I’ve gone whale watching a few times in my life. It's always been on a boat off the shore of a quaint, sleepy, coastal New England small town – bundled in a blanket, early in the morning, saltwater stinging my frozen face, and binoculars gripped tightly.

I’ve never actually spotted a whale on any of those trips. Who’d have thought I might have better luck from my roof of my Brooklyn apartment building, binoculars pointed toward the Statue of Liberty?

That just may be true, according to this Science Daily article I read today that said scientists are hearing whales singing in the waters around New York City. And not just any whales – endangered species – including fin, North Atlantic right and humpback whales. 

As exciting as it is to think about catching a humpback unexpectedly splashing Lady Liberty the next time you take a water taxi through New York Harbor, the reality is there are a lot of dangers for whales in the water around us – aka “acoustic smog” associated with such activities as shipping – that interfer with whales' ability to communicate using sound.

As our marine mammal fellow, Liz Alter, described it to me – just as it’s hard for people to see very far away in a smoggy city, it’s hard for whales to navigate through acoustic smog in the water.

But the study that picked up on the whale songs in our area (which was created due to a law NRDC pushed for to encourage New York state to take leadership in protecting its ocean resources) is helping researchers better understand whales' migratory patterns by listening to their songs. In the future, it will hopefully lead to a system of buoys in the area that can pick up whale songs to warn ships when they are traveling near whales to keep them safe. A system like this already exists in Cape Cod.

Hopefully this study means the next time we hear humpbacks swimming by New York City, we’ll be better prepared to keep them safe.

Suddenly makes a ride on the Staten Island Ferry sound more interesting, doesn’t it?

(Update: For more on whales and noise - check out this post.)