The economic fallout from COVID-19 has temporarily muted some of the noise coming from maritime traffic. That’s given scientists a rare opportunity to study what happens to marine life when humans quiet down.
Humans today pollute oceans with whirring ship propellers and booming air guns searching for oil and gas deposits. Seeing whales and other creatures’ behavior now that the pandemic has quieted things down is like a peek into what marine life was like before humans drastically turned up the volume over the past 200 years.
“It’s like this horrible pandemic confined us humans into really small spaces but gave the whales back a lot of room to grow, both…