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Northern right whales, along with southern right whales, are on the endangered species list,
and conservationists monitor the health of the community acoustically by automatically listening to their calls.
[Several whale calls]
Researchers at Penn State found that upcalls, or contact calls, become louder with increased background noise.
The increased noise is probably caused by increased human activity in the shipping lanes.
It's nice to know that the whales can shout when they need to,
but whether they can continue to increase volume in a noisy ocean is unknown.