CD: Humpback Whales Sing in Australia

From http://songlinesofthewhales.org

The East Australian Humpback Whales were hunted to the verge of extinction during the formative years of European settlement in Australia. The Latin name for  Humpback Whales is Megaptera novaeangliae. It means ‘The Great Winged Whale of New England’. New England is where the whalers first began hunting Humpback Whales over 200 years ago. From a population of more than 45,000, by 1960 less than 100 whales remained.

Each year the migration of the East Australian Humpback Whales begins at the Great Barrier Reef near Queensland, Australia.  The pods travel to their summer feeding grounds in Antarctica singing all the way there.  Each year the whales sing a new song.

www.oceania.org.au

Dr. Roger and Katy Payne were the first scientists to recognize that the unique sounds made by male Humpback Whales were in fact conscious, complex evolving song. They found that the songs varied markedly from year to year and that “new variations are learned traits which evolve”.

The Whales each sing the same cycle, although they each commence the cycle at different intervals. So a low frequency pulse may be responded to by a high frequency pulse; also giving them Sonar (Sound and Navigation Ranging) feedback on each other’s position. The whale song is constant.

Listen to the whale songs from different years:

<h3><img src="/_images/sound_icon.png" alt="Play Whalesong" width="21" height="19" align="texttop"> 1992 Preview &nbsp;</h3>

This 1994 recording of male Humpback Whale song is typical of the night time recordings that we systematically carry out. There are three principal singers in close proximity with several other singers in the distance:
<h3><img src="/_images/sound_icon.png" alt="Play Whalesong" width="21" height="19" align="texttop"> 1994 Preview &nbsp;<embed src="/_images/1994_Preview.mp3" width="200" height="45" align="absmiddle" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"></embed></h3>

The recording cycle of the whale song begins on the crescendo of the high frequency pulses. Note the subtle but definite descent in frequency of each of the passages syncopated by low frequency staccato pulses. Viewed with a spectrogram the low frequency pulses can be seen to be very precise chords of frequencies. These are very clear and consistent characteristics of the Songline cycles we have recorded over the past twenty years.

<h3><img src="/_images/sound_icon.png" alt="Play Whalesong" width="21" height="19" align="texttop"> 2008 Preview &nbsp; </h3>

The male Humpback Whale songs repeat in cycles from anywhere between nine and twenty seven minutes. Individual Whales have been documented as singing continuously for up to twenty three hours.

Hear Humpback Whale song like you have never heard before. Songlines documents the evolution of the intricate and beautiful East Australian Humpback Whale song. An hour of pristine digital audio recordings selected from five different years between 1992 and 2008 which draw the listener into a mysterious and majestic ocean world.

Support The Oceania Project's Whale research programs by ordering this CD: 

Songlines – Songs of the East Australian Humpback Whales

BUY IT HERE: http://www.oceania.org.au/iwhales/portal/product.php?productid=16267

The Oceania Project, established in 1988, is a Not-for-profit research and information organisation dedicated to the Conservation and Protection of Whales, Dolphins and the Oceans. The first phase of a long-term study of Humpback Whales in Hervey Bay - 1992 to 2005 - has been the major work of The Oceania Project.

This work was, and continues to be made possible, by individuals who participate in The Oceania Project's Internship Program.
To date more than 1300 Interns have joined the Annual Whale Research Expeditions in Hervey Bay.  More info here: http://www.oceania.org.au/footer_stuff/about_us.html

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