5 ms·

Quieting the Global Growl

69 points by tintinnabula 2y ago

lioeters 2y ago
Recently I saw a video of a dolphin that came up to a boat and was imitating the sound of a boat motor. It looked playful, but perhaps it was complaining about all the noise.
- telesilla 2y ago
  It think it was an orca, I saw this yesterday also. We're all curious what it's trying to communicate, but I like the idea of it repeating back to us what is a very annoying sound to them.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    "This is what you sound like idiot, those aren't even words!" -That Orca Probably I've been highly amused at the tales of Orca's attacking yachts over the last few years too.
    - cess11 2y ago
      Yacht in this context typically refers to a rather small sailing boat. It affects small-scale fishers and things like that, not the large motor yachts rich people have.
    - dkarl 2y ago
      I remember watching a nature TV show as a kid in which the presenter waxed lyrical about the way a group of dolphins took one dolphin's vocalization and repeated it and riffed on it, claiming that they were improvising musically together like a jazz group. I remember thinking that it was a very optimistic assumption, and it was just as likely that the rest of the dolphin were mocking and bullying the first dolphin. That train of thought probably says something about what I was going through at the time, but given other things we've learned about dolphins, I wouldn't discount my idea.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Orcas are dolphins.
    - lioeters 2y ago
      Thanks for pointing it out, I didn't know that orcas are dolphins too. The one I saw was like a "bottlenose dolphin" with the classic dolphin shape and color. > The orca, or killer whale, is a toothed whale that is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. > Oceanic dolphins include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the round-headed whales including the false killer whale and pilot whale). The Delphinidae family also includes the porpoise, beluga whale, and narwhal.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
If you have the chance to listen to actual boat noise from an underwater microphone, you’ll be surprised at how loud it is and how far sound can travel. It’s less of a problem with pleasure boats and more of an issue with commercial ones like container ships. Other sounds that are loud underwater and harmful for animals include wind turbine noise (from spinning giant blades) and sonar pings.
- ck2 2y ago
  US Navy (and certainly others) kill many dolphins, whales and other sea life with their high powered sonar. US also has high powered ultra low frequency radio (ELF) for communication to subs and that's got to be insane to wildlife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sanguine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sanguine
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    sound and radio are of course waves in completely different media. why would low frequency radio waves be insane to wildlife? it's not like it's microwave (which would cook them) or pressure (sound) which directly physically damages their organs. almost by definition low frequency radio waves are low energy, so I don't see how this would be more dangerous to Flipper than my Wi-Fi router is to me
    - d3w3y 2y ago
      Well, some people do think their Wi-Fi routers can hurt them ... maybe we should make tinfoil hats for the cephalopods.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      Huh, sharks pick up EM signals, right? I wonder what they think of this stuff But just to be clear, I don’t think we should suppose it is damaging and try to ask the military to stop using it (good luck, lol). It could be worth looking into though.
      - 2y ago
sdenton4 2y ago
If you make incredibly loud noises above water, humans will complain, and you'll end up reducing the noise, due to some combination of workplace safety regulations, litigious neighbors, and self-regulation. People don't experience underwater noise directly, though, and so it is allowed to be arbitrarily loud and has gone almost completely unchecked, and is undoubtedly harmful got marine ecosystems. It is thought to be a major factor in whale beachings, for example.
- spinach 2y ago
  Humans in cities have also got used to the noise. Go from a quiet forest or rural area in the middle of nowhere to a city or residential area where you have cars, trains, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, air planes, loud barking dogs, etc. It's shockingly noisy. It's surprising that people don't want to do more about the noise pollution but it seems many just got used to it.
  - chasd00 2y ago
    on a tangent, I was living about 15min SW of DFW airport when 9/11 happened. When the FAA grounded all air traffic i remember going outside and thinking how strange it was not hearing planes in the sky. I had become acclimated to all the air traffic and when there was none it was pretty eery.
    - MikeSchurman 2y ago
      Another tangent, I went on a trip to LA. The drive to airport was noisy, airport was noisy, airplane was noisy, city was noisy, air conditioner in room was noisy. This went on for the whole week. I didn't really notice. But when I got dropped off at my car after the flight home, to get in my car it was late at night in a small town. And I noticed it. The silence. I stood there, beside my car keys in hand for a good 5 minutes, just taking it in. I had no idea how noisy it had been for the past week until then.
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    Rural areas can be noisy, too, depending on the ecosystem: birds, frogs, crickets, and cicadas can all kick up quite a ruckus. One can get used to just about anything.
mycologos 2y ago
If you're a layperson interested in these sensory questions, I highly recommend the book An Immense World by Ed Yong. It's a 400-something page tour through the many senses animals have and we (mostly) don't. It might have the highest density of truly cool animal facts per page of anything I've ever read, despite being written for adults who maybe haven't considered themselves the audience for fun animal facts in decades.
- cactusplant7374 2y ago
  Which fact did you find the most interesting?
  - mycologos 2y ago
    "Most" is pretty hard, so I'll just pick one I think is good. I'm paraphrasing here, so errors are mine. Sea otters, which feed themselves through long dives to and from the ocean floor, with a blind and hurried pawing for urchins in the middle, have hands that are about as sensitive as human hands, but significantly faster. Tasked with distinguishing boards with slightly different small ridges, humans compare and re-compare before deciding; if an otter touches the correct board first, it doesn’t touch the second one at all. This is true even though a human fingertip, if inflated to the size of the earth, is sensitive enough to distinguish between cars and houses. A manatee’s face is about as good.
- pixelmonkey 2y ago
  +1, a truly great book.
- pants2 2y ago
  I'll have to check this out. I thoroughly enjoyed Sensory Exotica by Howard Hughes which does a deep dive into four extraordinary senses: biosonar, biological compasses, electroperception, and chemical communication

