Feb

13

Shipping noise correlated to stress in whales

Noise Pollution / Research

A recent paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society correlates shipping noise with stress levels in baleen whales. Heretofore this has been a difficult assumption to prove because we do not have any baseline of whale stress levels prior to the introduction of the vast shipping networks we now use in global trade.

Map of shipping routes

Researchers can get an idea of metabolic stress levels because they are correlated to hormone indicators (glucocorticoids) in body fluids. Rosalind Rolland with the New England Aquarium was studying the glucocorticoids in the feces of North Atlantic Right whale in the Bay of Fundy through September 2001. She was doing this research concurrently with a study on Right whale social behavior being conducted by Susan Parks with Penn State and Syracuse University.

Both of these studies overlapped the September 11 tragedy and the subsequent halting of air and sea transportation for a few days. It was across this time that the noise levels in the ocean decreased significantly. Parks, Rolland and other colleagues brought their work together and noticed a marked decrease in stress indicators with the decrease in shipping noise.

Whale Feces Sniffing Dog

This is a real benchmark to our understanding of how chronic anthropogenic noise impacts baleen whales – which are too large to test in lab settings and not really interested in cooperating with behavioral scientists in the wild. Given that the glucocorticoids are part of a feedback mechanism in the immune system, this finding also confirms concerns that shipping noise compromises the health of these whales.

The paper is discussed in “lay” terms in a Science article that also introduces us to the critically important scientific instrument, a dog – whose nose can pinpoint whale feces in the ocean. (The dog was not included as a co-author on the paper.)

This paper should provide us with important supporting data as we attempt to slow industrial development in the pristine acoustic environment of Arctic.

Posted by | 0 comments
Jan

20

Marine Scientists express themselves through CNN

Ocean Life / Public Policy / Research

An article appeared today in “CNN Opinion” by Chris Clark and Brandon Southall focused on the impacts of noise on marine life. It is an informative read and also highlights two important trends in the field.

First, it points to a trend in impact awareness and research from incident-specific catastrophic impacts (such as sonar induced mass strandings) toward chronic compromise of habitat due to “sub-lethal” noise sources such as shipping noise and seismic airgun surveys. This keys into the more holistic “Ecosystem Based Management” concept introduced into NOAA’s regulatory framework by NOAA director Jane Lubchenko when she took the reins in 2009.

The second important trend is that noted scientists are stepping forward with opinions and recommendations – something that until recently was not in most scientists repertoire. This trend is becoming exceedingly critical given the more rapacious and troubling trend of policy makers and industry moguls of just making up convenient lies without regard for scientific fact – ignoring the hard, methodical work that scientists do to assure the integrity of their findings.

Drs. Clark and Southall are at the vanguard of this trend which will hopefully encourage scientists in all fields to reach out to the public with their findings. Given the urgent state of our global habitat – frayed by the frenzied drive of “The Economy,” scientific voices are profoundly needed to inform and influence public opinion and policies.

Thanks guys!

Posted by | 1 comments
Oct

11

A little deeper into the International Quiet Ocean Experiment.

Noise Pollution / Public Policy / Research

 

The 2011 Internat

Subsea oiloperations in West Africa

ional Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE) brought together leading scientists and researchers [download] to dig deeper into the issue of human generated noise pollution with the objective of determining what we know, what needs to be known, how we should evaluate the field of impacts, and how we should find out what we don’t know.

As in any conference of this type there were plenary sessions speaking about the various aspects of the field with break-out groups to work on the specific topics to meet the objective.

Very much like the fluid boundaries of the ocean there were a lot of overlaps between the sessions, but the descriptions are:

1. Observing Systems, including technology and equipment – which looked at the varied ocean observing systems [download] currently in place with a mind to understand capacity, technologies, and collaborations.

2. Scientific knowledge needed for industry and regulators – evaluating what we do and don’t know, and what we should know about how to qualify and quantify noise and its biological impacts.

3. Ocean Soundscapes – what are they, what significance do they have, and how are they qualified and discussed in useful terms?

4. Designing research relating soundscapes to effects on organisms – are there quantifiable soundscape interactions that reveal the organism and population level relationships to noise?

5. Experimental approaches to understanding responses to organisms to specific sources – what types of experiments can be conducted to clarify the immediate-to-long-term impacts of noise on marine life.

