Bent Meister, UR: Be Part of the Noise Pollution Solution.

This week has been a rough week for me and apparently a lot of other people too. After banging my head against the wall I have formulated my scientific question.

What are the Different sources of anthropocentric noise pollution in the Intercostal waterway, and what effects can it have on marine mammals in that area?

     From my studies some of the things i already know are the three main sources of noise pollution which are boat traffic, air gun arrays, and sonars. Also there are sources of natural noise pollution such as earthquakes, waves, and volcanoes. Now the two types of whales, baleen and toothed whales, produce a wide range of frequencies in there calls ranging from 100 Hz to 5,000 Hz. The Baleen whales generally stick to a lower frequency where as toothed whales use high frequencies to communicate. This doesn't mean that they can only hear the frequency that they produce. A study was done to test human made noise, in this case a high frequency sonar, on the auditory range of blue whales. What they found shocked them. They saw that during the time the sonar was running all blue whale communication stopped and after doing some thinking they believed that the whales stopped calling and left the area because of killer whales, who produce high frequency calls. Now killer whales hunt and feed on blue whales in the wild so while the sonar was running the blue whales packed up camp and left because the blue whales thought there were killer whales in the area. This was all the proof they needed to prove that whales can hear out side of the frequency that they produce either to help find food or for protection. 

     The materials that I will be using to measure frequencies, sound, in the water are as followed.

• A hydrophone that I have built 
• An ASUS laptop 
• ISHMAEL version 2.3 (Program used to capture sound)
• A boat
• Electrical Tape
• Meter stick

       How I will capture the sound will go a little something like this.

1. Get out on the boat to Ponce Inlet and anchor some what close to the rocks.
2. Boot up my computer and start ISHMAEL
3. Plug in my hydrophone
4. Turn on my hydrophone
5. Measure 1 meter from the top point of my hydrophone and mark it with electrical tape
6. Drop my hydrophone 1 meter in to the water
7. Wait and start recording, for 10 minutes using ISHMAEL to capture speeding boats
8. Next switch focus to the waves hitting the rocks and repeat steps 4 and 5. 
9. Record data and work it out at home.

Building the actual hydrophone

The battery compartment

It's Finally Done!!