In response to our last article on noise impacts on terrestrial animals, OCR Board Member Seven Lutz sent out this London Times Online article about an increase in bottlenose whales stranding in Whales and Scotland. One potential cause indicated in…
Category: Noise Pollution
Dust-up (and Follow-up) on seismic surveys in Juan de Fuca
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…
New Freeway planned for San Ignacio Lagoon
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…
Minke Whales harassed by Navy Sonar
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…
Report from the May 2009 Acoustics Society meeting
“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…
Report from the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans workshop
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…
5 Year Outer Continental Shelf leasing plan hearings
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…
Phillipines Mass Stranding
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…
Supreme Court rules in favor of the Navy
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…
BBC report on IFAW
The BBC reported on an International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) report on ocean noise. While there is nothing “new” in this report per-se, it adds to the legacy of work being done on the issue and increases our global…