Noise - invisible assassin in the ocean

The seemingly harmless sound emitted from ships can indirectly cause whale and other marine animals deaths.

Noise pollution causes many deaths for marine animals

A few years ago, Michel Andre attentively observed the body of a sperm whale on the coast of the Canary Islands, Spain, and wondered why the animal hit the ship. After studying the whales living in the area and measuring the increase in noise pollution from ships , Andre discovered the connection.

Whales are paralyzed by ship sounds and often die by hitting the ship.(Photo: Thinkstock).

Whales become paralyzed by the noise of ships approaching and often die from hitting the ship."We never thought this could cause the deaths of many animals," BBC quoted Andre, who directed the Laboratory of Applied Biology at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, ​​Spain.

Andre spent 20 years developing an advanced system for listening to submarine sounds to better understand why accidents happen. Andre's underwater headset shows a world of animal sounds and communication that has never been recorded before.

Sophisticated listening device created by Andre to detect sounds in the ocean called "smart ears" . It not only recognizes the sounds of whales, dolphins and other creatures, but also drowns the buzz of boats, propellers and many other machines.

Andre listened to the submarine sound with his "smart ears" device.(Photo: Michel Andre).

Andre's team not only listens to the sound under the sea, they also learn about the physiological harm caused by noise to animals. After taking tissue samples from the stranded whale's ears, they found evidence of the danger in the sensory cells, helping explain why marine organisms lost the ability to detect ship noise.

"If there are some structures that are missing in the cells, that means the animal cannot encode sounds corresponding to that cell," Andre explained. Whale sounds and sea creatures must be coping abundantly, ranging from ship noises to explosions.

Christopher Willes Clark, a biochemist at Cornell University in the US, said that the language of ships easily drowned out the sound of whales and animals also suffering from deafness caused by oil exploration. under the sea.

Ships can emit deafening sounds.(Photo: Thinkstock).

A solution before the noise pollution is to divert the route to a ship where it is unlikely to clash with marine mammals . Requiring ships to slow their speed to below 18 km / h also reduces the risk of lethal whales.

In order to solve the problem, the United Nations International Oceanic Agency has provided guidance on how to reduce ship sound. However, observing the impact of changes requires much time as well as the cooperation of businesses and train operators.