The study included placing underwater microphones up to two kilometersmiles) offshore to pick up noises from some 2,000 whales expected to migrate along the coast over the next month, said Michael Noad.

Noad, from the University of Queensland, told the Australian Associated Press that a key part of the study would be monitoring the "songs" of male humpbacks as they migrate back to the Southern Ocean.

"The humpbacks are famous for their songs but nobody knows for certain what their function is," he said, adding that the noises could involve mating calls or warnings by males to rivals.

"They have an extreme mixture of sounds, amongst the moaning, yapping and snoring there are noises that sound like somebody playing a violin, a squeaky door or a baby crying."

"Once we know the very basic function of the song we can predict biological outcomes" if the sounds are disrupted, he said.

The study, funded by the US Office of Naval Research, hopes to determine if man-made noise like sonar, seismic testing for oil and shipping could mask whale songs and upset breeding or other whale activities, said Noad.

"There are a range of problems that man-made noise can cause for whales," he said.

"You hear sensationalised stories about it killing them or deafening them, or it might just annoy them and lead to them being displaced from their normal habitat.

"The US Navy developed very powerful low-frequency sonar to find very quiet submarines that may be hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away, so that would be extremely loud at the source," he said.

"We need to find out what is happening so we can take the adequate precautions. It could be a very simple solution once we know what we need to do to help."

WAR.WIRE