Whales are particularly sensitive to noise, whether human-made or natural. Noise can interfere with their communication and affect their behaviour. So, can planes and helicopters flying over their habitat disturb them?<\/p>\n
The extent of the disturbance depends on many factors, such as the sound\u2019s intensity, frequency and duration; the distance from the noise source to the whale; the water\u2019s depth; the whale\u2019s species; and what the whale is doing at that time.<\/p>\n
In the case of aircraft, several studies have shown that aircraft noise can disturb the whales, but not in the same way as ship noise. \u201cTherefore when compared to each other,\u00a0even if a jet engine or propeller plane engine generates noise of much higher amplitude than a boat engine, its acoustic footprint is almost insignificant, unless its occurrence is very recurrent, like near a runway in a busy airport,\u201d explained Manolo Castellote, a researcher working on noise disturbance at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whales are particularly sensitive to noise, whether human-made or natural. Noise can interfere with their communication and affect their behaviour. So, can planes and helicopters flying over their habitat disturb them? The extent of the disturbance depends on many factors, such as the sound\u2019s intensity, frequency and duration; the distance from the noise source to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":43293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[20,524],"class_list":["post-43449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whale-qa","tag-beluga-en","tag-bruit-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n