Researchers Test Whether Sharks Enjoy Christmas Songs

Scientists plan to test whether sharks enjoy listening to Christmas pop songs, after US research showed fish could recognize melody. Chris Brown, senior marine biologist at the Loch Lomond aquarium, said seasonal music would be played through walkthrough underwater tunnels where they can be heard by dozens of nurse sharks, black-tip reef sharks, and ray species. Experts will then monitor the sharks' reactions to different songs. We'll play everything from Kim Wilde and Mel Smith's Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade to Wham's Last Christmas. We may find they prefer something softer like White Christmas by Bing Crosby," Brown said. Thank you for answering this question science.

What

[contra_mundi]

This has little to do with science.

Re:What

[carlzum]

Agreed. And what's the purpose of that image? I'd say it was the most useless image I've seen on a Slashdot article, but that honor goes to the artificial Christmas tree [slashdot.org] on an article about a guy who made a pyramid looking thing out of old hard drives.

What happened to Idle?

[wvmarle]

Half year or so the new idle was introduced - fine with me. Some stupid stories to waste time, nicely grouped together.

Then a few months ago now and then idle stories started making the front page. Acceptable, easy to filter using preferences.

But nowadays I see two, three of these idle type stories hit the front page every day! Now this stupid shark thing, masking as a science story. Appropriately tagged 'idle' already.

Please editors: keep idle type stories in the idle section, not in other sections, so we can filter them out if we like. And only real science stories in the science section. It's what those sections are made for, right?

Re:What

[Anonymous Coward]

Very wrong. Everyone who has been saying stuff such as "Waste of money" should just go back to reading their bibles.

How come it isn't important to research if the same kind of things affect the moods of animals that affect our moods? How can a point be made that it isn't exactly the kind of knowledge that progresses our understanding of the world around us?

In addition it has numerous practical uses. They range from calming animals in kennels, zoos, etc. to getting slightly more productive farms by just playing the right CDs at the barn to keeping some species from becoming extinct to helping pet owners.

For example, I have a parrot. One of the most common reasons that pet parrots die is out of stress if something wierd happens. If the owner changes, if they both move to another house, if the family gets another pet... The parrot might become too stressed and stop eating alltogether. This kind of problems are very difficult to deal with.

I also know from experience that what type of music I play affects his moods (he seems to like Tenacious D and Flight of the Concords but I can't anymore listen to heavy metal without headphones...). If I knew that there was certain kind of music proven to help him through stressful times, I could pay quite a much for the CD.

But why is this a waste of money? Oh right, christmas songs! Any other type of songs at any other time of year... No prob. But christmas songs so it MUST be stupid research and waste of all those... Hmm. This research really costs only the price of a few CDs and few weeks of payment for the assistant that spends part of his time examining the sharks. Hell, I could fund this research myself.

Re:Good Work Guys!

[Orange Crush]

Yeah, this is an aquarium doing a little "research" for minimal cost to entertain visitors because "the sharks are listening to Christmas music too! That one over there, she really likes 'White Christmas!'" etc.

This is kindof like if Seaworld were conducting "research" to determine Shamu's favorite song. It isn't necessarily advancing science, it's to amuse their guests.

That was my first thought too.

[Belial6]

You know, that was my first reaction also, but it might not be as dumb as it sounds. The summery says that someone showed fish recognizing melody. That is interesting. Not as interesting as a super massive black hole in the center of our galaxy, but interesting none the less. Now, consider the kind of funding that would be needed to do this study. They are not going out catching sharks and building huge aquariums with specialized facilities to do this study. They are piping Christmas music through existing speakers in an already functioning aquarium that likely is already doing other studies. Even the music is likely already pre-existing. The only costs to this study would be in keeping track of what music is playing (which would be playing anyways), logging the behavior of the sharks, which they are likely already doing, and reviewing the results when it is done.

From a non-marine biologists point of view, it would be interesting to know if the music agitates sharks. If I made only twice what I make now, I might consider making a TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION of 20 or 30 thousand dollars to an aquarium for this kind of research. It would be interesting, and I might come out financially ahead from it. From a marine biologist's point of view, I can only imagine that this is at least as interesting as I find my PC specs, or OS choice. It also could have honest to goodness practical applications. Today, sharks are likely subjected to Christmas music in aquariums anyplace that Christmas is largely celebrated. So, if the music is going to cause the animals stress, it would make sense to turn the PA system off in the aquariums.