"Listening To Whale Migration Reveals A Sea Of Noise Pollution, Too"

"Christopher Clark, who directs the bioacoustics research program at Cornell University, is among the world's best scientific listeners. His work has revealed how human-made noise is filling the ocean, making it harder for marine animals to hear their own world. But Clark didn't start out with much interest in whales at all.

In 1972, he was an engineering student in college. Through one of his professors, he met Roger Payne. Roger and his wife, Katy, were the first biologists to discover that whales sing. The Paynes said they needed someone with engineering skills to record whales from a beach in Patagonia, Argentina, and Clark said, 'Sure! Why not? Sounds like fun.'

More than fun, it turned out. 'We were living in tents, getting blown around on a beach,' Clark recalls. 'I had Magellanic penguins in my tent stealing things.' He was astonished that people actually got paid to do this sort of thing."

Christopher Joyce and Bill McQuay report for NPR August 13, 2015.