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Thank you.

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I love my job.

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I'm a marine biologist,
and I work up in the Arctic

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alongside Inuit hunters
and government biologists,

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studying beluga, narwhals, killer whales
and other marine mammals.

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But what I really want to talk
to you about today is sound.

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Sound and how it's affecting
marine mammals in the North.

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Now, one of the wonderful
things about my job

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is that what I wear to work
on a casual Friday

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is probably a lot different
than what you wear to work.

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A typical day for me in a field
is really anything but typical.

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My drysuit is too big.

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Anyone who works
in the Arctic, in the water,

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can tell you that having
a drysuit that doesn't fit you

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is a really, really bad thing.

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Every time I move, I can feel
a little bit of water running down my arm,

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running down my legs
and pooling at my feet.

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I'm also standing about waist-deep
in freezing-cold water.

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I'm bracing myself up
against one of my colleagues,

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I've got pliers in one of my hands,
I've got a glove in my mouth

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- because if I put it down,
it's going to drift away -

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and I've got my other hand
on the back of a beluga.

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I'm working to attach the wires
of a satellite transmitter to the animal,

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as you can see in this photo behind me.

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We're trying to figure out
where these animals migrate to,

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and what parts of their habitat
are important for them

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in order to protect their
critical habitat for the future.

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The whole thing from the capture
to the release of the animal

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takes about 20 minutes,

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but I could certainly never tell you

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that I have no idea
of what is going on around me,

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what the other people are saying,
what they are doing,

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other than what is right in front of me,

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which is this beautiful, glossy,
rubbery-feeling animal

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that every now and then
let's me know it's OK,

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because I can feel
this kind of body against me,

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and I can also feel this kind of wet,
fishy breath on the side of my face.

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But I can certainly tell you
that working around marine mammals,

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university certainly doesn't prepare you
for capturing and handling whales.

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Now, these are photos of belugas.

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You've probably seen photos before,
they're pretty magnificent animals.

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But I want to share with you
is what they sound like,

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what they sound like under water,

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to give you an idea of how critical
noise is to these animals.

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(Beluga sounds)

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It's pretty amazing
if you haven't heard it before.

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I get really close to these animals
in their natural environment,

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but what I'm really
curious about is sound,

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and how sound is affecting them
in their natural behavior.

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So here's the problem:

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if I told you that this year

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was the lowest extent
of summer sea ice on record,

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you probably wouldn't be surprised,
it's all over the news.

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But what might surprise you
is how this is actually affecting

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these animals and their habitat right now,
even before the ice disappears,

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which is actually
another problem on its own.

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As the sea ice changes,
so does development.

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We have industrialization in the Arctic,
there is a lot of money at stake.

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We have commercial shipping,
we have oil and gas exploration.

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We can all see what this can do
to the marine environment,

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but I think it's what we can't see

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that is something that we need
to think about right now.

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The noise all of this is causing
in our environment

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might be doing more damage
to the marine mammals

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than we could imagine.

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(Icebreaker sound)

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What you've just heard
was the sound of an icebreaker

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breaking ice through the surface
of the water; it's quite loud.

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Imagine if you added to that
noise created by seismic surveys,

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noise created by drilling
in the Arctic Ocean.

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Now you have more noise created
in the underwater environment,

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in the Arctic, created by humans,
than we've ever had before.

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Now we're polluting our environment
with more than just waste.

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We're polluting
our environment with noise.

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Let me give you a sound example
to put this into perspective.

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The people at the back of this auditorium
can for surely hear me speaking

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even if they're not clueing
into what I'm saying.

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There is also probably people
just outside the doors

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that can hear me speaking as well
if they have good hearing.

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But almost for sure, there is no one
out on the street, 100-200 meters away,

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doors or no doors,
that can hear me speaking.

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Yes, sound does travel differently
in air than it does in water,

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but our human hearing,
our undeveloped human hearing,

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is nothing compared to
that of a beluga or a narwhal.

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These animals have
the ability to communicate

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over tens of kilometers under water.

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Sound is also critical for their survival.

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They use sound to communicate
between each other,

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they use sound to locate
their food at depths,

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and they also use sound
to locate their breathing holes.

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Recently, the behavior of these animals
has begun to change.

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We've started seeing these animals

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avoiding commercial icebreakers
at great distances.

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Beluga, for example,
have been seen avoiding ships

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in distances of excess of 50 kilometers.

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So we know that this is affecting them,

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they want to keep a lot of space
between these ships and themselves.

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But what we don't know
is how badly this is affecting them.

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What we do know,

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what our ongoing research
has suggested,

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is that all this noise
is actually masking their ability

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to communicate properly with each other.

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This is a photo of an ice entrapment.

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It's a pretty gory photo,

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but I wanted to show you
an example of what this looks like.

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So on the left we have
a breathing hole that is left in the ice,

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and on the right

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we have a bunch of belugas
fighting for the space to breathe.

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Now, ice entrapments in the Arctic
are actually a natural occurrence.

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They happen where winds pick up
very quickly and water freezes over,

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and these animals don't have
enough time to escape to open water.

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But recently, we've been seeing
this happening in places

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where it has never happened before,

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in places that predictably
cover over with ice every year.

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In 2008, behavior
of these animals changed,

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and we saw over 1,000 whales
parish in an ice entrapment.

