SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Researchers tested the hearing of beluga whales in an Alaskan bay and found that they seem to have suffered little hearing loss due to ocean noise.
Beluga whales rely on a sharp sense of hearing to communicate, to navigate and to feed. But the ocean is a noisy place. There’s commercial shipping, navy sonar, oil and gas extraction, pile driving, underwater explosions.
One way to tell if all that noise is affecting belugas: capture them for a routine physical. “So it’s kind of like going to the doctor’s office for them, but they’re also kind of abducted by aliens at the same time.”
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