JACK: When I want to chill out and clear my mind,
I find listening to the sounds of the ocean to be very relaxing.
(BOAT MOTOR WHIRRS LOUDLY)
Oh, come on, boat! Move!
(JET SKI MOTOR WHIRRS LOUDLY)
A jet ski?! (SCOFFS)
OK, so maybe the ocean isn't as tranquil as I first thought.
And it's not just here from the shore,
but in the deep blue too.
In the past century,
humans have started making a real racket.
There are ships and recreational boats,
underwater vessels and machines that go ping.
(RADAR PINGS) We bounce sounds around
to look for ships and map the ocean floor,
and there's mining, drilling, and even explosions.
(EXPLOSION)
A new study's found that all of these sounds
are having a big impact on ocean animals.
To find out more, I decided to go straight to an expert.
Flipper! Flipper! Flipper!
After realising Flipper probably couldn't hear me
because of noise pollution,
I decided to contact the next best thing.
Hi, Christine.
Hello, Jack.
Christine Erbe is the director
of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology
at Curtin University in Perth,
and knows a thing or two about noise pollution in the ocean.
In fact, she helped with the study.
So, tell me, noise pollution - why is it such a problem?
Humans are so visually-based,
and the same with, um, mammals on land.
But underwater animals have learned to use sound instead,
so they listen.
You see, sound travels faster
and further in water than in air,
and it's really important
to marine life,
whether it's fish singing love songs to attract a mate,
shrimp that use sound to stun their prey,
or those who just want to catch up on all the underwater goss.
(DOLPHINS WHISTLE)
Plus, it can get pretty dark down there,
so some mammals use sound to see.
Well, kind of.
It's called sonar or echo location.
In the same way our eyes interpret light waves
to build up a picture,
dolphins and whales send out sounds
and interpret the way they bounce back
to understand the world around them.
But all that human-made noise pollution
is getting in the way.
Basically, marine creatures can't hear themselves think,
let alone find a feed, a date, or steer clear of the dinner plate.
So, if you have some whales,
let's say a male whale singing in order to attract females...
And it might try to reach females
over hundreds of metres or kilometres or much further.
But now, if you put a busy shipping lane sort of nearby,
then you're going to interfere with that communication.
You sort of mask the, um, song of the whale,
and so the females will not be able to hear it.
So, what can we do?
Well, I tried yelling at everyone to stop...
Oi! Stop making all that noise!
..but I think that just added to the problem.
Christine reckons we're better off looking at quieter solutions.
So, there are certainly, um, efforts
to find solutions to make ships quieter.
With other matters, for...for example,
for exploration of offshore, um, minerals,
mining or offshore oil and gas,
there are also alternative technologies
which are being developed to make these processes quieter.
So, hopefully, we'll find a way to keep it quiet for these guys,
and I can get back to Zen-ing out to this...
(EXPLOSION)
..and not this.
(SHIP HORN BLARES LOUDLY)