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Noise Pollution Is Affecting Whales
噪聲污染正在影響著鯨魚
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?
如果一個聒噪的鄰居整日整夜地播放音樂，影響你的電話交流，干擾你的睡眠，你可以打電話向警察求助。但是，如果鯨魚遇到這種情況，它們可以做些什么呢？
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，來自海浪、風雨甚至是地震的自然界噪音是很常見的。不幸的是，人類通過石油天然氣開采、聲波定位和船舶運輸產生的噪音也時常可見。
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.
自二十世紀六十年代以來，加利福尼亞州海岸的低頻率噪音每十年就翻一倍，而罪魁禍首則是船舶的螺旋槳。他們不但產生連續不斷的低頻噪音，而且還會生成空穴，這就意味著空穴產生的氣泡爆裂，發出巨大的爆破音。
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.
鯨魚利用低頻聲波在數千米的海洋里彼此交流。他們受到噪音污染的威脅，是因為噪音污染阻礙了他們彼此的聯系和捕食。用纖維須從水里獲取食物的已瀕臨滅絕的座頭鯨和露脊鯨最為危險。
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.
科學家們在研究加拿大東海岸的露脊鯨時發現，鯨通過海水發出巨大的聲響以便自己的聲音能被聽到。因為他們在發出聲響時消耗了太多能量，所以在尋找食物和交 配時能用的能量就少了。其他科學家在測量鯨的聲音和背景噪音污染時發現露脊鯨已經失去了80%的正常交流區域，這會嚴重影響到早就受威脅的物種的生存。
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.
科學家們沒有權勢，但是他們正在試圖解決噪音污染問題。通過追蹤船只和海洋哺乳動物了解噪音的傳播方式，他們正在繪制聲波傳播圖。
They hope to get shipping lanes moved so that the noise pollution ships create will not overlap with areas most important to the whales.
他們希望改變海運航線，這樣船舶產生的噪音就不會覆蓋對鯨魚很重要的海域。
