Post-expedition Interview
  Conducted by Michael Heasley

MH: How did you know where to find these Pacific humpback whales?

Chadwick: These whales run a kind of migratory pattern, where they move back and forth from Alaska to Hawaii, swinging by the coast of California en route. Sometimes they run down to Mexico, sometimes they go over and visit Japan...but mostly these whales are back and forth from Hawaii to Alaska. In the winter months they are in Hawaii, and in the summer they’re up in Alaska.

MH: Were you in one of the United States National Marine Sanctuaries?

Chadwick: Yes, we were in a national marine sanctuary. The waters around Hawaii are a new national marine sanctuary for humpback whales.

MH: Can the public observe humpback whales?

Chadwick: Oh, the public not only can, the public does in great numbers. There are a lot of people now who come out and get on these large tour boats that go off Maui and other Hawaiian islands. You just steam out into the channel and wait there, and very, very soon you will see these whales swimming by, often breaching, which is when they leap out of the water and come crashing back down. By looking at a boat, you can see where the whales are, because all the people run to one side of the boat, and they actually tip it a little bit.

MH: Was your goal to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the appearance of [zoologist] Roger Payne’s sound sheet of humpback songs in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine?

Chadwick: Well, we weren’t aware of anyone going and re-creating those recordings in the last 20 years. [And since 1979] two things have changed dramatically. One, [we now know that] the song that the whales sing changes each year. It changes little bit by little bit, and all the whales kind of learn the new “words.” They all sing the same song, but it’s all gradually changing.

The other thing that’s changed is recording technology. We’re now able to capture these sounds in digital audio stereo with very good microphones and bring them back and play them. When Dr. Payne made his first recordings they were not in stereo.

MH: How do you record the sounds?

Chadwick: You use hydrophones, which are underwater microphones. Two microphones will give you a stereo perspective. We went out with a whale researcher, and the big question was, Exactly how do you record a whale? The answer is, just the way you would record anything else: Get the microphone in the right place and push the record button. But first you have to find the whale and put the microphone as close as you can get.....Well, that’s tricky with a whale, because they’re all underwater and we can’t see them.

We were with University of Hawaii whale researcher Lou Herman, who was constantly scanning the horizon, and at one point he says to us, “There! Over there I see a whale leaping out of the water, leaping up, straight up and right back down. That’s the behavior of a whale that is singing, so let’s go.” So we haul in our microphones and we go speeding over in this 20-foot [6-meter] open launch to where we think this whale is.

MH: If you were swimming in the same area where you put your microphones, would you be able to hear those songs?

Chadwick: You can actually hear those songs very distinctly in the water. Sound travels better in water than it does in the air. A lot of scientists think this is why whales sing, because vocalization is, for them, a very good way to communicate. You can carry a signal a long, long distance and it’s very distinct.

We were standing in this boat, and the song was so powerful that the entire boat was vibrating when we were above this whale. And we could hear the song in the air. That is, it was actually audible in the air right around the water where the whale was singing.

MH: Did the whale mind you being there?

Chadwick: He showed no sign of minding our presence. The whales will sing for sometimes five minutes, sometimes several hours.

MH: Have we gotten any closer to understanding what the songs mean?

Chadwick: We have perhaps better informed conjecture. For instance, we now know that all the singers are males. Are they trying to woo the female? Or are they trying to scare off other males? Are they staking out a territory? We don’t know. It could be any one of these things, and it’s going to be a while, I guess, before the scientists can sort this out.

MH: What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to a whale in the wild?

Chadwick: I got pretty close to the whale that was singing, because I was leaning over the boat to try to see it and I fell out [laughs].

MH: What did it feel like?

Chadwick: Oh gee, it felt just great. There’s no sense of threat, I just felt a sense of awe to see this creature hanging down there absolutely still in this beautiful blue water....The white undersides of the pectoral fins glowed like the blue face of one of those watches that light up. There’s just a great sense of density and mass and a great sense of lightness, as well, and then this great radiant song emerging from this creature. It’s just a wonderful experience.