Ocean Noise

A few weeks back we submitted comments on the US Navy’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the expansion of Anti-submarine Warfare exercises in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). The DEIS, at some 950 pages was very wordy, though we found it lacking on many counts.
In requesting permission to open this area up to environmental [...]

Back in the mid 1970’s Physical Oceanographer Walter Munk was evaluating the acoustical transmission characteristics of the ocean “sound channel” – an isothermal layer in the deep ocean that baleen whales use for long distance communication.
His visionary work in this field developed into a 1991 experiment called the “Heard Island Feasibility Test” which produced the [...]

An November 2009 article in Nature looks at non-kin cooperation models in animal societies. It examines reciprocity, mutualism, and manipulation in economic terms – with future expectations, biological expense, and cheating included in some of the trade values.
The overarching perspective is “why would an animal incur costs to their survival fitness unless there was some [...]

A nicely written article in the Dec. 3 2009 issue  Nature reveals how a how a neutrino detection experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea by nuclear physicists actually uncovered an abundance of sperm whales.
The experiment involved placing hydrophones down 2000 meters below the surface; the idea being that these hydrophones could detect little pops from [...]

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries department has launched a third in a series of four fisheries research vessels designed around new, quiet technologies.
Named “Pisces” NOAA’s Rear Adm. Jonathan Bailey says that the boat “…is so advanced and quiet that it is likely fish and other marine animals will never know it’s there. [...]

EcoJustice is asking for hearings about a proposed geological survey of the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area. There is some irony in conducting seismic surveys in marine protected areas, particularly an area that has been recognized as a habitat for “12 species of marine life that do not exist anywhere else.”
Sabine Jessen from the [...]

On the morning of July 3 2004 there was an agitated aggregation of Melon Headed whales in Hanalei Bay, Hawai’i. This event was concurrent to the RIMPAC international naval exercise  which happens every two years.
As is typical with these tragic events, the US Navy rolled up their collective sleeves and focused on how to establish [...]

“The July 13 Federal Register reported that the Navy wants NMFS to permit up to 14 dead marine mammals from its proposed sonar use up to 250 miles from the Northwest coast…”
In ongoing discussions about defining the Pacific Northwest warfare training ground, NMFS is being asked to weigh in on sonar guidelines.
The entire [...]

The environmental thriller “The Cove” follows the stealth reconnaissance work of Ric O’Barry as he uncovers the dolphin drive fishery in Taiji, Japan.
Ric was the dolphin trainer who selected and trained the dolphins of the 60’s TV series “Flipper” – which began the American love affair with these sentient and intelligent animals.
The consequences of this [...]

New Freeway planned for San Ignacio Lagoon
San Ignacio Lagoon is the birthplace of a remarkable chapter in the relationship between whales and humans. The lagoons along the western coast of the American Continent- from San Francisco Bay in the north to Bahía Magdalena in the south – were all once breeding and birthing [...]

This week New York Times features and article ostensibly about our relationship with whales, woven around a visit by the author to the “friendly whales” of San Ignacio Lagoon.
The article (requiring a free NYT login) is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12whales-t.html
It also features some OCR colleagues, friends and allies such as Ranulfo Mayoral, a fantastic birder and the brother [...]

The mass stranding event (MSE) in Cornwall UK last year points to Navy sonar. But if you read through the very comprehensive report you can see why it is difficult to arrive at unimpeachable scientific conclusions.
The report is here:
http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WC0601_8031_TRP.pdf
The quote from the report conclusion states:
“A period of naval exercises involving a variety of high intensity [...]

A vaguely academic article published in  the “National Maritime Foundation: Advancing India’s Maritime Interests.” argues that environmental groups are actually agencies set up by adversarial governments to hobble the Navy’s readiness capabilities through environmental “lawfare.”
see: http://www.maritimeindia.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=166
I’m sure that the US Navy has an editorial board that weighs the degree of “sparkle” in the pieces they [...]

Yet another unfortunate event involving whales and mid-frequency sonar; two minke whales were seen “porpoising” at high speeds in waters where military operations were taking place. Observers also heard extremely loud sonar concurrent to the sightings.
Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales, reaching a bit over 30 ft. in length. Porpoising is a [...]

“Thrilling” is not a word I thought I would ever use in describing an Acoustical Society meeting, but there were moments last week that bordered on just that. Driving this is an intersection of rapidly increasing computer processing power and advancing sensor technologies – put in the hands of some of the nimble intellects that [...]

Spending the last two days in the company of geophysicists, marine mammologists, petroleum engineers and policy makers was much less grueling than I had anticipated. But the degree of collegiality was uncharacteristic of these affairs – to a point of being downright pleasant.
The purpose of the meeting was to craft a “Mitigations Practices” document for [...]

