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…
While catastrophic whale strandings first brought the public’s attention to the ocean noise impacts, a greater noise concern is the impact of the ever increasing “acoustic smog” from human noise sources. This problem is called “masking” – what happens when…
The vocalizations of “ice seals”, a bearded seal in this case, use complex tones and wide ranges of frequencies. Yet some of the simpler sounds created by ships passing through their environment may have the effect of masking their communications…