Call of the Whale

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January 25, 1999 -- Radio Expeditions takes its microphones on board a whale research boat off the island of Maui, Hawaii, to record the haunting and mysterious call of the humpback whale.

With Dr. Lou Herman, a leading researcher based at the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, reporter Alex Chadwick ventures into the Maui channel where the humpbacks, once hunted almost to extinction, are now making a come back. The whales gather annually in Hawaii. These waters are their "wintering grounds." With the help of the researchers, Radio Expeditions is able to locate a single "singing" whale for an extraordinary recording. Dr. Herman explains that researchers have learned a great deal about whales in the last 30 years. But the whale "songs" remain a great riddle. Scientists do not yet know what they mean -- or even how the giant creatures are able to produce them.