OCR Advisory Board member and ocean champion J. Nichols and “Her Deepness” Dr. Sylvia Earle have founded an organization predicted on a delightful premise. The organization is called “Bluemarbles.org” from the metaphor of the earth seen from space being likened to a blue marble.
The premise involves gifting blue marbles to other people with a suggestion [...]

Last Thursday was the final public hearing on the 5 year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing program. While this was the last chance to stand up in public to express yourself about the program, it is not the last chance to comment, as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has opened up the public comment period to [...]

An indecent cited in the UK Independent highlights one of the tragic ironies of well-meaning citizens attempting to push stranded whales back out to sea. My speculative belief is that stranded marine mammals actually know what they are doing, and that human intervention to “save” them actually only modifies their “death trip.”
If they are emotionally [...]

Another tragedy linked to ocean noise pollution: a multi-species stranding linked to seismic surveys. This event involved some 189 pilot whales and 10 dolphins in Naracoopa, Tasmania.

For a local article see here: http://www.watoday.com.au/national/stranded-whales-herded-out-to-sea-20090303-8mom.html

Tasmania has a long history of stranding pilot whales. While the causes of these single species strandings remain a mystery, the general assumption [...]

Yesterday there was mass-stranding event in the Philippines, near the US Navy’s Subic Bay base. As of yet there has not been any definitive correlations with military operations, but the last time melon-headed whales were involved in a similar incident was a few years back in Hanalei Bay Hawai’i, coincident to a military exercise.
A BBC [...]

Google Earth has added a very significant embellishment to their wonderful mapping application; “Google Ocean.”
(see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/earth/03oceans.html?_r=2&hp )
This new tool will allow anybody to explore the ocean at will, and free of charge. I believe that the introduction of this feature into our global inquiry will have a profound effect on how everybody perceives the ocean.
Ocean [...]

Part of the US Navy mitigation agreements to protect marine mammals and turtles involves having their crews informed through their Marine Species Awareness Training program. This involves watching a two part video.
The first part is required of all Commanding Officers, Executive Officers, Observation Officers and Junior Observation Officers, Maritime Patrol Officers, Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) [...]

This last week has ushered forth two great developments for the ocean. The first is actually a retraction of a Bush-driven policy that would have seriously compromised the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing NOAA to bypass external review when managing fisheries – essentially allowing the proverbial “fox guarding the henhouse” (or “sea lions guarding [...]

Sometimes I get so linked in to doing things that I forget to stop and enjoy the show. This October OceanLab and University of Tokyo sent a camera down to one of the world’s deepest trenches and came up with some fantastic film footage of a group of snailfish feeding on camera bait. These [...]

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the world’s most productive fishery – 40% of all wild fish eaten in America are pulled from these waters. So it is a puzzlement to many of us that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering an oil lease that would open up a large portion of Bristol Bay to offshore [...]

Sadly the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the US Navy in the recent gambit on the mitigation measures proposed by the California Coastal Commission.
The vote was 6-3, with Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy joining an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in [...]

Outer Continental Shelf hero Richard Charter sent us a rather depressing article. (excerpted below) It seems that proposed oil operations off the New Jersey coast will be constrained by some very reckless chemical weapons dumping done by our military.
This is a sad comment on how the military has been able to run roughshod over our [...]

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the Navy Sonar case that originated in California early this year when the Whitehouse attempted to overrule a district court judgment on the US Navy’s proposed sonar exercises off of the California cost.
The actual case is really about executive powers – and whether the executive branch can allow any agency [...]

Outer Continental Shelf hero Richard Charter sent us a rather depressing article. (excerpted below) It seems that proposed oil operations off the New Jersey coast will be constrained by some very reckless chemical weapons dumping done by our military.
This is a sad comment on how the military has been able to run roughshod over our [...]

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the world’s most productive fishery – 40% of all wild fish eaten in America are pulled from these waters. So it is a puzzlement to many of us that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering an oil lease that would open up a large portion of Bristol Bay to offshore [...]

Last Thursday was the final public hearing on the 5 year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing program. While this was the last chance to stand up in public to express yourself about the program, it is not the last chance to comment, as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has opened up the public comment period to [...]

Spending the last two days in the company of geophysicists, marine mammologists, petroleum engineers and policy makers was much less grueling than I had anticipated. But the degree of collegiality was uncharacteristic of these affairs – to a point of being downright pleasant.
The purpose of the meeting was to craft a “Mitigations Practices” document for [...]

