Whales and Their Changing Environment

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March 27, 2000 -- Today, NPR's Morning Edition airs a new NPR/National Geographic Society Radio Expedition, on the Baja/Ocean Alliance.

Thirty years ago, wildlife biologist Roger Payne changed the way the world thinks about marine life with his discovery of whale communication by acoustic signal -- what we have come to call whale song. An album of his research recordings, Songs of the Humpback Whale, became wildly popular.

Now Roger Payne has begun a three-year, round-the-world voyage to test the health of both whales and their environment -- the great oceans, on which we all depend. Radio Expeditions joins Roger Payne for the launch of his new whale research mission, including the first effort to gather basic data on the level of pollutants already carried in the bodies of the oceans' marker species.

Listen as NPR's Alex Chadwick joins the Baja/Ocean Alliance whale research team aboard the Odyssey as they test the Sea of Cortez and its inhabitants for pollutants.

Find out more about the voyage of the Odyssey at the Ocean Alliance Web site.