Anthropogenic Noise Pollution And Its Effects On Cetaceans

I believe that underwater noise has an effect on marine animals such as whales. Using information from the passages I will prove my point. Their numbers are declining rapidly and I believe that underwater noise has some involvement in the rapid decrease in their population numbers. The information given within the two passages will help prove my point.

According to this article, “there are environmental regulations to minimize potential impact of marine construction activities and the sound generated underwater by such activities” (page 17). This is due to the fact that marine animals are affected by construction because of interaction with the equipment and/or exposure to the underwater sounds. Effects of interaction can result in an injury or death and the high sound levels can cause physiological effects, behavioral effects, or masking of other animal sounds. By defining how underwater sound affects marine animals, we can determine the best way to prevent any damage. Underwater sounds are produced by natural or anthropogenic sources.

Many of today's machines create noise on land, but did you know that they also disturb the oceans? However, the introduction of this noise has threatened the well being of marine life. Boats, oil drilling equipment, and even military sonar activities have been known to create sound underwater. Some scientists are cautious about these underwater disturbances because they may affect marine life. However, the United States Navy disagree. The Navy's sonar equipment is used to gather information about the ocean and protect the nation, but if the equipment affects marine life negatively, then problems arise. Does this equipment affect marine life, and if so should it be in use? Well, I believe that this underwater noise does affect marine life.

Sound has different properties in water than it has in the air; it travels much faster and further than that of in the air. So many sea animals have poor vision and rely upon sound as a primary sense. As well as sea animals and fish also use and respond to underwater sound. Noise pollution can cause deafness and interference with fish communication, schooling and habitat utilization (Weilgart 2008). There is also a possibility that marine mammal’s ability to catch prey can be interrupted and blocked through noise pollution which also impacts communication between group members. This can cause navigational errors which have been shown to lead to mass standings’. It can be difficult for whales to distinguish between some noises

You look down into the deep blue ocean while you're whale watching, and you see close to the horizon the white fresh spray of salt water coming out of a Humpback whale, the only Humpback whale. You might wonder where the rest are. These rare incredible creatures have been around for a long time, and is forgotten and could be gone forever and extinct. A Humpback whale is a large marine animal with many humps on its back. These rare animals are in the ocean trying to survive and protect themselves from predators like us. People are doing many things to harm and endanger Humpback whales existence. One thing that is causing them to be endangered is private commercial boats. Private commercial boats are known to strike through humpback whales causing

Behavioral reactions to sound depend upon a variety of criteria such as species, individual maturity, experience, the pertinent life function activity (feeding, breeding, etc.), time of day, and other factors. Currently, there is no single mechanism agreed among scientists for addressing cumulative effects. While this is an ongoing process, Seismic Speculative and the SSG Framework are proud that seismic activities, such as those in the Gulf of Mexico have been on-going for decades without compromise to the marine mammal habitat of the

Salinity, temperature, and the depth of the water can affect the speed of sound in the ocean. The ways in which humans and marine animals produce sound is very different. Humans produce sound by expelling a lot of air over their vocal chords. Dolphins and other marine animals cannot afford to waste such precious oxygen, so they have engineered other ways to accomplish this goal. Whales and dolphins pass air through air sacs they have in their heads to produce noises. Some fish vibrate their swim bladders, crustaceans close their claws at high speeds to make air bubbles that pop and produce noise, and seals and sea lions move their larynx to produce growling sounds. Humans and marine animals also hear noises differently. Humans can hear sounds when sound waves strike our ear drums, causing bones in our ears to vibrate. This then makes the fluid in our inner ear vibrate, and vibrates the hair cells as well. The hairs that are vibrating are connected to neurons that lead to the auditory nerve and sends signals to our brain. Our brain then interprets the signals into information from the sound waves. Dolphins and whales have a different process for interpreting sound. Their lower jaw, called a mandible, carries sound to the bones in their middle ear and from there the vibrations follow the same path as the human hearing