I participated in session two, but wanted to peer into session five. Session three and session four overlapped differently than the way four and five did.

In the end we all managed to sort out and focus our groups, but I suspect that the final document may read more like Marcel Proust than an operations manual. Although I do believe that the document will provide meaningful guidance on how we need to understand, frame, and address the problem of human generated noise pollution in the sea.

xkcd.com - "The Sea"

Posted by | 0 comments
Sep

22

Crustaceans need ears too!

Ocean Life / Research

A preponderance of marine bioacoustic work has been focused on marine mammals – whales, dolphins, and pinnipeds. This is in large part due to the “charismatic megafauna” paradigm where big, complicated animals with recognizable expressions attract most human interest.

While fish – particularly large or colorful species can capture our attention under this same rubric, most scientific research on fish is advanced due to their commercial importance. Critters further down on the ‘charisma scale’ even while equally complicated in their adaptations are typically not studied, so it was great to hear OCR pal and Biologist Erica Staaterman’s presentation on mantis shrimp at the recent “Acoustic Communication by Animals” Symposium.

Even better was that her work was picked up by “Science Daily” and distributed to a wider public.

The mantis shrimp are visually intriguing; being some 8” to 10” (and up to 15”) long with a pair of incredibly complicated eyes that can sort out twelve colors and reconcile polarized light. Some species visually communicate by modulating fluorescence on their bodies, and some species live in monogamous pairs for up to 20 years!

With all of these attributes it is likely that vision is their dominant perceptual adaptation, but Erica found that they also communicate with sound through a low frequency rumble or purr. In the realm of human perceptions this isn’t Grammy material, but when pitch-shifted up an octave the call and response patterns become more apparent.

She also found that listening to the shrimp was very different in the wild from listening to them in a tank. The shrimps’ communications were, “so synchronized they sounded like a chorus.”

We can only speculate what they are expressing with these sounds, but Erica’s work has rolled back just a little more of the mystery of the deep. [Read Ocean-Noise post on 'chorusing']

Her paper was published in Aquatic Biology.

Posted by | 0 comments
Sep

20

A little deeper into the International Quiet Ocean Experiment.

Noise Pollution / Public Policy / Research

 

The 2011 Internat

Subsea oiloperations in West Africa

ional Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE) brought together leading scientists and researchers [download] to dig deeper into the issue of human generated noise pollution with the objective of determining what we know, what needs to be known, how we should evaluate the field of impacts, and how we should find out what we don’t know.

As in any conference of this type there were plenary sessions speaking about the various aspects of the field with break-out groups to work on the specific topics to meet the objective.

Very much like the fluid boundaries of the ocean there were a lot of overlaps between the sessions, but the descriptions are:

1. Observing Systems, including technology and equipment – which looked at the varied ocean observing systems [download] currently in place with a mind to understand capacity, technologies, and collaborations.

2. Scientific knowledge needed for industry and regulators – evaluating what we do and don’t know, and what we should know about how to qualify and quantify noise and its biological impacts.

3. Ocean Soundscapes – what are they, what significance do they have, and how are they qualified and discussed in useful terms?

4. Designing research relating soundscapes to effects on organisms – are there quantifiable soundscape interactions that reveal the organism and population level relationships to noise?

5. Experimental approaches to understanding responses to organisms to specific sources – what types of experiments can be conducted to clarify the immediate-to-long-term impacts of noise on marine life.

I participated in session two, but wanted to peer into session five. Session three and session four overlapped differently than the way four and five did.

In the end we all managed to sort out and focus our groups, but I suspect that the final document may read more like Marcel Proust than an operations manual. Although I do believe that the document will provide meaningful guidance on how we need to understand, frame, and address the problem of human generated noise pollution in the sea.

xkcd.com - "The Sea"

Posted by | 0 comments
Sep

08

Report from the International Quiet Ocean Experiment

Public Policy / Research

Last week I attended the “International Quiet Ocean Experiment” (IQOE) at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The founding premise of the meeting is a bit outrageous – that somehow all maritime nations could come together and halt all of their ocean noise-making activities for some short period of time to observe the effects of this military-industrial silence on marine life.

