There’s a whole lot of noise in the ocean, and it seems to be getting worse. Chronic ocean noise in some sites is doubling every decade. Today on World Oceans Day, we explain why we should all care about the rising levels of noise on whales and other marine species.
In 2008, we started an ambitious research project in partnership with world leading Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University. The results from our comprehensive ocean noise study are streaming in. We are excited and want to share them.
Whales rely on a quiet ocean to find mates and feeding grounds, by listening and calling to one another. But, when the ocean is too noisy from ships and other human activities, these beautiful songs and other acoustic signals are masked and may be prevented from reaching the whale on the other end (the receiver).
We have been concerned about this for years.
Listening to hydrophones in our front yard for just a few minutes was enough to drive us crazy. Look at the comments on websites that host live listening stations (Orca Live, or Orca Sound) and you’ll see that boat noise drives everyone nuts. So we decided to do some science to quantify the impacts on whales, and get everyone involved in doing something to reduce ocean noise.
World Oceans Day 2011 marks the official launch of Oceans Initiative’s Quiet Ocean Campaign.
The Quiet Ocean Campaign aims to: 
1. Measure the human contribution to ambient noise levels in important whale habitats in British Columbia (BC), Canada.
2. Assess impacts of chronic ocean noise on whales (and inspire colleagues to do similar work on fish).
3. Build capacity among environmental NGOs to understand the impacts of noise on marine wildlife and incorporate noise data into marine spatial planning.
4. Identify ways to mitigate noise impacts – through the use of ship-quieting technologies, speed and area restrictions, and through the identification of particularly quiet sites that could be protected as Quiet MPAs or Acoustic Sanctuaries.
5. Engage the public by building a constituency for a quiet ocean. Our science benefits enormously from our partnership with Dr. Christopher Clark (Cornell University Bioacoustics Research Program), who pioneered methods to model the volume of acoustic habitat that whales lose from shipping noise via acoustic masking, and to present this information in simple, objective and quantitative terms.
We are going to need your help to turn down the noise in the ocean.
“Like” us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter (@oceansresearch) if you want to learn more about our work. We’ll be posting our results quickly. Maybe not at the speed of sound, but as quickly as we can, so WATCH THIS SPACE…
Hi, what were the results of this iniciative?
Hi, Diogo! Thanks for your interest in our work. Our Quiet Ocean Campaign has had several successes. One is a collaborative effort with Dr Scott Veirs to identify efficient ways to reduce ship noise. The newest one is a campaign to design and manage quiet(er) marine protected areas.