Humphrey's Story
For three weeks in 1985, the plight of Humphrey the Humpback Whale concerned and captivated San Francisco. Humphrey wandered into San Francisco Bay and found himself stuck in the shallows, where the water's low salinity threatened his life. Institute board member Dr. Bernie Krause headed a team of scientists who used sound recordings of natural whale vocalizations to guide Humphrey back to safety. Click the "voiceprint" (spectrogram) below to hear the kind of sound that caused Humphrey to swim 400 yards to the sound source in 15 seconds and follow it for over 50 miles back to his home in the Pacific Ocean.
click on the spectrogram to hear Humpback feeding calls (73 KB MP3)