.png)
Readers might know that oceans are loud. By submerging their heads in the water, they will hear a variety of noises. These include seashells, whales, bubbles, splashes, and sometimes motors. From experience, readers may also know that small, fast boats have louder motors than large, slow cargo boats. Like us, whales and dolphins hear these sounds. Research shows that baleen whales are emitting louder clicks, whistles, and pulse calls to communicate in the noisy environment.
Whales require clear communication amongst themselves for several things, including feeding. They hunt together in an organized fashion. Depending on the sound communicated, other members of the pod can be informed about any changes or progress made for the hunt. Their coordination allows them to rally the food and catch it more easily or in larger quantities. The loud boat noises have been making this much harder by silencing their calls. The extra effort they make to communicate requires them to eat more. Of these hunters, research shows that orcas are the most impacted by the high-frequency sounds produced by boats.
High-frequency sounds aren’t the only things impacting ocean life; low-frequency sounds impact whales and dolphins too. In 2016, research showed that these frequencies were intersected by animals that echolocate. These include both whales and dolphins. Marine creatures use echolocation to identify icebergs, food, and/or map out the ocean floor. Echolocation involves the emission of sound waves in a surrounding, calculating the time it takes for the wave to bounce off an object and come back to its source, calculating the angle at which it comes back, and, from that information, identifying surfaces, objects, and creatures. Many marine animals use low-frequency sound waves for echolocation. The addition of low-frequency sounds has been “polluting” their environment and making it harder for them to echolocate.
Boat sounds in the water affect ocean creatures and we are just starting to understand the magnitude of the impact these sound waves have on the ocean.
Sources
Above detailing the effects of sounds in the ocean, this article also introduces the idea that global warming might impact the sound range of noises in the oceans.
This article focuses on the impacts of boats on marine creatures that hunt collectively. Such creatures include whales and doplhins.
Here is a scientific journal detailing an experiment that was conducted to further study the magnitude of the impact of boat noises in the oceans.
"Drowned out by the din of passing ships, humpback whales attempting to breed off the coast of Japan are cutting their conversations short." ~Katherine J WU, the author of the article.
This is a scientific journal that explains the findings of an experiment conducted to better understand "the effects of vessel noise on the communication network of humpback whales."
"From beluga whales to bats and even to humans, many animals make sounds that bounce back from objects to help with navigation and hunting." ~Liz Langley, the author of the article.
留言