Ship noises prove a nuisance for arctic narwhals

The Arctic Ocean is a noisy place. Creatures of the deep have learned to live with the cacophony of creaking ice sheets and breaking icebergs, but humanmade sources of noise from ships and oil and gas infrastructure are altering that natural submarine soundscape. Now, a research team has found that even subtle underwater noise pollution can cause narwhals to make shallower dives and cut their hunts short . The research, published today in Science Advances , uncovers “some really great information on a species we know very little about,” says Ari Friedlaender, an ocean ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, not involved in the study. Knowing how the whales react to these noises could help conservationists “act proactively” to protect the animals in their Arctic home where warming waters already threaten their lifestyles. Narwhals—with their long, unicornlike horns extending from their faces—live in one of the most extreme environments in the world, explains Outi Tervo, an ecologist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the study’s first author. Each narwhal returns in summer to the same small fjord where it was born in order to feed on fish, squid, and shrimp. As humans increasingly encroach on Arctic waters, though, scientists, conservationists, and Inuit communities have worried about how development and ship traffic will affect the whales. Many of Greenland’s Inuit communities rely on the n...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news