Why did the blue whales stop singing? Mystery worries scholars Climate News star-news.press/wp

Pisces songs are far from the singing that humans are used to. Unlike our musical sounds, those produced by whales are a complex collection of regions that include ears, clicks, and generosity that can look like anything from the splendor of a cow to the flying Twitter. These areas can be very strong so that they can be heard up to 10 km (6 miles), and can last for half an hour at a time.

But although they may not be exactly dance materials, whale songs are necessary to communicate: between males and females during mating, or between the school of whales that migrate.

For researchers, these complex sounds are a window in the behavior of whales, even if humans have not yet known how to decipher them.

Repeated songs and intensity can refer to different things: an abundance of food, for example. However, in recent studies, the researchers were anxious about finding that blue whales, the largest whales, and in fact, the largest mammals on the ground, stopped singing at specific times.

Scientists say that their strange calmness is an indication that the life of the ocean is mainly changed. The latest study, conducted by scientists from the Monterrey Pay Aquarium Research In California, the United States and published in February, Examine three types of whales. The researchers found that blue whales, in particular, became more vulnerable to this change.

What did the researchers find, and where?

At least two studies between 2016 and 2025 found similar behavior: the blue whales have reduced their singing for time extensions.

The first study, which was conducted in the sea water between the New Zealand islands between 2016 and 2018, led by scientists from the Marine Mammals Institute at Oregon State University in the United States. During that time period, researchers follow a specific blue whale sounds associated with nutrition (called D-Calls) and mating (called decorative songs).

The researchers used continuous records of underwater devices called hydrovones, which could record sounds thousands of kilometers away, which were placed in southern Tranaki byte – a fodder spot known to blue whales off the western coast of New Zealand.

They discovered that during some periods, especially in the warmer months of spring and summer when the whales are usually fattened, the frequency and intensity of sounds related to nutrition activity decreased – indicating a decrease in food sources. This decrease was followed by decreased decorative song accidents, indicating a decline in reproductive activity.

“When there are fewer nutritional opportunities, they are making a lower effort to reproduce,” the lead researcher Don Barlo told reporters. The results of that study were Published In the Journal of Environment and Development in 2023.

Then, in Ticket Researchers were published in the Journal of Scientific Plos One in February this year, and the sounds of the Baleen whale are followed in the current ecosystem in California, the region in the northern Pacific stretching from British Columbia to Baja California. Blue whales are a type of Baleen whale, and the study focused on it, along with its cousins, and the whales of Al -Hadba and Whales.

For six years starting in 2015, scientists have found distinctive patterns. Over the first two years, “the times were difficult for whales,” the main researcher John Ryan, from the Monterey Pay Aquarium Research Institute in California, which was referred to in a press statement, as it was found that whales, especially the blue whales, were singing less. Over the next three years, all three types of whale have returned to singing repeatedly, as the study indicated.

Why does blue whales sing less?

Both studies found a major reason to reduce the song: Food or, in this case, its absence.

It turned out that the research, which was conducted between 2015 and 2020, was seized at intervals from the advanced marine wave events that killed Krill, the small animals that resemble shrimp on which blue whales feed.

These thermal waves are part of the environmental catastrophe that waved on the horizon, and scientists may warn of: the phenomenon of continuous global warming is characterized by an increase in the average global temperatures, and it results from high -emissions, the most important of which is burning fossil fuels.

Scientists say that the world can soon reach the turning point where there will be an irreversible change on this planet. Indeed, 2016, 2023 and 2024 were registered as the most important years ever.

Why do food sources disappear?

Studies have found that Krill, which is fed by blue whales in the first place, is very sensitive to heat and can fade through heat waves. The patterns of their movement also change significantly: instead of staying together, as they usually do, Krill is separated when the atmosphere is hot, making them more difficult for predators like blue whales.

Usually, when the blue whales sings others to indicate that they have found swarms from Krill. If there is no food that sings about it, then it makes sense that there will be no singing.

Thermal waves can also lead to harmful chemical changes in the oceans that encourage toxic algae growth, which cause poisoning and death in the oceans and sea birds, and the researchers were previously. He found, This indicates that blue whales are also at risk of poisoning.

In the most modern study in California, the researchers found that in the first two years when the whales were singing frequently, there was also a decrease in other fish groups.

Are blue whales more at risk than other whales?

The second period of three years witnessed a return to Krill and other fish, along with more whale singing. When Creel fell again, the blue whales again sang again, while singing the courts of courts, I noticed the study.

“Compared to the ruling whales, blue whales in the north of the Pacific Pacific may be more likely due to not only the size of the smaller population but also a less flexible fodder strategy,” Ryan, the main author of the California study in a statement.

He added: “These results can help scientists and resources managers predict how to respond to ecosystems and marine types of climate change.”

Both studies may need to spend more time and energy find food when it is rare, rather than singing.

Do other animals change their voices?

Studies have found that climate change changes the sounds of many other types as well. Sounds related to nature, such as birds of some species, can disappear completely in some places as warming temperatures change animal behavior. For example, some animals may move permanently away from their traditional habitats.

In New York, scientists Find Over the course of a century (1900-1999), four types of frog changed their communication patterns, which are used by males to attract females to mating, which are usually associated with the warming of spring and early summer. The researchers found over time, some frogs were calling two weeks before the usual, adding that it indicates that the summer arrives early.