Noise In The News: Weekly Round-Up

by Quiet Communities Staff

Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio

Pilot whales are shouting to be heard over ship noise

In the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, a small population of long-finned pilot whales is struggling to be heard. A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that researchers who tagged 23 whales and recorded over 84 hours of audio captured more than 1,400 calls, and a clear pattern: during heavy ship traffic, the whales went quieter, making fewer calls overall. When they did vocalize, they had to push to the upper limit of their range just to reach their pod. It's not just pilot whales, either. Other research has linked ship noise to elevated stress in right whales, heightened vigilance in sea turtles, and sonar has been tied to disrupted feeding, diving, and even strandings. The ocean is getting louder, and the impacts of that noise pollution aren't always visible. Sometimes, they can only be heard.

Cities and Memory launches a new way to listen to the world

What does the world sound like? Cities and Memory, one of the largest collaborative sound projects on the planet, just launched a radio player streaming over 8,000 field recordings and reimagined compositions from more than 140 countries. Listeners can filter by project or sound type, and each recording is paired with an artistic reinterpretation, so you hear the original sound followed by a creative reimagining of it. Run entirely by founder Stuart Fowkes since 2015, the project is free to explore and offers a compelling reminder of how rich our world really is when we take the time to listen.