Enjoying the discussion. Regarding the OP subject reports claims, I am more in the camp favoring comments like those from Chip @W1YW. The OP title was chosen tongue-in-cheek, to be a bit satirical, like something from The Onion. It was supposed to make a loose connection with ham radio, and the subject matter, but when making the preface comment I kept a straight face to not tip my hand toward any particular bias. However, note that marine research on whales and HR do have a tighter connection, as reported earlier on the Zed. See the 2018 news item for the HF Voyager Project, part of the Humpback Pacific Survey (HUMPACS). What's next regarding marine research and RF sensitivity; claims that xmsns from probes like WaveGlider / HF Voyager are QRM'ing natural navigation?
The piece, IMO, confuses 'magnetic' with 'electromagnetic'. And there lies the rub... "The researcher said that it has been shown in several species that radio frequency noise can disrupt the ability to navigate using the magnetic field"... But not in whales.
What was the rate of beachings back in the late 1950s when there was what has been referred to as a once in 500 year Solar Cycle peak? That was the one when 10 meters was open 24 hours a day in 1959. Some old timers have said that they could talk around the world on 10 meters with just 50 watts of AM. If that doesn't fit these "scientist" numbers then it is very poor correlation. Correlation of this sort is not the end answer of the question. It is the question that asks what is really happening. Could it be that solar cycle peaks cause other issues in the oceans such as algae blooms, warmer surface temperatures or other factors that might cause whales problems. <sarcasm> Maybe all humans need to give up radio frequency devices and return to they way they lived a few hundred years ago to save the whales.</sarcasm>
They don't have many solar cycles , only about 3 of the 11 year cycle for number of spots. They started with 1985 data...
Whales geting Turned Around with high solar cycles,good propagation" so why have we had so many beachings over the last 20 years when the bands are dead. Perhaps the scientists could figure out what frequect they are on and install anteuutors on them so they wont get lost when the cycle peaks again,
Reality check. Sunspots do not cause "massive" changes in the geomagnetic field. The changes are low level and very sensitive magnetometers must be used to detect them. A common compass is not going to reverse, spin or do anything else due to sunspots. Whale strandings are poorly understood. There are several other things that have been proposed as causes them which seem much more plausible to me than tiny changes in the earth's magnetic field from solar causes. The oceans have become much noisier in recent decades from cargo ships and military sonars, which can disrupt whale communications. It's been theorized that whales also navigate by using sonar or ambient sound patterns reflecting from ocean floor landmarks and land masses. But whale strandings were known before the modern era. Illness from various causes. The magnetic poles have been moving rapidly in recent years which might cause errors in whale navigation, if using the magnetic field (which isn't proven). Possibly ocean warming, which is causing changes in food distribution and would require changes in whale migration patterns. Starvation of killer whale pods has been observed due to to loss of usual prey species as waters warm in the pacific northwest.
STILL looking for you to tell us who these "zero credibility credentials in the science field" folks are.... Again, please name and provide facts. Thanks.
The answer is even simpler than that. Since homo sapiens went through the agricultural revolution, we've been slashing and burning everything in our path. And there's no way to stop it. The end results will be biblical.
"We examined the frequency of live strandings in relation to sunspot count, and performed a permutation statistical test that demonstrated that strandings occurred more often on days with high solar activity." There is no way their sample size could be large enough to even begin to find a meaningful correlation between sunspots and whale beachings. This is a postulation of a theory at best.
