Current Events > Sound could save manatees, whose only predator is boats.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Edmund Gerstein, the director of marine mammal research at Florida Atlantic University, founded research group Leviathan Legacy Inc. more than twenty years ago with his wife Laura. They discovered that manatees have trouble sensing low frequency humming from boat engines and propellers. In shallow waters especially, watercraft can become acoustically invisible killers for unsuspecting manatees.

However, the Gerstein's found that manatees are good at detecting high-frequency noises, most successfully between 16,000 and 18000 Hz. With this in mind, they developed a submerged alarm system that shoots a beam of high-frequency sound from the front of the boat, warning manatees to steer clear.