We say might because even though these sea turtles share waters with extremely busy shipping lanes, scientists know very little about their underwater hearing. As such, a team of researchers set out to understand what, exactly, these animals can perceive in terms of sound.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding hearing ability is a fundamental step in determining whether human-generated noise could affect a species,\u201d Charles Muirhead<\/a>, the co-author of the recent study published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America<\/a> and a researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\u2019s Sensory Ecology and Bioacoustics Lab, tells Popular Science. \u201cOur goal was to provide a more robust and representative understanding of their hearing sensitivity so that future research and conservation efforts can be built on stronger scientific foundations.\u201d<\/p>\n This notion is particularly significant given the fact that Kemp\u2019s ridleys are the world\u2019s most critically endangered<\/a> sea turtles.\u00a0<\/p>\n Muirhead and his colleagues put sensors on Kemp\u2019s ridley sea turtles\u2019 heads and recorded the electrical signals that passed through their auditory nerves as they played sounds from 50 to 1,600 hertz. In the spectrum of human hearing, 50 hertz is on the lower side.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tRelated Turtle Stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n This approach revealed that the turtles\u2019 greatest hearing was at about 300 hertz, and that they began to struggle with higher frequencies. It appears that\u00a0Kemp\u2019s ridleys\u2019 best hearing aligns with the low-frequency band that hosts a significant amount of sounds, presumably from industrial operations in the ocean like oil and gas drilling and vessel traffic, according to Muirhead<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is significant because we\u2019ve known that their movements and distribution overlap with industrial and boat noise sources both in space and time\u2014and we\u2019ve now confirmed that the turtles are capable of detecting these sounds,\u201d Muirhead says. \u201cHowever, detecting sound does not automatically mean it causes harm or disturbance. Whether noise \u2018bothers\u2019 turtles depends on several factors, including sound level, duration, distance from the source, and the behavioral or ecological context in which the exposure occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n
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