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Australian sea lions and long-nosed fur seals hear best at sounds around 3.2 kilohertz, according to new in-air hearing tests run at Taronga Zoo Sydney. The same work suggests that many human-made sounds, including boats, aircraft, trains and construction, are likely audible to fur seals when they haul out on land. Audibility is only the first step, though. The tests do not show that these sounds harm the animals or change their behavior, and they do not measure hearing underwater, where most of the animals’ lives are spent.
What the hearing tests measured
The study was run by researchers from Curtin University and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia. It tested two Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea) and two long-nosed fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) at Taronga Zoo Sydney. The animals took part voluntarily in a trained task.
How the test worked
- Keepers trained each animal to press a paddle when it heard a tone.
- Correct responses were rewarded with fish, which is a positive-reinforcement method.
- Tones were presented in air across a range of frequencies, and the animal’s responses showed which tones it could detect.
Because the animals chose to take part and were rewarded for correct responses, the researchers could measure what each animal actually perceived. Dr Benjamin Pitcher, a behavioral biologist at the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, described the setup this way: “The seals and sea lions were given voluntary choice to participate in the hearing tests using positive reinforcement, allowing us to measure what they could actually perceive while keeping the animals engaged in the process.”
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Both species were most sensitive to sounds around 3.2 kilohertz. The university describes this as the first detailed hearing-sensitivity baseline for these two Australian species. The release does not reproduce full audiograms or individual measurements, so 3.2 kHz is best read as the headline frequency rather than a complete picture of each animal’s hearing range.
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The results were published in two papers: “Aerial Audiograms of Two Long-Nosed Fur Seals (Arctocephalus forsteri)” in Conservation, and “In-Air Behavioral Audiograms of Two Australian Sea Lions (Neophoca cinerea)” in Animals.
Which human-made sounds were compared
For the long-nosed fur seal, the team compared the animals’ hearing with noise from boats, ships, aircraft, trains and construction. The release reports that many of these sounds would be audible to seals hauled out on land. It does not list which sources were audible at which levels, so the comparison establishes audibility in general terms rather than a sound-by-sound exposure assessment.
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What “audible” does and does not mean
An audible sound is one the animal can detect. That is a prerequisite for disturbance, but it is not evidence of disturbance. A seal that hears a passing aircraft may ignore it, and the study does not establish that any audible sound causes behavioral change or hearing damage.
Professor Christine Erbe, lead researcher at Curtin’s Centre for Marine Science and Technology, put the logic simply: “Before we can understand whether a noise is affecting an animal, we need to know whether it can hear that noise in the first place.” The tests answer the first half of that question for two species in air. They do not answer the second half.
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Why the Australian sea lion is the focus
The university release describes the Australian sea lion as endangered and gives an estimated population of about 12,000 animals. That figure comes from the 2026 release and may have changed since; check it against a current conservation assessment before citing it as today’s number. Erbe noted that these animals depend on hearing to communicate, find food, navigate and detect threats, so any loss of listening range or masking of important sounds matters for survival.
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| Question | Status according to the 2026 study and release |
|---|---|
| Can the two species hear sounds in air around 3.2 kHz? | Yes; this is where both species were most sensitive in the tests. |
| Can fur seals hear many boat, aircraft, train and construction sounds on land? | The release says many of these sounds would be audible; source-by-source levels are not reported. |
| How do these species hear underwater? | Not established. The tests were in air only. |
| Does noise change behavior or damage hearing in the wild? | Not established by these studies. |
| At what noise level does interference begin? | Not established. The researchers name this as the next step. |
Dr Pitcher framed the next phase in the same terms: “We now know what these animals can hear in air. The next step is to understand how noise affects them under water, and when it begins to interfere with their behaviour or hearing.”
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Until that underwater work is published, the most defensible reading is narrow. Two Australian pinniped species have a documented in-air hearing baseline with peak sensitivity near 3.2 kHz, and many common human-made sounds are likely within their hearing range when they are on land. Whether those sounds matter for welfare or survival is a separate question these studies do not settle.
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