Ravichandran Harini, Jadetimes Staff
How Human Noise Is Changing Marine Life
Have you ever imagined the ocean as a noisy place? Beneath the waves, a constant hum of engines, sonar pings, and drilling rigs is drowning out a soundscape that marine life has relied on for millions of years.
At any given moment, roughly a quarter of a million vessels are crossing the world's oceans, and a single cargo ship can emit noise close to 190 decibels, comparable to a rock concert. Add naval sonar exercises, offshore oil and gas exploration, seismic surveys that use airgun blasts to map the seafloor, and the steady expansion of offshore wind farm construction, and the underwater world has grown dramatically louder over the past century.
For whales, dolphins, fish, and countless invertebrates, sound is not a background sense but a lifeline. Whales use low-frequency calls to find mates and coordinate across hundreds of kilometres; dolphins rely on echolocation clicks to hunt; fish use sound to locate reefs and avoid predators. When that acoustic channel is jammed by human noise, the consequences ripple through entire populations. Conservation groups point to North Atlantic right whales as a stark example: chronic stress from noise has been linked to smaller body size and to females taking far longer to become pregnant than earlier generations did.
The response is beginning to catch up with the science. In 2025, a coalition of dozens of countries launched an initiative at the United Nations Ocean Conference aimed at reducing underwater noise, with commitments to quieter ship engine designs, propeller technology that limits cavitation noise, and new International Maritime Organization guidelines encouraging slower vessel speeds near sensitive habitats. Advocacy groups argue that even a modest ten percent reduction in ship speeds could meaningfully cut both noise and collision risk for whales.
None of this is a simple fix. Ships will keep sailing and coastal economies will keep growing, but a quieter design choice, a rerouted shipping lane, a slower transit through a whale corridor, can matter as much for ocean health as reducing chemical pollution. Protecting the sea, it turns out, means protecting its silence too.
