Of the roughly 250,000 known marine species, scientists think all ~126 marine mammals emit sounds – the ‘thwop’, ‘muah’, and ‘boop’s of a humpback whale, for example, or the boing of a minke whale.

Last week, the British Library launched a £40m ($60m) crowdfunding initiative to preserve its archive of over six million sound recordings. The Save our Sounds project is concentrated on remediating ...