I attended a lecture the other day at the New England Aquarium. It was an event put on by Women Working for Oceans, which I have joined. It was on a subject I knew very little about – ocean noise pollution. Scott Kraus, who works at the aquarium, spoke about studies done on right whales that show their stress levels go up with increased ocean noise. Chronic stress causes reduced reproduction rates and lower immunity. The key speaker of the day was Christopher Clark, who works at Cornell and has done a lot of research on the noise in the ocean. As early as the 1960s it was discovered just how far noise travels, especially low frequencies. An explosion off the coast of Perth, Australia was heard on the east coast of the United States. Even small explosions travel for hundreds of miles. Clark kept talking about how the scale is different when it comes to the oceans and large ocean animals like whales. Noise travels different, whales move around a huge area of the ocean.
As far as we know, all marine mammals make noise and hear noise. It is used as a social network among a species, and also for finding food. The noise of a large cargo ship can drown out all the noise made by the animals they are cut off from each other and their ability to hunt. Below, the small dots are whales and large splotches with red centers are ships. (This gif was shown as part of the presentation.)
Source: National Oceanic Partnership Program via NPR
While recent oil drilling off the east coast has been banned, exploration for oil with seismic air guns is still going ahead. I was glad to see representatives of both of my state senators there to hear about this issue. Technology also exists to make engines quieter, but little is being done. This is an environmental issue that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention or press.