be preserved, says Ashley Jester, WHOI’s director of research data and library services: “These recordings remind us why we collect data, even when we don’t immediately know what it means.”
Top image: Humpback whales. Credit: Getty
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