Katy Payne

Katy Payne is an explorer who is best known for her research on whales and elephants. Katy Payne was born in the year of 1937 on a farm. Katy Payne's father was an apple grower and a professor at the University of Cornell. Her mother loved books and music. As a child Katy Payne missed lots of school because she was often sick. She loved the outdoors and spent a bunch of her time outside. As a child, Katy Payne also loved to look at her grandfather's paintings of wildlife animals. When she was older she decided to attend school at the University of Cornell. Katy Payne majored in music but was extremely interested in nature.

After Katy Paine graduated from the University of Cornell, she decided to research the Southern Right Whale, beginning in the early 1960's. After Katy Payne's fifteen years of researching sounds of the Southern Right Humpback Whale, she became very well known for her discovery on the humpback whale songs in Patagonia, Argentina. Katy Payne worked at the Portland Zoo in 1984 where she watched over many elephants. One day at the Portland Zoo she noticed two of the Asian elephants male and female seemed to be trying to communicate with each other. Both the Asian elephants were separated by a large wall. This was thought to be the beginning of the Elephant Listening Project.

A few years later Katy Payne teamed up with a few biologists, Carl Hopkins and Bob Capranica from the University of Cornell. Together they got lots of equipment to record and measure sounds, and brought the equipment back to the Portland Zoo. A few more biologists joined Katy Payne's group, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and William Langbauer. After studying elephants at the Portland Zoo the team decided to move their project to laboratory of Cornell.

In 1986 the Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Infrasonic Calls of the Asian Elephant was founded. Soon after The New York Times had created an article headlined Secret Language Found in Elephants. Katy Payne then published her own book titled Silent Thunder. In 1999 The Elephant Listening Project was later founded with the help from of Charles Walcott and Christopher Clark. The Elephant Listening Project was created in the Laboratory of Ornithology, and contains research on the field of elephant communication.

But sadly, in the year of 2005 she retired and a man named Peter Wrege took over the Elephant Listening Project. In Central Africa The Elephant Listening Project is now listening to the sounds of forests, trying to follow Katy Payne's last ideas. The ELP ( Elephant Listening Project ) has set up many more projects around the country of Africa such as Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and the Republic of Congo.

In Africa Katy Payne has researched in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Katy Payne has also did research in Patagonia, Argentina.

Katy Payne

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