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Over 1,000 whales that were
mainly mothers and calves.

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Try to imagine what that looks like.

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1,000 whales,

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- we're talking 3 to 5 meters in length,
maybe a little less for the babies,

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and weighting up to the weight
of a family van -

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all trying to breathe out of one hole.

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It's pretty disturbing
when you think about it.

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And mothers and calves,

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It's obvious because the calves
didn't have the lung capacity

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to make it out to the open water,

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which in this case was
some 40 to 50 kilometers away,

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and the mothers weren't willing
to leave their babies behind.

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In 2009, we had 100 animals die
in West Greenland,

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and in 2010, 50 to 100 whales.

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It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

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We have animals that predictably
leave their summer grounds

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- every year, end of September,
beginning of October -

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that chose not to leave an area
that completely covers in ice.

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Imagine the panic, imagine the chaos

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that would cause an animal
to return to an area

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that wouldn't allow them to breathe.

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What kind of noise
were these animals hearing?

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How loud must have it been?

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What was different than before?
Something had to have changed, right?

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At the same time that these animals
were beginning their migration

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- again, end of September,
beginning of October -

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seismic activity was happening
in North Baffin Bay.

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Seismic activity has never occurred
in North Baffin Bay this late in the year,

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exactly at the time of the migration.

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Scientists studying this problem suggest

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that this seismic activity
caused an interruption

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in the traditional migration
path of these animals

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and caused them to return
to their summer grounds;

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again, an area
that completely covers in ice.

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Now, loud noise confuses
us all, that's for sure.

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Try to imagine that you're driving
your car or riding you bike to work.

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And at the same time
that you hear an ambulance siren,

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all the cars around you
just lay on their horns.

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Now, imagine trying to locate
the ambulance noise

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amongst all the rest of the noise.

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Imagine trying to pick out
that critical noise amongst all the rest

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and figure out where you should go.

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Another example.

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Let's say that you're sitting
in your office desk,

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and there is a pile driver operating
outside of one window,

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and there is a truck moving forward
and backward outside the other window,

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and your colleague is nattering away
really loudly on the phone.

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Imagine trying to have
a critical conversation of your own.

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Or imagine trying to write
a really important e-mail.

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Pretty hard to focus, right?

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Now, imagine if sound was

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how you located your food
or how you navigated.

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A leading Danish researcher
Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen,

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other colleagues and I believe

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that sound might be causing
new and substantial problems.

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We think sound might be the reason

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for these fall ice entrapments
of narwhal in new areas.

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Sound also travels over incredibly
long distances under water.

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If you've ever been scuba diving,
you've probably experienced this before:

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maybe you hear a propeller noise,

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you look up thinking it's going to be
right above you because it sounds so close

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and it is actually way,
way off in the distance.

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Seismic ship-based surveys,
which are used to locate

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oil and gas deposits
beneath the sea floor,

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create an incredible amount of noise.

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This noise which is created by explosions
that generate sound waves

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has been picked up

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over 3,000 kilometers
from the ship source.

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Just try to imagine that -
3,000 kilometers!

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We're talking farther than the distance
from Vancouver to my hometown of Winnipeg.

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Imagine being able to pick up
one noise in that distance.

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And perhaps, more importantly,
the noise that is created by these surveys

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is actually operating at a frequency

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which overlaps
that of narwhal communication.

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Imagine the confusion
that these animals must be undergoing

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when a survey is happening.

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How do you think we as humans
may compare in this situation?

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Now, what if seismic surveys are
the reason for these entrapments?

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What if ice breaking
and year-round shipping in the Arctic

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has the same effect?

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What if noise of this magnitude
has the ability

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to mask communications
between mother and calf,

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mask the ability of these animals
to find food at ocean depths,

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or for these animals
to find their breathing holes

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which ultimately means their survival?

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What if their winter grounds

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where these animals do
most of their yearly feeding

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are inaccessible to them
due to noise displacement?

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What if their food moves as well?
That's an entirely different problem.

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As biologists continue to try and solve
this mystery and study this problem,

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I can tell you that these animals,
beluga and narwhal,

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have already taught me so much.

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I know that we have to take
an even closer look at all this noise,

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at all the noise that we're creating
in our environment,

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and all the questions that it raises.

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But we don't actually need to show
an answer in order to get attention.

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Mads Peter, other colleagues and I
have a paper coming out

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in the coming month on this exact topic.

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And we're pretty excited
because it's a question still,

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"What if? What if?"

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But it's a question that we hope
will garner more attention.

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Now, biologists and Inuit hunters agree

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that noise pollution
in the Arctic is a concern.

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Seismic, ship-based sounds are a concern.

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Inuit hunters got
an injunction on Baffin Island

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against seismic testing
in Lancaster Sound in 2010,

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an area that they're currently negotiating
as a National Marine Conservation Area.

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These animals,

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part of an important subsistence harvest,
were way too critical to them,

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and they didn't need an absolute proof
of negative impacts in order to stop it.

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It's so easy for us

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to focus on all these kind of big,
in-your-face environmental issues.

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We're bombarded
with these images every day.

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But I think it has never been more clear

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that not all the damage
that we're doing can be seen.

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And I think that in order to solve
this problem, to fix things going forward,

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we're going to need to close
our eyes and open our ears.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)