Good News for Drones and Marine Mammals – They Can Live in Harmony

In Australia, researchers were concerned about noise pollution and how it can impact marine mammals like whales and dolphins that rely on soundwaves for communication, migration, hunting, and basically everything they do to survive. They flew two different types of drones that are often used as scientific tools, and measured the noise levels with microphones about a meter underneath the water. They found that the noise didn’t travel down into the water as much as they thought and was pretty minimal, like shallow water background noise, and even better, the noise levels were below the auditory level of most marine mammals. So now we know that marine research drones aren’t disturbing sea creatures, but we still aren’t sure how drone noise levels and visual presence affect birds and airborne creatures, which may be another study down the road.