With their help, he's managed to tag scores of animals with acoustic recorders to monitor their behavior and auditory responses to vessel activity. Jensen, along with WHOI researchers Laela Sayigh and Peter Tyack, has been collaborating with scientists from the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program to study how underwater noise impacts dolphins in the area.
“Using sound and movement recording tags that capture the noise experienced by the animals themselves, we are trying to understand how all this could interrupt communication and foraging behaviors, and how animals cope with it.” “Dolphins are highly acoustic animals and they depend on sound for both communication as well as biosonar-based foraging,” says Frants Jensen, a marine behavioral ecologist at the institution.
While resident bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota are conditioned to evade boat traffic, recent findings from scientists at WHOI show that even though dolphins have ways of compensating for the increasing noise, the activity may still be disrupting vital communication between the animals. You’ve got kayakers that are trying to cross channels, swimmers trying to make it out to sandbars, then you’ve got manatees and dolphins in the mix…It’s a miracle there aren’t more vessel strikes.” “The bay looks like a washboard, all churned up from everybody’s wakes. “Now, when people are underway going to their destinations, they’re coming at you, behind you, and crossing in front of you,” says one anonymous officer from the Sarasota Marine Patrol unit. In Sarasota, Florida, marine police officers have reported significant increases in boat traffic over the course of the last few months, as coastal residents look for new ways to reduce ennui during stay-at-home orders. But not every part of the ocean is experiencing the same kind of zen. Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have been jumping at the opportunity to study the effects of a quieter marine environment.
Though vessel noise may have quieted down on the high seas, one coastal area in Florida is seeing an upswing in boat traffic according to local authorities, putting more pressure on the world’s longest-studied wild bottlenose dolphin community.
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