From the capturing process, to the living and training spaces, to the continuously forced performances they are required to do daily, these animals face an uncounted for amount of stress. The capturing process allows men to heard groups of dolphins together and trap them into small coves with nets and boats, then hand picking the wanted ones and dragging them away to never see open waters again. Project Orangutan talks about the capturing and the stress it inflicts on these animals, “.. during the capturing process itself as they get entangled in nets and suffocate, others may die from stress.” Not only do these animals recognize the loss of movement but the death of their friends around them. If the stress of being taken away from their home wasn't enough, they are then forced to live in concrete cells with no sound reflection. To us that seems fine but when your strongest sense is hearing and string enough to detect the difference between a ping pong ball and golf ball, the constant screaming and splashing of water around you begins to take a toll. Dolphins use a type of sound detection called echolocation, which can be damaged through time by the living conditions of dolphinariums. Dolphinproject.com talks about the lessening of sounds and vocalization of these animals in captivity, “This reduction in vocalizations is due in part to the effect of the echo caused by the walls of the pools where dolphins are defined.” The high noise frequency surround them for hours a day accompanied by the loss of socialization through their echolocation causes then even more stress and sadness. This alone can lead to one of these animals dying involuntarily, or even at their doing. Those who may think dolphins are only animals who will later forget about the process of being captured or that don't recognize the sounds

Scientists have discovered a way to be able to send signals into the water to communicate with the marine mammals that are within range. We call this process “active sonar.” This process is still being researched in order to perfect it and to be able to understand what the different sounds mean (Teacher.scholastic.com

b. The frequency of the soundwave for human hearing can range from 20 hz to 20,000 hz.

Cetaceans evolved to use sound as their way of sensing the environment, navigating, foraging, and selecting mates. Anthropogenic sounds have negative effects on marine life. Humans produce their own underwater sounds through activities such as aircraft over flights, boats and ships (vessels), tourism, stationary offshore activities, air gun firing, sonars, explosions, and methods to control movement of marine life (W. Johnson Richardson and Bernd Würsig, 1997). Many studies have discovered vessels to be the main contributor

In “Field assessment of C-POD performance in detecting echolocation click trains of bottlenose dolphins (tursiops truncates),” demonstrates the performance of bottlenose dolphin’s echolocation detectors in three different areas testing acoustic recording. The echolocation rates presented here were potentially influenced by variation in both the occurrence of dolphins and their echolocation activity among sites (Robert, Read 2015). Based on the results, dolphins use the same variation in all three sites used in the experiment. The shorter the distance from the predator to its prey, higher frequency is used in echolocation of the specie. The detection range of any passive acoustic monitoring units is highly dependent on the environment in which it is deployed and the behavior of the target species being recorded (Robert, Read 2015). Many other environmental factor such as salinity, temperature, and water depth affects the sound of echolocation for the dolphins. In bottlenose dolphins, the brain is the one that receives the sound waves in the form of nerve impulses, which then applies the signal of sound and allows the dolphin to understand what the sound

The pitch of a sound depends on its frequency. The separation of frequencies occurs in the cochlea. A high note causes one area of the cochlea’s basilar membrane to vibrate, and a low pitch has the same effect on a different part of the cochlea’s basilar

As you may know nearly all cetaceans use some sort of sound production in order to navigate waters, communicate with other individuals and groups of their respective species as well as capture prey (Brownell et al., 2008). An example of this is the variety sounds produced by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) when exploring and foraging. These types of noises vary from echolocation, whistles and pops according to Nowacek (2005) which aid in location of prey, and communication when hunting in groups. Bottlenose dolphins are one of the most well-known cetacean species (Bearzi et al., 2008). They inhabit various marine habitats across the world including just about any region with a warm-temperate to tropical ocean climate (Reeves et al., 2002). Just like many other cetaceans they are well known for inhabiting coastal areas, which makes them particularly vulnerable to human interaction and threats they wouldn’t necessarily face on the coast of uninhabited lands (Wilson et al., 2008).

There has a particular article, which called “Noise Pollution”, was written by Michael Bloch. He was saying that that noise pollution is an increasingly serious environmental problem - it is far from being just a worry because it has a very real negative impact on humans (beyond tinnitus) and wildlife. there are a number of health issues and environment issues associated with noise pollution nowadays. (Michael, 2012). Upon the studies that scientists have done so far, it clearly shows that there are a number of health issues and environment issues associated with noise pollution nowadays.