Interview: Defender of Whales Sees Only a Tenuous Recovery

Biologist Roger Payne first came to prominence more than 40 years ago, when he and a colleague made the discovery that whales sing eerily beautiful songs as a way of communicating. Since then, he has continued his groundbreaking work on whales, including recent studies showing that whales worldwide have high levels of pollutants in their bodies. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Payne talks about current threats to whale populations, including the continued killing of whales by Japan and other nations, and discusses the mystery of the songs sung by whales, whose haunting strains have the power, he says, to move people to tears.
Read the interview