Voyage of the Odyssey executive summary - Ocean Alliance

Introduction to Ocean Alliance
Ocean Alliance works to protect whales and reduce global ocean pollution by conducting groundbreaking
scientific research and working for change through public education and outreach.
O cean Alliance, Inc., a 501(c)3 organization, was founded in 1971 by biologist Roger Payne. Led by Dr. Payne
and CEO Iain Kerr, Ocean Alliance collects a broad spectrum of data on whales and ocean life relating
particularly to toxicology, bioacoustics, behavior, and genetics. Working from that data, we give
information about ocean pollution and the health of marine mammals and other ocean life to policy makers, politicians,
nongovernmental organizations, educators, and students. Our data is the basis of many conservation success stories.
Our major scientific partner is the Wise Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology, at the University of
Southern Maine, which conducts state-of-the-art research aimed at understanding how environmental contaminants
affect the health of humans and marine animals. The Wise Laboratory’s mission is accomplished through the pursuit of a
number of key objectives, including innovative and multidisciplinary research in toxicology and molecular epidemiology
to increase understanding of disease in humans and marine organisms, particularly in relation to cancer, asthma, and
reproductive/developmental effects.
Ocean Alliance Research Programs
l Tracking Sperm Whales – Sentinels of Ocean Health
We learned to track sperm whales day and night by listening for the vocalizations they make. We towed an array of
underwater microphones (called hydrophones) behind the Odyssey at all times. The sounds the hydrophones pick up are
then broadcast inside the pilot house and displayed visually through a computer program invented by Douglas Gillespie
of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The program, called Rainbow Click, assigns a different color to the clicks
of each different sperm whale, determines a bearing to them, and displays those clicks without ocean noise, enabling us to
find and follow the individual whale. The crew of the Odyssey has become so skilled at doing this that if we hear just one
“click train,” we can almost always find the group, and having done so, we can stay with it for days as long as at least one
of the whales in the group keeps clicking.
l Right Whale Program
Ocean Alliance runs the longest continuous study of any baleen whale species in which specific individual whales are
tracked and identified over time. The subject of this study is one of the most endangered of the great whales, the southern
right whale (Eubaleana australis). Ocean Alliance right whale researchers, led initially by Roger Payne and now by Victoria
Rowntree, have studied one of the world’s largest populations of right whales (approximately 2,000 individuals) on their
calving grounds in Argentine waters since 1970.
l Humpback Whale Songs
Ocean Alliance is best known for Roger Payne’s 1968 discovery (with Scott McVay) that the intricate and impressive
vocalizations produced by humpback whales (Megaptera novaengliae), particularly on their winter assembly grounds, are
produced in repeated, rhythmic patterns and are therefore, by definition, songs. Roger Payne and other researchers at
Ocean Alliance have gathered recordings from humpback whale populations throughout the world, a collection that now
contains more than 1,500 recordings from 14 geographic regions. It may be the largest collection of humpback recordings
anywhere and is now being curated by Cornell University’s Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds. The Ocean Alliance
library also contains recordings from right whales, sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), and several other species, which,
together with the humpback recordings, total more than 6,000 hours of sounds.
Ocean Alliance Education Programs
Ocean Alliance has developed several novel education programs that provide a foundation for our conservation efforts.
These programs are designed to reach people of all ages with an emphasis on students, participants in whale watches, and
multimedia resources. The goals of our programs are to build awareness of whales and their ocean environment and to
encourage the participation of an informed public in promoting lasting, effective conservation policies.
l Ocean Encounters
Our education program took place hand in hand with our scientific research. We believe that learning and discovery
happen best when they happen together, and when students can participate in a program of genuine scientific research.
Thus, our education approach focused on the research we were doing, and on conserving whales and the rest of ocean life.
We also taught classes about human impacts on the marine environment. The most satisfactory aspect of this approach
was that people’s eyes were opened to the realization that they could make a real difference.
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