69 points by tintinnabula 2y ago

Recently I saw a video of a dolphin that came up to a boat and was imitating the sound of a boat motor. It looked playful, but perhaps it was complaining about all the noise.

telesilla 2y ago
It think it was an orca, I saw this yesterday also. We're all curious what it's trying to communicate, but I like the idea of it repeating back to us what is a very annoying sound to them.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  "This is what you sound like idiot, those aren't even words!" -That Orca Probably I've been highly amused at the tales of Orca's attacking yachts over the last few years too.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Yacht in this context typically refers to a rather small sailing boat. It affects small-scale fishers and things like that, not the large motor yachts rich people have.
  - dkarl 2y ago
    I remember watching a nature TV show as a kid in which the presenter waxed lyrical about the way a group of dolphins took one dolphin's vocalization and repeated it and riffed on it, claiming that they were improvising musically together like a jazz group. I remember thinking that it was a very optimistic assumption, and it was just as likely that the rest of the dolphin were mocking and bullying the first dolphin. That train of thought probably says something about what I was going through at the time, but given other things we've learned about dolphins, I wouldn't discount my idea.
- cess11 2y ago
  Orcas are dolphins.
  - lioeters 2y ago
    Thanks for pointing it out, I didn't know that orcas are dolphins too. The one I saw was like a "bottlenose dolphin" with the classic dolphin shape and color. > The orca, or killer whale, is a toothed whale that is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. > Oceanic dolphins include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the round-headed whales including the false killer whale and pilot whale). The Delphinidae family also includes the porpoise, beluga whale, and narwhal.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

If you have the chance to listen to actual boat noise from an underwater microphone, you’ll be surprised at how loud it is and how far sound can travel. It’s less of a problem with pleasure boats and more of an issue with commercial ones like container ships. Other sounds that are loud underwater and harmful for animals include wind turbine noise (from spinning giant blades) and sonar pings.

ck2 2y ago
US Navy (and certainly others) kill many dolphins, whales and other sea life with their high powered sonar. US also has high powered ultra low frequency radio (ELF) for communication to subs and that's got to be insane to wildlife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sanguine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sanguine
- dingnuts 2y ago
  sound and radio are of course waves in completely different media. why would low frequency radio waves be insane to wildlife? it's not like it's microwave (which would cook them) or pressure (sound) which directly physically damages their organs. almost by definition low frequency radio waves are low energy, so I don't see how this would be more dangerous to Flipper than my Wi-Fi router is to me
  - d3w3y 2y ago
    Well, some people do think their Wi-Fi routers can hurt them ... maybe we should make tinfoil hats for the cephalopods.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    Huh, sharks pick up EM signals, right? I wonder what they think of this stuff But just to be clear, I don’t think we should suppose it is damaging and try to ask the military to stop using it (good luck, lol). It could be worth looking into though.
    - 2y ago

sdenton4 2y ago

If you make incredibly loud noises above water, humans will complain, and you'll end up reducing the noise, due to some combination of workplace safety regulations, litigious neighbors, and self-regulation. People don't experience underwater noise directly, though, and so it is allowed to be arbitrarily loud and has gone almost completely unchecked, and is undoubtedly harmful got marine ecosystems. It is thought to be a major factor in whale beachings, for example.

spinach 2y ago
Humans in cities have also got used to the noise. Go from a quiet forest or rural area in the middle of nowhere to a city or residential area where you have cars, trains, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, air planes, loud barking dogs, etc. It's shockingly noisy. It's surprising that people don't want to do more about the noise pollution but it seems many just got used to it.
- chasd00 2y ago
  on a tangent, I was living about 15min SW of DFW airport when 9/11 happened. When the FAA grounded all air traffic i remember going outside and thinking how strange it was not hearing planes in the sky. I had become acclimated to all the air traffic and when there was none it was pretty eery.
  - MikeSchurman 2y ago
    Another tangent, I went on a trip to LA. The drive to airport was noisy, airport was noisy, airplane was noisy, city was noisy, air conditioner in room was noisy. This went on for the whole week. I didn't really notice. But when I got dropped off at my car after the flight home, to get in my car it was late at night in a small town. And I noticed it. The silence. I stood there, beside my car keys in hand for a good 5 minutes, just taking it in. I had no idea how noisy it had been for the past week until then.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  Rural areas can be noisy, too, depending on the ecosystem: birds, frogs, crickets, and cicadas can all kick up quite a ruckus. One can get used to just about anything.

mycologos 2y ago

If you're a layperson interested in these sensory questions, I highly recommend the book An Immense World by Ed Yong. It's a 400-something page tour through the many senses animals have and we (mostly) don't. It might have the highest density of truly cool animal facts per page of anything I've ever read, despite being written for adults who maybe haven't considered themselves the audience for fun animal facts in decades.

cactusplant7374 2y ago
Which fact did you find the most interesting?
- mycologos 2y ago
  "Most" is pretty hard, so I'll just pick one I think is good. I'm paraphrasing here, so errors are mine. Sea otters, which feed themselves through long dives to and from the ocean floor, with a blind and hurried pawing for urchins in the middle, have hands that are about as sensitive as human hands, but significantly faster. Tasked with distinguishing boards with slightly different small ridges, humans compare and re-compare before deciding; if an otter touches the correct board first, it doesn’t touch the second one at all. This is true even though a human fingertip, if inflated to the size of the earth, is sensitive enough to distinguish between cars and houses. A manatee’s face is about as good.
pixelmonkey 2y ago
+1, a truly great book.
pants2 2y ago
I'll have to check this out. I thoroughly enjoyed Sensory Exotica by Howard Hughes which does a deep dive into four extraordinary senses: biosonar, biological compasses, electroperception, and chemical communication