NOAAThe underwater world is a cacophony of sounds. Whales sing and groan, dolphins click and squeal, fish grunt and grumble, and humans blast seismic air guns in search of oil and gas. The last of those noises, scientists now appreciate, is interfering with animals’ own sounds.
“Noise is an ecosystem-wide pollutant,” says Lindy Weilgart, a biologist at Dalhousie University. “More and more species are showing themselves as affected, all the way down to zooplankton.”
Human-caused noise and its effects on marine animals are becoming particularly concerning as five companies await word from the US government on whether they can begin seismic air-gun blasting to probe for fossil fuels deep beneath the ocean floor in the Atlantic. The decisions, some of which could be issued in the next few weeks, would come from both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
“If approved, this would be the first seismic air-gun blasting [to search for oil and gas] in the Atlantic in 30 years,” says Diane Hoskins, a ...
