Photo credit: Samuel Blanc licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
We have posted before about how ocean noise is causing damage to various species of whales, so it should be no surprise to hear that human noise has thoroughly invaded our oceans. The Islands’ Sounder spoke to Christopher Clark, a bioacoustic engineer who he studies biology and acoustics, who discusses how “ambient noise from ships” interfered with his research on whales. Clark said that “[w]hat was eerie was that he could hear [ships’] rumble, but the ships were so far away they might as well have been invisible.” “North Atlantic right whales, like the Southern resident Orcas, are endangered,” adds Clark, who “suspects noise is a contributing factor for both species.” “You can’t listen to the ocean for any length of time without encountering human noise,” he laments.
The damage is not limited to whales, as ocean noise is damaging other species. Matt Soergel,The Florida Times-Union, reporting on research on dolphins in the St. Johns River, writes that researchers were surprised to find that “there’s no place [in the area they studied] immune to man-made sound,” and they are not sure why. As for the effect on dolphins, the researchers aren’t quite sure, but “dolphins, especially in the murky tannin waters of the St. Johns, rely on sound to communicate and to hunt,” and the St. Johns’ dolphins have shown a decline in health.
And seals are suffering too, as researchers from the University of St. Andrews have discovered that “[s]eals may experience hearing loss from underwater vessel noise.” Although the researchers have said that there was “no evidence that seals were exposed to noise levels high enough to cause permanent hearing damage,” lead author Dr. Esther Jones added that “[u]rbanisation of the marine environment is inevitably going to continue, so chronic ocean noise should be incorporated explicitly into marine spatial planning and management plans for existing marine protected areas.”
Noise is not just a nuisance, it’s a public health issue for all species on this planet.
Originally posted at Silencity.com.
