We perceive our world with our eyes but
the animals in the ocean rely on sound
and so changes in the sound field is
going to be so much more impactful for
them than it is for us.
I'm Simone Baumann-Pickering,
biological oceanographer
at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
I study the ecology of large marine predators,
particularly marine mammals.
I'm looking at how changes in the 
acoustic presence of certain species
may be related to changes in our environment.
For the most, part I'm using long-term
autonomous recorders that are being deployed
in the ocean for months at a time.
They record all the sounds, from low-frequency
ship sounds or baleen whale sounds,
to very high frequency echolocation clicks
of dolphins.
And so we take that out of the instrument,
once we recover the instrument
and bring it into a processing facility.
So in this case, we're seeing five explosive events
and in the background you have 
humpback whales singing.
I pulled this up because it shows
just how intrusive  those types of sounds can be
while the animals trying to make a living
and trying to communicate.
In all of these areas now
we're more and more hearing people
intruding in these "soundscapes."
And quantifying that and understanding that,
that is a big driver for me.
