The haunted songs of humpback whales are silenced by human activity

Ship noise is the cause of the cessation, which can have a negative impact on whales' chances of survival.

Humpback whales produce mesmerizing songs whose acoustics travel for miles in their marine habitat. The reason they do it is not known, but the researchers assume that whales do it to communicate with others and find a partner. Recently, however, their oddly beautiful melodies are reduced and silenced in response to human activities that create noise in their environment.

EcoWatch reports that Japanese researchers discovered that the nice giants were silent or abbreviated their songs whenever they heard navigation noises. Think of a cricket if you walk too close to it, and you can somehow get the idea.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, was conducted by Hokkaido University in Japan and by the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association. During the study that lasted from February to May 2017, researchers used underwater recorders to observe the impact of a ship passing in front of humpback whales on the whales' song .

The humpback whales examined in the study consisted of a gondola around the Ogasawara Islands and the research team recorded whale singing of one to three men per day. At the end of the study, a total of 26 people were registered.

The researchers were able to determine, after listening to the recordings, that few male humpbacks were singing once they were within 500 meters of a shipping lane "further" each time the vessel was crossing a remote area. At a distance of 1,200 meters, whales tended to reduce or stop singing until the ship passed them. None of the humpback whales resumed singing until 30 minutes after the passage of the vessel.

The authors of the study wrote the following.

"Humpback whales seemed to stop singing temporarily rather than altering the sound characteristics of their song under the noise of a passenger liner."

"Stopping vocalisation and moving away could be an economical adaptation to the source of fast moving noise."

Spencer Fire, an assistant professor at Florida Tech's Department of Ocean Engineering and Marine Science, told reporters that the study on humpback whales was "solid." The fire said the study showed that noise from ships and boats negatively affected whales. He stated that whale populations would most likely have consequences, as delays in their ability to communicate could hinder their attempts to reproduce.

The fire added that it could also force humpback whales to relocate to habitats "where they could hunt for food that moves too fast or lacks sufficient nutritional content. And usually, energy intake is what makes or breaks the survival of animals. "

Moreover, it is not only humpback whales that are negatively affected by the noise pollution of the oceans. The symphony of sounds that other races of whales, apart from the hump and dolphins use, plays a vital role in their survival. Creatures use sounds to find food, navigate and communicate with each other. Other noise nuisances that affect marine mammals come from military exercises and sonars.

So that unique sounds such as the lugubrious humpback whales do not disappear forever, it is essential to put in place regulations. Federal initiatives, such as the NOAA Roadmap for Noise Reduction Strategy, have been established to reduce the impact of noise pollution on marine mammals. The 10-year strategy, which was launched in 2016, will likely find the humpback whale study information useful in their ten-year fight.