“In spite of the racket, what I heard blew my mind. It seemed obvious that here, finally, was a chance to get the world interested in preventing the extinction of whales,” he told the magazine.
Payne had four children from a previous marriage to zoologist Katy Payne, with whom he collaborated. The two used primitive equipment in the late 1960s to record the sounds of humpback whales, which sometimes sing their eerie, complex songs for longer than a half-hour at a stretch. Payne founded Ocean Alliance in 1971 to advocate for the protection of whales and dolphins. The organization operates to this day in Gloucester, Massachusetts. It has played a role in watershed moments in the history of whale protection, such as the 1972 passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act by the U.S. Congress and the 1982 commercial whaling moratorium passed by the International Whaling Commission.
“He had a presence and a way of connecting to people that led them to dedicating their lives to protecting whales and our planet Earth,” Kerr said.