Lonely Whale...searching the ocean for 12 years for another of it's species

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics.html

Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: December 21, 2004

WWW. newyorktimes.com

Imagine roaming the world's largest ocean year after year alone, calling out with the regularity of a metronome, and hearing no response.

Such, apparently, is the situation faced by a solitary whale, species unknown, that has been tracked since 1992 in the North Pacific by a classified array of hydrophones used by the Navy to monitor enemy submarines.

The animal is called the 52 hertz whale because it makes a distinctive stream of sounds at around that basso profundo frequency, just above the lowest note on a tuba.

Its sonic signature is clearly that of a whale, but nothing like the normal voice of the giant blue or the next biggest species, the fin, or any other whale for that matter, said Mary Ann Daher, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod.

Ms. Daher is part of a team built by Dr. William A. Watkins, a pioneer in marine mammal acoustics who died in September, that has spent years trying to eavesdrop on the largely hidden lives of whales.

In the current edition of the journal Deep-Sea Research, members of this team report that all signs are that the sounds come from a single animal, whose movements "appeared to be unrelated to the presence or movement of other whale species."

The 52 hertz whale may be maturing, since its voice has deepened slightly over time, Ms. Daher said. A gallery of sounds, including the call of 52 hertz, can be heard at www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/spectrograms.html .

Team members and other experts have proposed a host of explanations for the whale sounds, among them that the animal is malformed or, most likely, is a hybrid of a blue whale and another species.

Ms. Daher said that as word of the paper has spread, she has gotten a host of e-mail messages, some from whale lovers lamenting the notion of a lonely heart of the cetacean world. Some messages have come from deaf people speculating that the whale might share their disability.

Dr. Kate Stafford, a researcher at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, said there were reasons to believe that the whale was healthy.

"The fact that this individual has been capable of existing in that harsh environment for at least these 12 years indicates there is nothing wrong with it," she said. But she agreed that there was something poignant about the finding.

"He's saying, 'Hey I'm out here,' " she said. "Well, nobody is phoning home."

SixofNine

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :-( Can we keep her mum? Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaaasse???

Big Tex

Capt. Kirk (and his bad toupee) took his friends to the 23rd century to talk to alien baseball bat.

Nosferatu

I'm sure if the whale made a profile on match.com, he would find someone. Some people are just that desperate.

I forgot to add my comments...go to the links provided. The hydrophone array that is wired all over the oceans picks up all kinds of sounds...man made, seismic, volcanic, whales and even a lot of unknowns. And of course Ruskie subs!

There are a lot of wav files of different species of whales etc., to listen to. I killed and hour !

No Apologies

Amazingly, scientists have been able to make a crude translation of the whale's song!!!!

Rabbit

Thank you for seeing the humor in that !

ohiocowboy

I couldn't even imagine how that whale must feel searching for another of it's kind for so long. I hope it is able to soon find a companion, so it doesn't feel so alone in the world. It is so sad knowing that there are such beautiful, innocent life forms that are so lonely...