Anthropogenic masking noise in the world’s oceans is known to impede many species ability to perceive acoustic signals, but little research has addressed how this noise pollution affects the detection of bioacoustic signals used for communication. Bottlenose dolphins use signature whistles which contain identification information. Past studies have shown that human participants can be used as models for dolphin hearing, but most previous research investigated echolocation. In experiment 1, human participants were tested on their ability to discriminate among signature whistles from three dolphins. Participants’ performance was nearly errorless (M = 98.8%). In experiment 2, participants identified signature whistles masked by five different samples of boat noise, with different signals to noise ratios. Preliminary results suggest that participants perform worse in lower ratios of signal to noise, that some signature whistles are easier to identify in the presence of noise, and that some noises have more detrimental impacts on whistle recognition. The presence of boat noise may cause participants to use more auditory cues in order to identify whistles, although participants always relied most heavily on frequency contour and duration. This study may provide insight into the impacts of different types of boat noise on dolphin whistle perception.