It is amazing how many people in the field of ocean science and conservation credit Jacques Cousteau as the inspiration for their love of the sea. Just when color TV was migrating into the American living room Cousteau was offering…
Support OCR
It is with deep gratitude (and a bit of surprise) that I look over the time horizon to realize that OCR has “been in business” for almost eight years. Much has been accomplished since our first clean (but stiff) website…
Understanding – and technology, catching up with need.
It was not so long ago that the unimaginable expanse of the ocean was considered so large that it was impervious to human impacts. Fish were thought to be an inexhaustible resource, and there seemed to be ample water volume…
BOEM’s egg laying – and what you can do
Our last newsletter about a private meeting between Government officials and the oil industry seems to have struck some nerves – in our community, and in the governmental officials who are either backpedaling, or sheepishly looking at the corners of…
BOEM lays another egg
Last week the Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina called a closed meeting to discuss drilling plans for the coast off his state. Gov. McCrory is an elected official of the state of N. Carolina, so what he does with…
What do they really hear?
Earlier this year a paper by Christne Erbe et.al was published in the open source Public Library of Science (PLoS-One) that frames ocean noise exposures in a sensible and informative manner. For various adaptive reasons animals are sensitive to sounds…
Flavors of noise
Noise impacts come in two flavors: Noise that is too loud, and noise that sounds awful. There is a degree of subjectivity under the “awful” category. For example; the awful din of your neighbor’s barking dog probably doesn’t meet their…
Some big noise going on down below
Advancing technologies in offshore oil and gas extraction are allowing fossil fuel extractors to venture into ever deeper waters, and drill even deeper wells. Extraction and production operations are happening at water depths of up to two miles, and bore-hole…
The little things that count (also)
In the early years of the ocean noise discussion there were heated debates about whether or not introduced noise was really harmful to marine life. Our understanding was shallow and the tools blunt. Even when animals washed ashore deafened, dead,…