As anticipated, Department of Interior’s capo Ryan Zinke announced yesterday that they plan on opening up the entire US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to Oil and Gas leasing. This is despite hundreds of thousands of voices speaking up against this…
Report from New Orleans
I’ve just returned from a week-long conference of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) in New Orleans. The Acoustical Society has a very broad remit, serving all professionals and academics working with sound and acoustics. This intersects the fields of…
What is a Prayer?
A bit over a month ago one of our supporters offered to sponsor a fundraising event for OCR, which became “Artists Prayer Flags – Offerings for the Ocean.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it sounded fun and gave…
Measuring and expressing noise
The word “Noise” resides in an etymological basket along with the words “annoyance” and “obnoxious.” “Noise” is thought to have been derived from the Latin “noxia’ (to hurt or damage), and Middle English “nausea” (to quarrel). Although some etymologies reach…
What Noise Annoys an Oyster?
When the ocean noise pollution issue came up on everybody’s sonar, the main concern was about the impact of noise on whales and dolphins – what we in our industry refer to as “charismatic megafauna.” There are a number of…
Celebrating a Ten Year Milestone!
I am both honored and humbled that our work has been supported by friends, community, and private foundations for TEN years! In 2007, after 15 years of pro-bono work as “science advisor” for various Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (eNGOs) and “writer…
Layers of Distraction
A pretty tumultuous week has thwarted my plans of digging into the Barcelona Animal Communications Symposium. In the wake of senseless attacks on tourists on the Barcelona Ramblas, in importance of scientific inquiry pales. We can only hold the victims…
Report from Omaha
A bit over two weeks ago I was in Omaha, Nebraska, at “The 4th International Symposium on Acoustic Communication by Animals.” This event is put up every few years by the Acoustic Society of America (ASA) and allows scientists outside…
Mikey lays an egg…
I spent all last week at an animal communications conference in Omaha and wanted to detail that in this week’s newsletter. But it was brought to my attention that our last newsletter needed some tidying up first. The newsletter topic…