Noise Pollution Is Affecting Whales
噪声污染正在影响着鲸鱼
If a noisy neighbor is blasting music at all hours of the day and night, drowning out your phone conversations and interrupting your sleep, you can call the police. But what is a whale to do?
如果一个聒噪的邻居整日整夜地播放音乐，影响你的电话交流，干扰你的睡眠，你可以打电话向警察求助。但是，如果鲸鱼遇到这种情况，它们可以做些什么呢？
Natural noise from waves, wind, rain and even earthquakes is common in oceans.Unfortunately,man made noise from oil and gas drilling, sonar, and ships is also present.
在海洋里，来自海浪、风雨甚至是地震的自然界噪音是很常见的。不幸的是，人类通过石油天然气开采、声波定位和船舶运输产生的噪音也时常可见。
Low frequency noise has doubled off the California coast every decade since the nineteen sixties. The main culprits are ships'propellers. They not only generate continuous low frequency sound, some propellerscavitate, which means they create air bubbles that collapse, creating loud popping sounds.
自二十世纪六十年代以来，加利福尼亚州海岸的低频率噪音每十年就翻一倍，而罪魁祸首则是船舶的螺旋桨。他们不但产生连续不断的低频噪音，而且还会生成空穴，这就意味着空穴产生的气泡爆裂，发出巨大的爆破音。
Whales use low frequency calls to communicate across thousands of miles of ocean. They are threatened by noise pollution because it can prevent them from contacting each other and from locating prey. Endangered humpback and right whales, which use fibrous baleen to strain food from the water, are the most at risk.
鲸鱼利用低频声波在数千米的海洋里彼此交流。他们受到噪音污染的威胁，是因为噪音污染阻碍了他们彼此的联系和捕食。用纤维须从水里获取食物的已濒临灭绝的座头鲸和露脊鲸最为危险。
Scientists studying right whales off Canada's east coast have discovered that whales are sending louder calls through the water to make themselves heard. Because they invest more energy in making calls, they have less energy available for finding food and mating. Other scientists measuring whale calls against background noise pollution have discovered that right whales have lost about eighty percent of their normal communication area. This could seriously affect survival of this already threatened species.
科学家们在研究加拿大东海岸的露脊鲸时发现，鲸通过海水发出巨大的声响以便自己的声音能被听到。因为他们在发出声响时消耗了太多能量，所以在寻找食物和交 配时能用的能量就少了。其他科学家在测量鲸的声音和背景噪音污染时发现露脊鲸已经失去了80%的正常交流区域，这会严重影响到早就受威胁的物种的生存。
Scientists don’t have badges and guns, but they are trying to correct the noise pollution problem. By tracking ships and marine mammals and understanding how noise travels, they are creating sound maps.
科学家们没有权势，但是他们正在试图解决噪音污染问题。通过追踪船只和海洋哺乳动物了解噪音的传播方式，他们正在绘制声波传播图。
They hope to get shipping lanes moved so that the noise pollution ships create will not overlap with areas most important to the whales.
他们希望改变海运航线，这样船舶产生的噪音就不会覆盖对鲸鱼很重要的海域。