If you were to ask the whales, dolphins and porpoises that live in and visit the region, they鈥檇 probably say humans aren鈥檛 the greatest neighbours.
We鈥檙e dirty, messy, smelly, dangerous and noisy. We party day and night, dump our trash in common living areas, use the place as a meth lab, fire 颅weapons into the air and water, raid neighbours鈥� refrigerators, get into fights, hound and harass passersby, and generally make things unpleasant.
Perhaps unbearable.
Certainly more un-hearable.
Sound is critical in marine environments, and many marine animals rely on it for 颅communication, navigation, foraging and defence 鈥� all vital ecological and biological tasks. Light doesn鈥檛 reach far underwater, but sound travels long distances and at greater speeds than other sensory cues.
Orcas, for example, use 颅echolocation clicks to find food, and whistles and pulse calls to communicate with each other. Each orca family has its own dialect. Sperm whale clans also have distinct dialects of patterns of clicks that they use to talk to each other when they surface between dives.
Last year, Australian researchers reported a group of young male bottlenose dolphins using a barbershop-quartet approach to impressing the ladies. The dolphins, said the researchers, synchronized their vocalizations in pitch and tempo when trying to mate with females.
The unicorns of the Arctic, the narwhals, click and buzz to locate food, and call when they talk among themselves. Bowhead whales are the jazz musicians of the Arctic, 颅singing a diverse, constantly 颅shifting vocal repertoire that is far more varied than the eerie wailing courting songs of male 颅humpback whales.
Meanwhile, blue whales 颅provide a bass note to the 颅cetacean symphony, 颅conversing across oceans in trills and 颅bellows well below our range of hearing.
For hundreds of millions of years, these and other 颅biological sounds (biophony), alongside geological sounds (geophony) such as grinding ice sheets, the crash of waves on rocks, and the rushing and gurgling of 颅currents, shaped the ocean soundscape. But for the past century and more, sounds from human activities have 颅increasingly added another track to the underwater concerto.
We 鈥� the noisy neighbours 鈥� are making today鈥檚 oceans 颅noisier than ever. And, 颅according to an international team of researchers, including 颅University of Victoria biologist Francis Juanes, our racket is affecting the behaviour, 颅physiology and survival of many marine animals.
Ship traf铿乧, fishing fleets, sonar, weapon-testing and resource exploration and 颅extraction have become 颅regular, signi铿乧ant sources of ocean sound. Vehicles passing over bridges and airplane traf铿乧 to and from coastal airports also resound into marine 颅environments.
One of the loudest sources of sound in the ocean 鈥� the seismic air guns used in deep-sea 颅surveying 鈥� can be heard between continents.
Here in our little corner of Planet Ocean, we have our own suite of deafening din. One navy (ours) has just completed two days of underwater 颅explosives-training exercises, and the other navy (stateside) recently received authorization to continue sonar, bomb 颅detonation and other military exercises in Washington state coastal waters, including Puget Sound and Juan de Fuca Strait.
All this human noise harms marine animals and 颅environments. It increases stress in individual animals, 颅affecting feeding and 颅reproduction 颅behaviours. It can push critical community 颅members out of habitats, 颅unbalancing the structures that hold together sensitive 颅ecosystems.
It can drown out the sounds marine animals make and need to locate food and to 颅communicate. Our clatter means they have to raise their voices to talk and chatter with one another. As the volume increases, these animals often fall silent, unable to hear or be heard, waiting for the noise to stop.
For example, a 2018 Japanese study found that the male humpback whales reduce or stop singing when they encounter shipping noise and for about 30聽minutes after the ship passes.
Sometimes, the din doesn鈥檛 stop.
Here in the Salish Sea and environs, we have guidelines about keeping our distance from our whale neighbours and have programs in place to slow 颅vessel traffic, thereby 颅decreasing ship noise, to and from the Port of 91原创. Our navy has 颅protocols to delay their 颅explosives-related 颅training 颅exercises when whales are nearby.
But our cacophony continues.
We have a long way to go to become good neighbours.
