Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships • Hacker News Board

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#51

Post by partingshots » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #37

joncrane wrote: post #2

I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…

> ...and I feel it's disingenuous. I think you're probably right. Unfortunately that does accurately sum up the quality of reporting in The Independent pretty well. Every newspaper in the UK has an axe to grind but, in terms of torturing the facts to suit a particular narrative, The Independent is right up there with The Daily Mail and The Express. All of them are really shoddy publications that thoughtful human bein…

Are there any reputable news publications you read? Subscription required is fine.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#52

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #48

“That’s horrible!” Most people say while reading this on their way to the sushi restaurant. We’re ruining the world for all living things (and ourselves but we don’t seem to have fully grasped it yet). I have nothing to add except that it’s very sad. I could say “quit buying fish if you’re at all concerned about the situation” but I expect to be downvoted to oblivion for stating such a radical idea.

Plenty of us are vegan and think human influence on animal habitats is horrible. I can’t tell if you’re projecting your own unwillingness to make change onto others.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#53

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #32

dynamite-ready wrote: post #11

It's sped up and edited, sure. But as (relatively) simple visualisations go, that was pretty emotional.

Maybe more emotional than it needs to be though. In real time the whale would have hours or even days to get out of the way.

Folks in this thread are real quick to dismiss any concern for the animal and it’s habitat and that’s pretty sad. Is it so hard to believe human activity is harming these animals?

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#54

Post by chmod775 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #50

atoav wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or this was the speed things came out when converted to video. I think attributing this to malice is really not a great move, given that we can only guess here and a lot of people without advanced video knowledge wouldn't make this a conscious choice unless it is much too slow or fast

That's why I say "seems" instead of "was". I don't want to assume it's on purpose. But I'm sure they had control over the speed of the animation. If they didn't make it look frenetic on purpose, they were incompetent in their attempt to make it describe reality. If they didn't mean it to seem that way, the responsibility is on them to fix it. This is only my opinion, but I'm sure I'm not alone.

What's your opinion on weather map/satellite images then? You are aware they're not real time and the storms/wind isn't actually moving that fast?

Are the people who make them incompetent? Or would they simply be useless if played back in real time - since you would hardly be able to see any movement at all.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#55

Post by scubazealous » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #2

I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…

Disclaimer: Not a marine biologist by trade but took several classes and have close friends in the profession.

What people do not realize is that these whales communicate by sound and have very sensitive hearing. Boats, especially the larger ones you see being used for fishing/shipping generate a lot of noise due to powerful engines and underwater cavitation caused by their propeller spinning. This can drown out whales communications between pods. Researchers are not sure what the long term ramifications of this will be but have observed whales avoiding shipping lanes[0]. It worries me how other marine life, which we do not have the same resources or public support to track, reacts to this.

Lastly, here is a video of a scuba diver underneath a freighter to give an idea of what goes on underwater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIPMfHUIVvk

[0]https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/shipping-lanes-are-getti...

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#56

Post by imtringued » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #2

I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…

> It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships,

When I watched the video at full speed I thought: this whale doesn't give a damn if there are other ships nearby

When I watched the video at 1/10 speed my opinion didn't change. Except the video was boring. You are reading too much into this video.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#57

Post by imtringued » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:32 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #53

mrfusion wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more emotional than it needs to be though. In real time the whale would have hours or even days to get out of the way.

Folks in this thread are real quick to dismiss any concern for the animal and it’s habitat and that’s pretty sad. Is it so hard to believe human activity is harming these animals?

It's very easy to believe and it has absolutely nothing to do with the speed and motion of ships and instead with the presence of sonar and engine and propeller noises.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#58

Post by ajnin » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #2

I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…

I witnessed an interesting phenomenon : invariably when information is presented from some article that hints at either animal intelligence or harmful influence of humans on animals, some armchair commentator will come forward with an alternate explanations that reduces the observed behaviour to a basic mechanistic instinct related to feeding or reproduction or survival. That comment will also be the most upvoted one. The commentator does not present additional information, but for some reason his opinion is given more value than that of the experts who wrote the original study. That phenomenon is particularly prevalent on Reddit.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#59

Post by ben509 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #53

mrfusion wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more emotional than it needs to be though. In real time the whale would have hours or even days to get out of the way.

Folks in this thread are real quick to dismiss any concern for the animal and it’s habitat and that’s pretty sad. Is it so hard to believe human activity is harming these animals?

It's not an inability to believe it's true. It's more being burnt out by ritualized concern. It comes from seeing something awful that we're all supposed to be concerned about, listening to people beat their chest about it, and then the next day it's something else and those people have moved on to that and forgotten about yesterday's crisis.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#60

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

ss64 wrote: post #18

arendtio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the animation type influences the information in a misleading way and I think that the suggested effect is real. Whales use sound to gather information about their surroundings rather than sight. So it isn't about visibility range, but rather about auditory range. In addition, sound travels at a different speed under water (I don't know how it affects the range). The movie 'The last Giants' [1] is a doc…

In addition to the diesel engine noise most of these ships are running sonar systems which affect marine mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar#Effect_on_marine_mammals

[deleted]