This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Humpback Whales Are Falling Silent and the Reason Will Make You Cry
Male humpback whales are known for their evocative songs, but their classic melodies are being shortened or silenced in reaction to shipping noise, Japanese researchers found.
Baleen whales such as humpbacks use songs to communicate, search for food, find mates and navigate the seas,but in Japan, their voices are being drowned out by the din of cacophonous human activity.
The new study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, adds more evidence that human-generated noise pollution interferes with marine life. Our oceans are getting noisier due to increasing human activity, including shipping, military sonar, underwater construction and seismic blasts for oil and gas. Scientists have previously found that these auditory onslaughts can threaten the health and lives of various sea creatures.
In the new study, researchers from Ogasawara Whale Watching Association and Hokkaido University in Japan used underwater recorders to examine how the noise of a single passing ship affects humpback whalesongs around the Ogasawara Islands. From February to May 2017, they recorded the singing of one to three whales per day, and 26 singers in total.
"This study presents a really special and unique situation," Rosalind Rolland, a whale expert and veterinarian at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium who did not participate in the research, explained to NOVA. "It's very difficult to find anywhere in the ocean where there is just a single source of ocean noise. Most times there is noise from all directions."
After listening to the recordings, the researchers determined that fewer male humpbacks sang within 500 meters of the shipping lane than elsewhere when a ship passed through the remote area. Whales within 1,200 meters tended to temporarily reduce singing or stop altogether after the ship passed. Most of those whales that stopped singing did not resume their songs until at least 30 minutes after the ship passed.
"Humpback whales seemed to stop singing temporarily rather than modifying sound characteristics of their song under the noise, generated by a passenger-cargo liner," the authors wrote in the paper. "Ceasing vocalization and moving away could be cost-effective adaptations to the fast-moving noise source."
Spencer Fire, assistant professor in Florida Tech's Department of Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences, told CNN the new study was "solid" and underscores how the noises humans make can negatively impact these gentle giants.
For instance,"if [whales] have to wait in order to communicate, then they might not be able to breed and so that has reproductive consequences," Fire explained.
The noise could also push the whales from their habitats, and force them to resettle in areas "where they may be chasing food that moves too fast, or that doesn't have high enough nutritional content," Fire added. "And usually energy intake is what makes or breaks animal survival."
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Dan Gray
- Research shows that 16 weeks of a vegan diet can boost the gut microbiome, helping with weight loss and overall health.
- A healthy microbiome is a diverse microbiome. A plant-based diet is the best way to achieve this.
- It isn't necessary to opt for a strictly vegan diet, but it's beneficial to limit meat intake.
New research shows that following a vegan diet for about 4 months can boost your gut microbiome. In turn, that can lead to improvements in body weight and blood sugar management.
By Jeff Turrentine
Nearly 20 years have passed since the journalist Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term tipping point, in his best-selling book of the same name. The phrase denotes the moment that a certain idea, behavior, or practice catches on exponentially and gains widespread currency throughout a culture. Having transcended its roots in sociological theory, the tipping point is now part of our everyday vernacular. We use it in scientific contexts to describe, for instance, the climatological point of no return that we'll hit if we allow average global temperatures to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. But we also use it to describe everything from resistance movements to the disenchantment of hockey fans when their team is on a losing streak.
By Mark Mancini
On Aug. 18, Iceland held a funeral for the first glacier lost to climate change. The deceased party was Okjökull, a historic body of ice that covered 14.6 square miles (38 square kilometers) in the Icelandic Highlands at the turn of the 20th century. But its glory days are long gone. In 2014, having dwindled to less than 1/15 its former size, Okjökull lost its status as an official glacier.
Trending
Whose Grid? Our Grid! Chicago’s Campaign to Put Electricity Under Public Control
By Alex Schwartz
Among the many vendors at the Logan Square Farmers Market on Aug. 18 sat three young people peddling neither organic vegetables, gourmet cheese nor handmade crafts. Instead, they offered liberation from capitalism.
Trending
I’m a Psychotherapist – Here’s What I’ve Learned From Listening to Children Talk About Climate Change
By Caroline Hickman
Eco-anxiety is likely to affect more and more people as the climate destabilizes. Already, studies have found that 45 percent of children suffer lasting depression after surviving extreme weather and natural disasters. Some of that emotional turmoil must stem from confusion — why aren't adults doing more to stop climate change?
Bird watching in the U.S. may be a lot harder than it once was, since bird populations are dropping off in droves, according to a new study.