Male humpback whales reduce or cease their songs in reaction to human-generated shipping noise, according to a study published October 24, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Increasing human shipping activity is causing a rise in low-frequency ocean noise. Baleen whales use low-frequency sound to communicate, so this human-made noise could affect their singing behavior. The authors of this study studied the effects of a passenger-cargo ship’s noise on the songs of male humpback whales living around the Ogasawara Islands in Japan.
— source journals.plos.org | Oct 24, 2018