NOISE AND FISH

Virginia Gewin, wrote in ‘Popular Science’ in February 2020, “For 24 hours each March, a hush falls over the Indonesian island of Bali in observation of Nyepi, a compulsory day of silent reflection that marks the Hindu new year. Businesses close, streets clear, and beaches empty. Even air travel and shipping stop.

In March 2017, oceanographers used this rare moment of tranquility to drop six hydrophones into the water and spend a few days trying to assess what the big blue sounds like without human interference. They clearly heard the snap of shrimp claws and the grunts and groans of fish crescendo into a nightly chorus.
People imagine the ocean as serene, but the deep has never been the silent world that conservationist Jacques Cousteau once called it. Data suggests most of the 34,200 species of fish can hear, and there’s plenty to listen to. Whales aren’t alone in singing; at least 800 species of fish click, hoot, purr, or moan. A healthy coral reef sounds like corn popping. Storms and earthquakes add to the score. But the industrialization of the sea over the past 70 years has generated enough dins to make hearing anything else difficult. For years, few worried about it, because what did it matter in all that water? Yet mounting evidence shows that our racket profoundly impacts marine creatures great and small—?and could shorten their lives.”

As Ezekiel 47 tells us, “there will be many fish”… but they should not all be deaf.

“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?” Jesus