{"id":126570,"date":"2025-08-07T14:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126570\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T14:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:41:09","slug":"blue-whales-going-silent-off-coast-of-california-alarming-scientists-with-greater-ecosystem-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126570\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue whales going silent off coast of California alarming scientists with greater ecosystem danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n

The sound of the blue whale\u2019s singing has decreased off the coast of California, frightening scientists who believe it is an indication of greater ecosystem danger.<\/p>\n

Scientists tracked the auditory songs of three whale species \u2013 blue, fin and humpback \u2013\u00a0in the North Pacific Ocean in the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) over six years.<\/p>\n

A blue whale surfaces in the Pacific Ocean near Dana Point, California. AP<\/p>\n

The research, using a hydrophone on the ocean floor, analyzed the frequency of the structured sequences of sounds, commonly referred to as song, emitted by the large baleen whales, to define the prevalence in this foraging habitat and its potential use in behavioral ecology research.<\/p>\n

The study, published in Public Library of Science in February,<\/a> found a decrease in song detection for both blue and fin whales across two of three interannual changes after 2017.<\/p>\n

Recordings began in 2015, at the peak of a multi-year marine heatwave.<\/p>\n

The unusual warming began in 2013 when a large, dense pool of hot water, nicknamed The Blob, traveled from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska down to the waters off the West Coast of the US. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the CCE food web toxicity was at high levels because of an extreme harmful algal bloom (HAB) that caused the \u201cmost widespread poisoning of marine mammals ever documented, including in whales,\u201d the study read.<\/p>\n

Waters were recorded to be 4.5 degrees hotter than average, and covered about 2,000 miles of the Pacific Ocean by 2016.<\/p>\n

The sea surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean during \u201cThe Blob\u201d in May 2015. ASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center<\/p>\n

The heatwave created a thriving environment for the bloom, killing off the krill population, and in turn quieting the waters with fewer blue whale songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you really break it down, it\u2019s like trying to sing while you\u2019re starving,\u201d John Ryan, a biological oceanographer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who coauthored the report, told\u00a0National Geographic<\/a>. \u201cThey were spending all their time just trying to find food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan described it as the \u201cmost widespread poisoning of marine mammals ever documented,\u201d creating hard times for the whales.<\/p>\n

Blue whale songs decreased by 40 percent during the study period.<\/p>\n

Researchers drain a sample collection of krill caught off the coast of San Francisco, Calif. on Sept. 25, 2019. San Francisco Chronicle via Gett<\/p>\n

The tail of a blue whale above the water surface in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Dana Point on May 30, 2011. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

The study suggests blue whales had to forage in a larger area in 2019 because of a low abundance of krill in the tracked area.<\/p>\n

Blue whales \u2013 the world\u2019s largest mammal \u2013\u00a0maintain a strict krill-based diet, but their humpback counterparts forage on a wider range of krill and fish. <\/p>\n

The Blob did not make an impact on the population of foraging fish \u2014 anchovies and sardines \u2014 and the study found an increase in auditory detection of humpback whale songs.<\/p>\n

Interannual change from the smaller whale species increased from\u00a034 percent to 76 percent of days over the six years.<\/p>\n

A humpback whale swims alongside its calf in the ocean waters. Chris \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Disturbed by the sound of silence, scientists are trying to understand the long-term damage caused by \u201cThe Blob\u201d and similar anomalies believed to have tripled in occurrence since the 1940s, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are whole ecosystem consequences of these marine heat waves,\u201d study co-author and Monterey Bay Aquarium marine biologist Kelly Benoit-Bird told\u00a0the outlet. \u201cIf they can\u2019t find food, and they can traverse the entire West Coast of North America, that is a really large-scale consequence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The longer foraging period results in less reproductive effort by the marine species, creating a smaller population of the blue whale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere they are, and what they\u2019re doing can tell you a lot about the health of the ecosystem,\u201d regon State University ecologist Dawn\u00a0Barlow told National Geographic. \u201cThe Blob really highlighted how long-term these consequences can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScience shows that climate change is impacting the oceans,\u201d she said, \u201cListening and learning from these places is essential to our future. Now more than ever, it\u2019s important to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sounding the alarm. The sound of the blue whale\u2019s singing has decreased off the coast of California, frightening…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[23254,7052,936,31724,159,16978,67,132,68,12793,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-126570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-humpback-whales","9":"tag-marine-life","10":"tag-ocean","11":"tag-pacific-ocean","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-study-says","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-whales","18":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114988009724040349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}