On Monday we submitted our critique and suggestions for the NOAA-NMFS Acoustical Exposure Guidelines for “Level A takes.” These guidelines establish regulatory thresholds for just how much noise we humans can make before the damage to marine mammals requires…
This week started off with a bang and it continues with a lot of whooshing sounds. On Monday the Federal Court entered a ruling in our favor against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for approving the US Navy’s request…
It is with a strange ambivalence that I am seeing quite a lot of headlines about ocean noise issues popping up in the popular press. Just some of the issues that have come across my desk in the last few…
Of the many papers presented this week at the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers/Marine Technology Society (IEEE/MTS) Ocean conference two really stood out as possible solutions to the impacts of communication signals on marine mammals. These papers discussed using…
It was once a popular belief that the ocean was “the silent realm.” This was largely due to the fact that humans are poorly adapted to hearing underwater, and marine animals don’t appear to have “ears” that look anything like…
The ocean noise pollution issue first came up on the general public’s sonar back in 2000 when the Navy was proposing a long distance submarine communications program called “Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System – Low Frequency Active” or “SURTASS-LFA” (in…
After a pile of coding, and some deep generosity from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Chris Clark’s lab at Cornell, and the Macaulay Library we are finally launching our Arctic Soundscapes feature on the “Don’t be a Buckethead” website. We launched…
Yesterday, November 30 there was a mass stranding of beaked whales Ziphius Cavirostris in the Ionian Sea. The first reports came in from Corfu with three animals washing up alive, although two died and the disposition of the third so…
As it appears that the US Navy will be proceeding with the US Warfare Training Range (USWTR) off of Florida, I dug into our participation in the process to trace how these decisions are made. The original 554 page Environmental…
A recent article in the BBC “Earth News” presents a good overview of how various noises impact animals. The article is a condensation of a scientific “lit review” written by Jesse Barber, Kevin Crooks, and Kurt Fristrup. Some folks may…