Back in the mid 1970’s Physical Oceanographer Walter Munk was evaluating the acoustical transmission characteristics of the ocean “sound channel” – an isothermal layer in the deep ocean that baleen whales use for long distance communication.
His visionary work in this field developed into a 1991 experiment called the “Heard Island Feasibility Test” which produced the [...]

Sadly the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the US Navy in the recent gambit on the mitigation measures proposed by the California Coastal Commission.
The vote was 6-3, with Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy joining an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in [...]

Yesterday there was mass-stranding event in the Philippines, near the US Navy’s Subic Bay base. As of yet there has not been any definitive correlations with military operations, but the last time melon-headed whales were involved in a similar incident was a few years back in Hanalei Bay Hawai’i, coincident to a military exercise.
A BBC [...]

Yet another unfortunate event involving whales and mid-frequency sonar; two minke whales were seen “porpoising” at high speeds in waters where military operations were taking place. Observers also heard extremely loud sonar concurrent to the sightings.
Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales, reaching a bit over 30 ft. in length. Porpoising is a [...]

A vaguely academic article published in  the “National Maritime Foundation: Advancing India’s Maritime Interests.” argues that environmental groups are actually agencies set up by adversarial governments to hobble the Navy’s readiness capabilities through environmental “lawfare.”
see: http://www.maritimeindia.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=166
I’m sure that the US Navy has an editorial board that weighs the degree of “sparkle” in the pieces they [...]

The mass stranding event (MSE) in Cornwall UK last year points to Navy sonar. But if you read through the very comprehensive report you can see why it is difficult to arrive at unimpeachable scientific conclusions.
The report is here:
http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WC0601_8031_TRP.pdf
The quote from the report conclusion states:
“A period of naval exercises involving a variety of high intensity [...]

“The July 13 Federal Register reported that the Navy wants NMFS to permit up to 14 dead marine mammals from its proposed sonar use up to 250 miles from the Northwest coast…”
In ongoing discussions about defining the Pacific Northwest warfare training ground, NMFS is being asked to weigh in on sonar guidelines.
The entire [...]

On the morning of July 3 2004 there was an agitated aggregation of Melon Headed whales in Hanalei Bay, Hawai’i. This event was concurrent to the RIMPAC international naval exercise  which happens every two years.
As is typical with these tragic events, the US Navy rolled up their collective sleeves and focused on how to establish [...]

A few weeks back we submitted comments on the US Navy’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the expansion of Anti-submarine Warfare exercises in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). The DEIS, at some 950 pages was very wordy, though we found it lacking on many counts.
In requesting permission to open this area up to environmental [...]

Sadly the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the US Navy in the recent gambit on the mitigation measures proposed by the California Coastal Commission.
The vote was 6-3, with Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy joining an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in [...]

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the world’s most productive fishery – 40% of all wild fish eaten in America are pulled from these waters. So it is a puzzlement to many of us that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering an oil lease that would open up a large portion of Bristol Bay to offshore [...]

Yesterday there was mass-stranding event in the Philippines, near the US Navy’s Subic Bay base. As of yet there has not been any definitive correlations with military operations, but the last time melon-headed whales were involved in a similar incident was a few years back in Hanalei Bay Hawai’i, coincident to a military exercise.
A BBC [...]

Last Thursday was the final public hearing on the 5 year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing program. While this was the last chance to stand up in public to express yourself about the program, it is not the last chance to comment, as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has opened up the public comment period to [...]

Spending the last two days in the company of geophysicists, marine mammologists, petroleum engineers and policy makers was much less grueling than I had anticipated. But the degree of collegiality was uncharacteristic of these affairs – to a point of being downright pleasant.
The purpose of the meeting was to craft a “Mitigations Practices” document for [...]

“Thrilling” is not a word I thought I would ever use in describing an Acoustical Society meeting, but there were moments last week that bordered on just that. Driving this is an intersection of rapidly increasing computer processing power and advancing sensor technologies – put in the hands of some of the nimble intellects that [...]

Yet another unfortunate event involving whales and mid-frequency sonar; two minke whales were seen “porpoising” at high speeds in waters where military operations were taking place. Observers also heard extremely loud sonar concurrent to the sightings.
Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales, reaching a bit over 30 ft. in length. Porpoising is a [...]

New Freeway planned for San Ignacio Lagoon
San Ignacio Lagoon is the birthplace of a remarkable chapter in the relationship between whales and humans. The lagoons along the western coast of the American Continent- from San Francisco Bay in the north to Bahía Magdalena in the south – were all once breeding and birthing [...]

EcoJustice is asking for hearings about a proposed geological survey of the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area. There is some irony in conducting seismic surveys in marine protected areas, particularly an area that has been recognized as a habitat for “12 species of marine life that do not exist anywhere else.”
Sabine Jessen from the [...]

