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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2: Whale Watching Loud for Whales

The noise made by tourist boats for whale-watching may be causing communication problems for the whales, say researchers in a study in the journal Nature this week.

Whale-watching is a popular tourist activity in regions where groups of killer whales live, and often dozens of boats, filled with tourists who want to watch the beautiful animals roll through the waves, go whale-spotting each day. Unfortunately, the engines of the boats make a lot of noise, and that may be causing problems for the whales.

The whales travel in groups, called pods, and communicate with each other through sonic calls that some scientists refer to as singing. The sounds of the boat engines may be creating too much background noise for the whales in the pods to be able to hear each other well. As a result, say the scientists who published the study, whales have started to sing for longer than they used to, kind of like a person shouting to a friend in a noisy room.

The researchers listened to recordings of whale calls made between fifteen and twenty-five years ago, before whale watching became popular, and compared them to more recent recordings made now that whale watching has become popular.

Since scientists don't yet understand the whales' calls, they don't know what the whales are saying, but they think it may be communication of hunting or breeding information. Some experts worry that all this whale-watching noise may have a negative effect on the whale population in the long run, since the noise may be drowning out important communication about mates or food.

The killer whales studied were those off the coast of Washington state. The population of killer whales in that area has been declining for several years, but scientists are not sure why.

--Written by Nia Williams

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