Noise threatens whale populations.

The Big Idea

Graphic: Stefan Fichtel. Sources: C. W. Clark, Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Brandon Southall
, University of California, Santa Cruz; Kathleen Vigness-Raposa , Marine Acoustics, Inc.

Drifting in Static

A rising tide of man-made noise is disrupting the lives of marine animals.

The deep is dark, but not silent; it’s alive with sounds. Whales and other marine mammals, fish, and even some invertebrates depend on sound, which travels much farther in water than light does. The animals use sound to find food and mates, to avoid predators, and to communicate. They face a growing problem: Man-made noise is drowning them out. “For many of these animals it’s as if they live in cities,” says marine scientist Brandon Southall, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) ocean acoustics program.
Two years ago the problem made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case that might have been called U.S. Navy v. Whales. The Court’s decision protected the right of naval vessels to test submarine-hunting sonar systems, whose intense sound pulses have been linked to several mass whale strandings. But the Navy is not the lone villain. Oil company ships towing arrays of air guns fire round-the-clock fusillades loud enough to locate oil buried under the seafloor—and also to be heard hundreds of miles away. Undersea construction operations drive piles into the seafloor and blast holes in it with explosives.
And most of the rising tide of noise—a hundred­fold increase since 1960, in many areas—is created simply by the dramatic growth in shipping traffic. “Shipping noise is always there,” Southall says. “It doesn’t have to be lethal to be problematic over time.” The problem is getting steadily worse for another reason. As we’re making more noise, we’re also making the ocean better at transmitting it. Seawater is absorbing less sound as carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning seeps into the ocean and acidifies it. The Big Idea Graphic: Stefan Fichtel. Sources: C. W. Clark, Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Brandon Southall , University of California, Santa Cruz; Kathleen Vigness-Raposa , Marine Acoustics, Inc. Drifting in Static A rising tide of man-made noise is disrupting the lives of marine animals. The deep is dark, but not silent; it’s alive with sounds. Whales and other marine mammals, fish, and even some invertebrates depend on sound, which travels much farther in water than light does. The animals use sound to find food and mates, to avoid predators, and to communicate. They face a growing problem: Man-made noise is drowning them out. “For many of these animals it’s as if they live in cities,” says marine scientist Brandon Southall, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) ocean acoustics program. Two years ago the problem made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case that might have been called U.S. Navy v. Whales. The Court’s decision protected the right of naval vessels to test submarine-hunting sonar systems, whose intense sound pulses have been linked to several mass whale strandings. But the Navy is not the lone villain. Oil company ships towing arrays of air guns fire round-the-clock fusillades loud enough to locate oil buried under the seafloor—and also to be heard hundreds of miles away. Undersea construction operations drive piles into the seafloor and blast holes in it with explosives. And most of the rising tide of noise—a hundred­fold increase since 1960, in many areas—is created simply by the dramatic growth in shipping traffic. “Shipping noise is always there,” Southall says. “It doesn’t have to be lethal to be problematic over time.” The problem is getting steadily worse for another reason. As we’re making more noise, we’re also making the ocean better at transmitting it. Seawater is absorbing less sound as carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning seeps into the ocean and acidifies it.

Cause of 3,000 Dolphin Deaths in Peru Likely to Remain a Mystery

By Bob Petz, April 19, 2012

Since mid-January, an estimated 3,000 dolphins have been found dead along the shores of northern Peru, in what has become one of the largest marine mammal mortality events ever reported.
Thus far, no cause has been determined, although evidence of middle- and inner-ear damage, lung lesions and bubbles in the blood are consistent with acoustic impact and decompression syndrome, leading to speculation that oil exploration in the region may be to blame.
In a statement released earlier this month, BPZ Energy confirmed that it was conducting acoustical, seismic studies in the area, but that the dolphin deaths began more than 2 weeks before exploratory activity commenced.
In the majority of large marine mammal strandings, no definitive cause is found – in part, because multiple factors are frequently at work. Toxic pollutants, for example, might weaken an animal’s immune system, making it more vulnerable to bacterial or viral infection. Persistent organic pollutants that accumulate in organisms further down the food web also tend to become more concentrated in top predators such as dolphins.

A severe lack of resources makes it even less likely that a cause or even the full extent of the Peruvian event will ever be known.
Much of the information about the current stranding comes from an investigation conducted by Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos, from the marine mammal rescue team ORCA Peru, and Hardy Jones of BlueVoice. Traveling 135 km along the coast of northern Peru in late March, they encountered more than 600 stranded dolphins — males, females, pregnant females, calves and newborns.
Roughly 90 percent of the animals Llanos and Hardy found were long-beaked, common dolphins, which tend to swim close to the ocean surface. The remainder were Burmeister’s porpoises, which feed in deep water but approach the surface when giving birth. All of the Burmeisters were pregnant, nursing or newborn calves.
BlueVoice has posted a video produced by Hardy, which contains imagery that some may find disturbing.

Can whales predict tsunamis?

Can whales predict tsunamis?

Observers have watched whales vanish after an undersea earthquake. Photograph: Andrew Sutton

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Sunday 15 April 2012

A British photographer witnessed a school of whales vanishing during an underwater earthquake. Could they serve as 'canaries' for humans?

Do whales hear earthquakes long before humans? As tsunami warnings hit the Indonesian and Sri Lankan coasts last week, observers at sea watched as every species of cetacean – from massive blue whales to diminutive spinner dolphins – disappeared within five minutes. British photographer and film-maker Andrew Sutton, who took this remarkable shot last Wednesday off the southern tip of Sri Lanka, reports that he and his crew were mystified as the whales they were watching vanished in the space of a few minutes. The humans on the boat were unaware that the quake had happened, but the animals had evidently sensed the subsea seismic shocks, and fled.
Could cetaceans act as canaries in the sea, as advance alarms of potentially dangerous seismic activity? Both the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes of last year were preceded by mass cetacean strandings on beaches in these respective islands. And a recent scientific report from Mexico appears to prove that a fin whale accelerated sharply away from the site of an underwater earthquake.
But having already exploited whales for centuries, perhaps we should not be so quick to enlist their services. Back in 1964, another erstwhile resident of Sri Lanka, the science-fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke, predicted that by the year 2000, "we will not be the only intelligent creatures. One of the coming techniques will be what we might call bioengineering – the development of intelligent and useful servants among the other animals on this planet, particularly the great apes and, in the oceans, the dolphins and whales".
Clarke thought it a scandal that man had neglected to domesticate any new animals since the Stone Age. But he also foresaw other issues, too: "Of course [they] would soon start forming trades unions and we'd be right back where we started."info@whalesongart.com