内容摘要：The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s

A beluga whale swims through the Churchill River, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)Unlike humpback whales, the vocalizations from belugas aren’t songs with rhythm and a pattern, she said. When she puts her hydrophones in the water to record the whales’ calls “you really don’t think, ‘Oh, I’m hearing singing.’ You think ‘I’m in a jungle full of birds’.”

It’s a cacophony of clicks and whistles. But it’s not random, it’s like being dropped into a noisy festival, Vergara said.“You can’t help but wonder what is it that they are communicating with each other,” she said. “They absolutely rely on sound to maintain these very complex societies.”Research has shown that individual belugas have a distinct call that they use in communication, much like a name, Vergara said. And it takes a couple years for young whales to learn their parents’ name and their own. But whales that are related or hang out together have calls or names that are similar, sort of like a last name, she said.

Belugas get the nickname “canary of the sea” because of their vocalization, but it also could apply like the canary in the coal mine, warning about an environment getting more dangerous, Vergara said., including here in Hudson Bay. And even though this is probably the biggest beluga population in the world, scientists are a bit concerned.

“The disappearing ice is going to affect them,” Vergara said. “We don’t know how they’re going to react to shifts in water temperature, shifts in food availability, shifts in the availability of regular prey.”

Beluga whales swim through the Churchill River, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, near Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)Children walk past a tree brought down by an elephant on the periphery of Save Valley Conservancy, Thursday, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Children walk past a tree brought down by an elephant on the periphery of Save Valley Conservancy, Thursday, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s

for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas atThe Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.