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries department has launched a third in a series of four fisheries research vessels designed around new, quiet technologies.
Named “Pisces” NOAA’s Rear Adm. Jonathan Bailey says that the boat “…is so advanced and quiet that it is likely fish and other marine animals will never know it’s there. [...]

A nicely written article in the Dec. 3 2009 issue  Nature reveals how a how a neutrino detection experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea by nuclear physicists actually uncovered an abundance of sperm whales.
The experiment involved placing hydrophones down 2000 meters below the surface; the idea being that these hydrophones could detect little pops from [...]

Back in the mid 1970’s Physical Oceanographer Walter Munk was evaluating the acoustical transmission characteristics of the ocean “sound channel” – an isothermal layer in the deep ocean that baleen whales use for long distance communication.
His visionary work in this field developed into a 1991 experiment called the “Heard Island Feasibility Test” which produced the [...]

A few weeks back we submitted comments on the US Navy’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the expansion of Anti-submarine Warfare exercises in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). The DEIS, at some 950 pages was very wordy, though we found it lacking on many counts.
In requesting permission to open this area up to environmental [...]

Outer Continental Shelf hero Richard Charter sent us a rather depressing article. (excerpted below) It seems that proposed oil operations off the New Jersey coast will be constrained by some very reckless chemical weapons dumping done by our military.
This is a sad comment on how the military has been able to run roughshod over our [...]

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the world’s most productive fishery – 40% of all wild fish eaten in America are pulled from these waters. So it is a puzzlement to many of us that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering an oil lease that would open up a large portion of Bristol Bay to offshore [...]

Sometimes I get so linked in to doing things that I forget to stop and enjoy the show. This October OceanLab and University of Tokyo sent a camera down to one of the world’s deepest trenches and came up with some fantastic film footage of a group of snailfish feeding on camera bait. These [...]

Google Earth has added a very significant embellishment to their wonderful mapping application; “Google Ocean.”
(see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/earth/03oceans.html?_r=2&hp )
This new tool will allow anybody to explore the ocean at will, and free of charge. I believe that the introduction of this feature into our global inquiry will have a profound effect on how everybody perceives the ocean.
Ocean [...]

An indecent cited in the UK Independent highlights one of the tragic ironies of well-meaning citizens attempting to push stranded whales back out to sea. My speculative belief is that stranded marine mammals actually know what they are doing, and that human intervention to “save” them actually only modifies their “death trip.”
If they are emotionally [...]

“Thrilling” is not a word I thought I would ever use in describing an Acoustical Society meeting, but there were moments last week that bordered on just that. Driving this is an intersection of rapidly increasing computer processing power and advancing sensor technologies – put in the hands of some of the nimble intellects that [...]

This week New York Times features and article ostensibly about our relationship with whales, woven around a visit by the author to the “friendly whales” of San Ignacio Lagoon.
The article (requiring a free NYT login) is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12whales-t.html
It also features some OCR colleagues, friends and allies such as Ranulfo Mayoral, a fantastic birder and the brother [...]

New Freeway planned for San Ignacio Lagoon
San Ignacio Lagoon is the birthplace of a remarkable chapter in the relationship between whales and humans. The lagoons along the western coast of the American Continent- from San Francisco Bay in the north to Bahía Magdalena in the south – were all once breeding and birthing [...]

A nicely written article in the Dec. 3 2009 issue  Nature reveals how a how a neutrino detection experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea by nuclear physicists actually uncovered an abundance of sperm whales.
The experiment involved placing hydrophones down 2000 meters below the surface; the idea being that these hydrophones could detect little pops from [...]

An November 2009 article in Nature looks at non-kin cooperation models in animal societies. It examines reciprocity, mutualism, and manipulation in economic terms – with future expectations, biological expense, and cheating included in some of the trade values.
The overarching perspective is “why would an animal incur costs to their survival fitness unless there was some [...]

Back in the mid 1970’s Physical Oceanographer Walter Munk was evaluating the acoustical transmission characteristics of the ocean “sound channel” – an isothermal layer in the deep ocean that baleen whales use for long distance communication.
His visionary work in this field developed into a 1991 experiment called the “Heard Island Feasibility Test” which produced the [...]

EcoJustice is asking for hearings about a proposed geological survey of the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area. There is some irony in conducting seismic surveys in marine protected areas, particularly an area that has been recognized as a habitat for “12 species of marine life that do not exist anywhere else.”
Sabine Jessen from the [...]

