Payne, Katharine 1937(?)- (Katy Payne)

views updated

PAYNE, Katharine 1937(?)-
(Katy Payne)

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1937; married Roger Payne (a biologist), 1960 (divorced); children: four. Education: Cornell University, B.A. (music), 1959; graduate studies, 1960-61.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ithaca, NY. Office—Elephant Listening Project, Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Acoustic biologist and author. Teacher in Turrialba, Costa Rica; New York Zoological Society research fellow, 1977-85; Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca NY, affiliated with bioacoustics research program, 1984—; Elephant Listening Project, founder and principal investigator, 2000—. Has appeared on radio and television programs, including Ultimate Guide to Elephants, Discovery Channel, and NBC Dateline.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Albert Schweitzer Medal, Animal Welfare Institute (with Roger Payne), 1981; Cabot Trust fellowship, 1982; Lindbergh Foundation certificate of merit (with W. R. Langbauer, Jr.), 1989; John S. Guggenheim fellowship, 1989-90; Cornell University Cook Award, 1993; Scientific American outstanding book designation, 1998, for Silent Thunder; Harry Frank Guggenheim fellowship, 2000, 2001; Wings Trust Women of Discovery Earth Award, 2003; grants from National Science Foundation, National Wildlife Foundation, World Wildlife Fund.

WRITINGS:

Elephants Calling (for children), Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 1992.

(As Katy Payne) Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

Contributor to journals, including Journal of Experimental Biology, Canadian Journal of Zoology, American Scientist, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Zoologica, and African Journal of Ecology.

Payne's books have been translated into German.

SIDELIGHTS:

Katherine "Katy" Payne is known within the biological community for her groundbreaking research into animal communication and her founding of Cornell University's Elephant Listening Project. Specifically, she has spent many years studying the communication and socialization patterns of African elephants. One of her most dramatic discoveries was the realization that elephants communicate with each other using frequencies of sound inaudible to the human ear. These sound waves travel through a combination of air and earth over amazing distances of over two miles. This broadcast of sound allows elephants in distant reaches of areas to subtly communicate a myriad of information to each other.

Payne's early research involved another large mammal, the whale. After she spent a week observing elephants at a Portland, Oregon zoo her interest in elephants overtook her whale work and she devoted all her energy to the massive and sometimes boisterous pachyderms. Her work as an acoustical biologist led to the publication in 1992 of her first book on elephants, titled Elephants Calling. A children's book, Elephants Calling focuses on elephants' ability to communicate with each other using frequencies of sound undetectable to the human ear. In the book Payne likens the low frequency sounds emitted by elephants to songs.

In Payne's 1998 work, Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants, she elaborates upon intra-animal communication and also addresses socialization norms such as the discovery of the matriarchal nature of elephant groups. She makes comparisons between elephants and humans on physical as well as emotional levels. Rounding out her coverage of elephant-related issues, Payne also elaborates upon the political and physical ramifications of heard culling, or thinning, a commonplace tactic employed by the African government. Silent Thunder was praised by New York Times contributor Roger Fouts, who wrote that in her book "Payne offers the opportunity for a rare experience and awakening that will change our view of ourselves, elephants and all living things."

As a result of her many years studying elephant behavior, Payne has become a devoted elephant advocate, strongly opposing procedures that threaten their delicate social balance. A pressing, current concern for Payne is the Zimbabwe government's efforts to lift the ban covering the sale of elephant ivory. She fears this would only intensify the activity of illegal poachers in search of valuable ivory elephant tusks. Many governments are indignant regarding the elephant's welfare, primarily because the elephants are perceived as a nuisance by the expanding human populations rapidly encroaching upon the animal's natural environment. Governmental motives are also in question, as the legalization of the ivory trade would bring wealth to those locales with large elephant populations. Payne and others argue that the possible economic gains would be at the expense of a population of animals that only recently recovered from near annihilation by humans at the turn of the twentieth century.