He is best known for his work documenting the unsustainable mortality of hundreds of thousands of dolphins per year in the tuna purse-seine fishery of the eastern tropical Pacific.

His work on cetacean taxonomy was acknowledged in 2002 when a newly recognized species of beaked whale, Perrin's beaked whale (Mesoplodon perrini), which was named in his honor (Dalebout 2002).

His PhD co-advisers were Carl Leavitt Hubbs and Kenneth S. Norris.

Perrin worked most of his career for the U.S. Government, initially for the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (1966–1970) and later for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1970–2013) at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.

He taught and advised graduate students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.