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The Art of Observing Whalesambience, right whales Celebrating three decades of Pulse of the Planet, here's a program from our archives.We're listening to the sounds of right whales, one of the many species of whales that Roger Payne has been studying over the last twenty years. Today, some thoughts from Dr. Payne on the fine art of whale watching. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Payne: The techniques that modern whale researchers use are benign research techniques. They don't require killing the animal. They require sort of living with it for long periods and learning them as individuals and following them around and seeing with whom they consort and who they're afraid of and so on. And the way this is done is by usually filming the whales, filming some part of their body which has a lot of variable pattern of color on it. For example, in humpback whales, we film the under-surfaces of their tails and they have a pattern on them. In right whales, they have marks on their heads which are totally different and we use those as a means of telling them apart as individuals. Then you go out again and again and again.Roger Payne is president of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. Payne: When you study whales, one of the main things is you sit for hours and hours and hours watching, watching, watching, trying to figure out what's going on. And one of the fascinating aspects of it is that the slow and glacial pace at which whales lead their lives is such that you may watch all afternoon some weird thing going on between a calf and its mother. And then you sort of run it over in your mind which is another way of saying you speed it up and then you remember, you realizes 'my gosh, that's play'. It's just ultra-slow motion play because they lead their lives at a rate so much more slow than our own."This archival program is part of our thirtieth anniversary celebration. If you want hear more, check out our podcast. Im Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet