How many times have you asked someone to “Turn that music down, I’m on the phone!” because noise has compromised your ability to hear?
Humans aren’t the only ones with that problem. Sound, not sight, is important to whales and dolphins. They rely on sound to find food, communicate with their young and find a mate.
Unfortunately, human-made sounds have risen to such a level and frequency that it is interfering with whales’ ability to do those things. Too often, whales die from being washed in waves of sonic overkill.
The documentary “Sonic Sea,” which the Dicovery Channel broadcasts on Thursday, delivers the message with an award-winning combination of animation, science and photography that takes viewers into an ocean of sound both visually and sonically.
Much of the impetus for studying the effects of sound on whales has come from Kenneth Balcomb III, who is co-founder of the non-profit Center for Whale Research (www.whaleresearch.com) and its executive director.
A mass stranding of whales in the Bahamas led Balcomb into acoustic research.
“Something was causing all these whales to want to abandon the deep water and get the hell out of there,” he said in the film. “I was driven to find out why.”
The film delivers an answer: Humans have turned quiet oceans into a battlefield of sound that can cause brain hemorrhages, blood dripping from the ears, and death by beaching as whales or dolphins try to escape the noise.
Commercial ships, oil and gas exploration, and naval sonar exercises have changed the sonic landscape. Sound travels an incredible distance and very fast. Tests have recorded it traveling 10,500 miles and still being audible.
On any day, about 60,000 commercial ships are moving across the oceans, mostly in the northern hemisphere, delivering a cacophony of propeller noise and hull vibrations from huge engines. Oil and gas exploration uses air guns to create a seabed image, a seismic prospecting technique.
As an aside, the southern right whale population is thriving; the northern right whale population is struggling. Only a fraction of commercial-created sounds are in the southern hemisphere.
When the U.S. Navy practices using high-frequency sonar for submarine detection, it creates a screeching tone from which whales try to escape.
Pressure from the National Resources Defense Council, scientific groups and environmental associations, as well as lawsuits, have nudged those in power toward finding solutions, such as using technology to damp sounds, rethinking routes and speed and creating exclusion zones.
Whales can’t turn down the volume but humans can.
Crow talk: Rob Sandelin recently had an interesting experience while working in the woods.
“I heard a series of sharp yelps from a crow. It was a sound I have never heard a crow make before. I located the crow and it was flying at full speed, dodging through vine maples with an accipiter on its tail,” he said. “It went by so fast I couldn’t determine Coopers or sharpie, but the bird of prey chased the crow out of view. A couple minutes later the accipiter flew back the direction it came from, so I assumed the crow got away.”
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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