Ocean Alliance
Digitalisation Project
Video © Ocean Alliance
Songs of the Humpback
In 1970, bio-acoustician Roger Payne produced the album Songs of the Humpback Whale which publicly demonstrated the elaborate vocalisations of humpback whales for the first time. The release became the bestselling environmental album in history, selling over 125,000 copies and going multi-platinum as the most popular nature recording ever. By raising awareness of the intelligence and culture of whales, the album helped spawn a worldwide “Save The Whales” movement, leading to the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment’s 10-year global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Image © Ocean Alliance
The fieldwork that went into the album captured 1206 analogue tapes that are in desperate need of preserving through digitalisation to prevent the degrading of the original tapes and the loss of historic data.
Through the Ocean Alliance Digitalisation Project, each tape will now be photographed, cleaned, and have digitised reels adjusted for speed changes and multiple tracks. WAV and Mp3 audio files will be created and uploaded to The Ocean Alliance’s server as well as archived via the Interspecies Internet collection at the Internet Archive, where they will be publicly available for historical relevance and the purpose of research and education.
By raising awareness of the intelligence and culture of whales, the album helped propel the “Save The Whales” movement into the global spotlight, ultimately leading to the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment’s 10-year global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Our effort to protect the historic tapes and prevent their data from being lost began at our Interspecies Conversations 2020 Conference, an event supported by The Jeremy Coller Foundation, Google and MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms.
The Jeremy Coller Foundation have generously announced they will donate $50,000 to the Ocean Alliance Inc, a US 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation, to support their digitisation of the ground-breaking field recordings of Roger Payne’s 1970 best-selling album ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’.
Lockdowns from Covid-19 have brought a drop in underwater noise pollution. In quieter seas, whales seem to be vocalizing more often, enabling new research in whale communication to be conducted. The benefits that quieter oceans provide for whales could potentially inform new policies to protect them.
“Over 50 years ago Roger Payne’s ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’ album captivated audiences in homes and classrooms around the world. Most importantly though, it inspired global action with humpback whales becoming one of the first species protected under the Endangered Species Conservation Act and a global moratorium on commercial whaling. I am pleased that through this project, these tapes will now be saved forever and will continue to inform research and education as we seek further ways to protect the humpback whale.”
Jeremy Coller CIO and Chairman of Coller Capital
Ocean Alliance - Whale Research & Conservation
Image © Ocean Alliance
