AR-News: (UK) Scientists Listen to Whale Hearing Via 'Third Ear'

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

ReutersFri 25 June, 2004 06:05 
 


By Meraiah Foley 
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists have long studied haunting whale songs, but now 
they are investigating what the whales make of ocean noises to determine 
whether freighters, military sonars and oil drilling are harming the giant 
mammals. 
"We actually know very little about the way whales perceive sound and use 
sound," said Michael Noad, the scientist at the University of Queensland who 
heads the U.S.-navy funded study. 
Scientists and green groups have voiced concern over the impact on whales and 
other sea mammals of sounds generated by shipping, the military and oil rigs, 
Noad said Friday. 
U.S. officials linked a mass stranding and the death of several whale species 
in the Bahamas in March 2000 to the use of a navy mid-frequency sonar system. 
The Australian study is being funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and 
is focusing on the meaning of whale songs and how whales react to other 
noises. 
The study is taking place off Peregian Beach of Australia's tropical eastern 
state Queensland, in a "commercial shipping highway" used by migrating 
humpback whales.


full story:
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5511465&se
ction=news 

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"It is as if life had said, 'I am going to send you into a world of cruelty. 
I shall make you sensitive to pain, fear, heat, cold, hunger and starvation. 
In this world of cruelty, I shall make you defenseless. In addition, I shall 
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