Yesterday there was mass-stranding event in the Philippines, near the US Navy’s Subic Bay base. As of yet there has not been any definitive correlations with military operations, but the last time melon-headed whales were involved in a similar incident was a few years back in Hanalei Bay Hawai’i, coincident to a military exercise.
A BBC [...]

Another tragedy linked to ocean noise pollution: a multi-species stranding linked to seismic surveys. This event involved some 189 pilot whales and 10 dolphins in Naracoopa, Tasmania.

For a local article see here: http://www.watoday.com.au/national/stranded-whales-herded-out-to-sea-20090303-8mom.html

Tasmania has a long history of stranding pilot whales. While the causes of these single species strandings remain a mystery, the general assumption [...]

An indecent cited in the UK Independent highlights one of the tragic ironies of well-meaning citizens attempting to push stranded whales back out to sea. My speculative belief is that stranded marine mammals actually know what they are doing, and that human intervention to “save” them actually only modifies their “death trip.”
If they are emotionally [...]

The mass stranding event (MSE) in Cornwall UK last year points to Navy sonar. But if you read through the very comprehensive report you can see why it is difficult to arrive at unimpeachable scientific conclusions.
The report is here:
http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WC0601_8031_TRP.pdf
The quote from the report conclusion states:
“A period of naval exercises involving a variety of high intensity [...]

“The July 13 Federal Register reported that the Navy wants NMFS to permit up to 14 dead marine mammals from its proposed sonar use up to 250 miles from the Northwest coast…”
In ongoing discussions about defining the Pacific Northwest warfare training ground, NMFS is being asked to weigh in on sonar guidelines.
The entire [...]

On the morning of July 3 2004 there was an agitated aggregation of Melon Headed whales in Hanalei Bay, Hawai’i. This event was concurrent to the RIMPAC international naval exercise  which happens every two years.
As is typical with these tragic events, the US Navy rolled up their collective sleeves and focused on how to establish [...]

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the Navy Sonar case that originated in California early this year when the Whitehouse attempted to overrule a district court judgment on the US Navy’s proposed sonar exercises off of the California cost.
The actual case is really about executive powers – and whether the executive branch can allow any agency [...]

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the world’s most productive fishery – 40% of all wild fish eaten in America are pulled from these waters. So it is a puzzlement to many of us that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering an oil lease that would open up a large portion of Bristol Bay to offshore [...]

Sometimes I get so linked in to doing things that I forget to stop and enjoy the show. This October OceanLab and University of Tokyo sent a camera down to one of the world’s deepest trenches and came up with some fantastic film footage of a group of snailfish feeding on camera bait. These [...]

This last week has ushered forth two great developments for the ocean. The first is actually a retraction of a Bush-driven policy that would have seriously compromised the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing NOAA to bypass external review when managing fisheries – essentially allowing the proverbial “fox guarding the henhouse” (or “sea lions guarding [...]

Part of the US Navy mitigation agreements to protect marine mammals and turtles involves having their crews informed through their Marine Species Awareness Training program. This involves watching a two part video.
The first part is required of all Commanding Officers, Executive Officers, Observation Officers and Junior Observation Officers, Maritime Patrol Officers, Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) [...]

Google Earth has added a very significant embellishment to their wonderful mapping application; “Google Ocean.”
(see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/earth/03oceans.html?_r=2&hp )
This new tool will allow anybody to explore the ocean at will, and free of charge. I believe that the introduction of this feature into our global inquiry will have a profound effect on how everybody perceives the ocean.
Ocean [...]

OCR Advisory Board member and ocean champion J. Nichols and “Her Deepness” Dr. Sylvia Earle have founded an organization predicted on a delightful premise. The organization is called “Bluemarbles.org” from the metaphor of the earth seen from space being likened to a blue marble.
The premise involves gifting blue marbles to other people with a suggestion [...]

The environmental thriller “The Cove” follows the stealth reconnaissance work of Ric O’Barry as he uncovers the dolphin drive fishery in Taiji, Japan.
Ric was the dolphin trainer who selected and trained the dolphins of the 60’s TV series “Flipper” – which began the American love affair with these sentient and intelligent animals.
The consequences of this [...]

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries department has launched a third in a series of four fisheries research vessels designed around new, quiet technologies.
Named “Pisces” NOAA’s Rear Adm. Jonathan Bailey says that the boat “…is so advanced and quiet that it is likely fish and other marine animals will never know it’s there. [...]

An November 2009 article in Nature looks at non-kin cooperation models in animal societies. It examines reciprocity, mutualism, and manipulation in economic terms – with future expectations, biological expense, and cheating included in some of the trade values.
The overarching perspective is “why would an animal incur costs to their survival fitness unless there was some [...]