Of course the idea of halting some 50,000 ocean transport vessels, all navies, marine petroleum operations, fishing fleets, mining and dredging, energy projects, underwater communications, pleasure craft, and seismic exploration is absurd. But the true incentive behind this improbable assertion was to bring together leading scientists and policy makers, explore our concerns, and devise a ten-year plan to understand and mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic noise on ocean life.

This first gathering represents a huge step in the right direction. When the issue first came up in he early 1990’s there was little consensus on anything. The geological-scale experiments at the time were being conducted by physical oceanographers who frankly did not understand biology; the biologists involved had forgotten their physics, and most of the work was being funded by the biggest noise-makers – whose priorities were not focused on conservation.

The IQOE discussions explored many topics, including observing systems technologies, the meaning of “ocean soundscapes,” what science is needed, how to conduct informative experiments, and how to measure the long-term and synergistic impacts of noise on marine life.

Many fine ideas were advanced and new thinking was cultivated which will help direct research and mitigation strategies for the next decade. There was a remarkable climate of collegiality and collaboration, and if there was any serious contention at the end of the day it was about the name – which we all agreed was an unlikely conceit. But using the name as a “branding” or marketing ploy really got under the fingernails of some of the scientists.

The name may change (although I doubt it), but we will keep you informed as the framing documents are issued and the project progresses.

Stay Tuned!  More details to come.

Michael Stocker

Posted by | 1 comments
Aug

30

The International Quiet Ocean Experiment

Public Policy / Research

By the time you might be reading this I will have been conferring with colleagues and associates at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris under the rubric of the “International Quiet Ocean Experiment” (IQOE). The purpose of the meeting is to develop a Science Plan for the IQOE, a focused international research effort that may last a decade or so exploring the sources, impacts, and potential solutions to the ocean noise pollution problem.

UNESCO Paris

UNESCO Paris

The meeting will be set up in a number of concurrent sessions to work out details on monitoring, technology development, needed science, soundscape impact assessment, experimental approaches, and research design.

While the decadal time frame may seem anti-climactic in the urgency of our times, it is in the scale of the entire ocean and under the auspices of the United Nations that these grand, cooperative plans slowly unfold. And as it took quite a number of us three years to get a single sentence into the “UN Convention on the Law of the Sea” qualifying “noise” as a “trans-boundary energy pollution,” the ten year timeframe gives all of us an international toe-hold on the steep face of global policy.

It was only 20 years ago that the “Acoustic Thermography of Ocean Climate” (ATOC) program got my attention and I embarked on the ocean noise mission. At that time there were those who thought I was over-reacting, but we have seen that the problems caused by human-generated ocean noise are real. They are an increasing issue as we expand our ocean activities. The full magnitude of the effects need to be gauged and addressed.

Location of ATOC Sound Sources and Receivers

While there may have been doubt in the past, time has a way to iron our reason. In the meantime, at events like the IQOE, I get to meet with some of the best and brightest in the field to share our knowledge, explain our perspectives, and weigh our concerns. In the end we get a chance to advance the discussion a little further down the road – and get a bit closer to solving some of the challenging acoustical problems brought about by our engagement with the sea.

Wish us magnanimity and luck!

Posted by | 0 comments
Nov

11

NOAA Launches another quiet research vessel

Research
Pisces Launch (NOAA photo)

Pisces Launch (NOAA photo)

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries department has launched a third in a series of four fisheries research vessels designed around new, quiet technologies.

Named “Pisces” NOAA’s Rear Adm. Jonathan Bailey says that the boat “…is so advanced and quiet that it is likely fish and other marine animals will never know it’s there. And that’s the whole idea.”

At the launch, NOAA Director and environmental hero Dr. Jane Lubchenko revealed “I know firsthand that the ocean does not always give up her secrets willingly.”

Ship-quieting technologies and guidelines have really taken a hold of ship-building strategies. Just this year the International Maritime Organization (IMO) began drawing up guidelines for quieter vessels, which will have a positive impact on the overall noise-floor of the ocean.

It is nice to see institutional willingness to face and address an important aspect of ocean noise pollution. Solutions are forthcoming. If only the Military and the Fossil Fuel industries would be so willing…

Posted by | 0 comments
© Copyright Ocean Conservation Research