Noise Pollution Becoming a Bigger Problem in the World’s Oceans

We’ve already sullied the oceans of the world with oil, chemicals and trash.  Now, you can add another type of pollution to that list – a type that cleanup crews, no matter how passionate, can’t control. Noise levels in the oceans have reached such high levels that whales, dolphins and other marine mammals can’t properly communicate.  It’s so bad, that some species of whales have actually died because of it.

From Mental Floss:

It’s not so much that the noise we humans produce underwater is greater than what we produce on land, but that creatures of the sea are so much more sensitive to it. Baleen whales emit low-frequency calls that can travel a thousand miles in water — an essential kind of long-distance calling plan for an animal whose kind are far more sparsely distributed than before commercial whaling took hold. Other kinds of whales and dolphins use high-frequency clicks to locate prey, and sound is important to all marine mammals “in ways that are clearly important to their survival, though not completely understood,” according to the BBC.

And it’s not just high-energy sonar from naval operations that’s drowning them out — the engines and propellers of large ships, whose movements across the open ocean are mostly unrestricted, can be a major problem, as well as the seismic blasts associated with offshore drilling operations (drill, Willy, drill!).

This video shows the effect of sonar on whales:

Can we do anything right, when it comes to our influence on our surroundings? Humans really are like a virus, spreading across the earth and negatively affecting nearly everything we come into contact with.  We really haven’t thought beyond our immediate needs, and how our actions affect the world.

Link [Mental Floss]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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