(orca sounds)
- [Narrator] Orcas have a language of their own.
They communicate through touch, movement,
and most importantly, sound.
And it's marine scientist
Ellyne Hamran's job to eavesdrop on them.
She's an acoustic researcher studying
the sounds marine mammals
like whales and dolphins use to communicate.
She's captured hundreds of hours of orca recordings,
like the one you're hearing.
- Whales are using sound as their primary sense
unlike humans that are using their vision.
So, it's very important for whales to be able
to communicate to each other, to find mates,
to search for prey, also to navigate the area.
- [Narrator] This summer, she's listening to the orcas
of Norway's Lofoten archipelago,
beloved by the creatures for its healthy populations
of herring and other fish to feed on.
But an invisible problem is increasingly alarming experts,
noise pollution from whale-watching cruises,
oil exploration, and other human activity.
Ellyne has set out to study how it affects the whales
and she hopes to use her findings
to help make Lofoten a marine protected area,
limiting unwelcome noise and blocking oil drilling.
She works for Ocean Sounds,
a nonprofit that advocates for marine ecosystem conservation
and has been tracking orcas here in Lofoten since 2003.
On a typical day, Ellyne, her husband Bjorn,
their dog Bailey, and a team of researchers
drive around the islands
in an inflatable boat looking for action.
When they spot whales, they slowly approach,
then turn off the engine to minimize noise.
They use an underwater microphone
called a hydrophone to record vocalizations.
- During socializing, they're producing
a variety of vocalizations.
It can be whistles, calls, buzzes, clicks,
same with when they're feeding.
They're a little bit more quiet when they're traveling.
So, we'll be able to go and record them
when we have the right moment.
- [Crew Member] Breach, breach, breach!
- [Narrator] They also photograph the orcas
to keep track of the family groups.
The scientists assign each of them a number
and add them to a catalog.
- We will be able to use this method
to track them over time.
It's a very noninvasive
and inexpensive way of doing the research.
- [Narrator] Bjorn operates a drone
that films whales from above.
Over time, they match the orcas' sounds up with behaviors,
gradually learning their complex language.
Each pod speaks its own dialect,
so tracking them is essential
for understanding the communication.
The large population of whales also attracts thousands
of people looking for boat tours every year.
But these ships full of whale lovers
can actually be quite disturbing to ocean life.
- We've had issues of boats zooming through pods,
sometimes even between the mother and calf.
It's also quite loud on the hydrophone,
even loud enough that you want to turn the volume down,
but the whales are not able to go in
and modify how loud the boats are.
And I don't think people are aware of this issue.
- [Narrator] When a boat drives too close to orcas,
it can overpower their calls.
- It could mask the vocalizations
so they can't be able to communicate
with each other nearby or find a mate.
- [Narrator] And it can scare away the fish orcas feed on.
- [Ellyne] They spend quite a lot of time
rounding up the herring to feed
and then a boat could come way too close
and now disperse the fish.
- [Narrator] The looming threat of oil drilling
also poses a problem.
In 2019, the Norwegian government reached
a deal to block drilling in Lofoten for now.
But every seat in the parliament
is up for election in September 2021,
which could put the area at risk again.
And even without permission to drill,
companies can still use blasts of compressed air
to map where oil lies beneath the ocean floor.
These seismic surveys can be louder
to marine life than fireworks from three feet away.
Researchers aren't sure how these sounds
affect ocean mammals' health,
but studies have found that a single air gun blast
can be heard underwater for months.
All this, combined with occasional
military exercises in the area,
creates an underwater cacophony
that interrupts whale communications.
- They're vocalizing already at the surface.
So, we'll deploy the hydrophone.
Just boat noise now, they've stopped calling.
- [Woman] Okay.
- [Narrator] Because orcas are instinctively collaborative,
communication is central to everything they do.
Disoriented whales may also swim out
of their usual living area.
- [Ellyne] With the whales wanting
to be away from all the boat noise
and needing a bit more space,
sometimes they're hugged a bit on the coastline,
too close to the rocks.
- [Narrator] Ellyne says this may explain
why the spring of 2020 saw more whales
stranded on the coasts than any previous season.
- It could be due to noise pollution and acoustic trauma.
If we were able to be here within
the first 48 hours of when the whales stranded
and to actually look into the head
and see if there's any damage within the ear canal areas.
- [Narrator] The strandings could also have been caused
by a harmful algae bloom
or a virus that affected several species.
But unless Ellyne and the team can examine
a stranded whale shortly after its death,
they can't gather much information.
- It actually wasn't reported in time
to really see why it had died.
We unfortunately cannot take a blubber sample
since it's decayed too much.
Usually at this point we take a tooth
or we take a bone sample.
And there were no teeth in the jaw,
but we do have a sample of one
of the vertebrae that we've taken.
- [Narrator] Ellyne collected samples
from other stranded whales,
including a pilot whale, during this research mission.
These samples of blubber and bone
can tell researchers about an animal's sex,
genetics, diet, and more.
Ultimately, Ellyne's findings support
Ocean Sounds' efforts to educate
the public about protecting the mammals.
- Our focus isn't only on research,
but we're also focused on conservation
and outreach and education.
- [Narrator] Ocean Sounds has a set of guidelines
for whale-watching boats that
they're lobbying to turn into Norwegian law.
They include requiring boats to slow down,
shift into neutral, and then turn off the engine
while approaching whales,
and maintaining a minimum distance
of 50 meters at all times.
The goal is to regulate noise levels in the region
while still allowing whale-watching and fishing to operate.
And making Lofoten a marine protected area
would ban oil exploration and drilling in the area.
Until that happens,
Ocean Sounds is selling recordings
of whale communications online
as a way to raise awareness and fund their operations.
- We're trying to be able
to not only study the vocalizations and behavior,
but also to bring the whales to the people,
giving a voice to the whales.
(gentle music)