Ship sounds are drowning out whale conversation

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-05-08 08:00

International

Photo credit: CIRCE

Long-finned pilot whales try to speak louder when ocean noise increases, but not enough to fully compensate, according to new international research. Analysing over 1,300 calls from tagged whales on the Strait of Gibraltar in the Atlantic Ocean, scientists found the animals raised their call volume by about half the increase in background noise. The team discovered the whales can increase the volume of some calls, but they are already shouting as loud as possible to find each other after diving deep to search for food, potentially disrupting social behaviour and coordination.

Multimedia

A long-finned pilot whale calling out.

A whale calling out for its group with ship noise in the background

Shipping noise that the pilot whales experience.

A mother and calf long-finned pilot whale.

Journal/
conference: Journal of Experimental Biology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Aarhus University, Denmark

Funder: Fieldwork for data collection was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant N00014-12-1-0417 to P.L.T., and N00014-14-1-0410 to F.H.J. and P.L.T., as well as from a Sapere Aude: Young Elite Scientist award 11-120857 from the Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences in Denmark. F.H.J. acknowledges support from the Carlsberg Foundation (Carlsbergfondet) Travel Grants CF13-0569 and CF14-0236, and from the US Navy Living Marine Resources program award N3943023C2502. M.H. acknowledges support from the Erasmus+ traineeship grant. P.L.T. acknowledges support from ONR grant N00014-23-1-2065.

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