{"id":417775,"date":"2026-02-10T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417775\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:44:08","slug":"porpoises-communicate-less-when-boats-are-nearby-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417775\/","title":{"rendered":"Porpoises communicate less when boats are nearby &#8211; study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The study showed that porpoise activity dropped most significantly during summer daytime hours, when the Little Belt was busiest; and increased when vessels were not present.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rachel Lennon said &#8220;chronic boat traffic may be limiting porpoises&#8217; ability to feed and socialise effectively&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lennon, who co-led the study, said &#8220;We know from other studies that disruption to foraging can affect porpoises&#8217; health, body condition and ultimately reproduction and survival.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the object of the study was not to directly assess the impact of boat traffic on porpoises, co-lead author Sharon Merkle said the disruption found was &#8220;likely to affect their ability to cope with other environmental stressors&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jonas Teilmann, professor at Aarhus University, which collaborated on the research, said: &#8220;This study adds to the growing understanding of how underwater noise and the increasing vessel traffic affects our environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our hope is that the results of this study will be used in future managing of the number of vessels, how fast they may move and their distribution in protected areas.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The study showed that porpoise activity dropped most significantly during summer daytime hours, when the Little Belt was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-417775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}