ocean noise Archives - Mission Blue

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The Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary of Uruguay Declared a Hope Spot in Support of Cetacean Conservation

THE WHALE AND DOLPHIN SANCTUARY, URUGUAY, (October 28th, 2018) – The deep, blue waters off the southeastern coast of Uruguay are a magnificent sight to behold: more than 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises call this area home, and are a wonder to those lucky enough to witness them gliding through the cresting waves, breaching from the water and blowing their holes. The Uruguayan Sanctuary for Whales and Dolphins is a one-of-a-kind ecosystem that hosts thousands of species from cetaceans to seals, sea lions, fish and seabirds, several of which are critically endangered.
The Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary of Uruguay has been declared a Hope Spot by international nonprofit Mission Blue in recognition of its value as a safe haven for cetaceans, to establish an enforceable policy to thoroughly manage and protect the sanctuary and to educate the public about the negative effects of “ocean noise” on marine life created by oil drilling, shipping and seismic testing.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, sylvia earle, Uncategorized |

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UN International Maritime Organization addresses shipping noise

If there is a good feature about ocean noise pollution it is that unlike other human-generated pollutants, once you stop making noise it goes away. This axiom was highlighted last week when the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted a set of noise guidelines that if followed by member nations could decrease low frequency shipping noise by 10dB (ten times less energy) in the next 30 years. This in effect could reverse 10dB increase in shipping noise that has occurred with the expansion of international ocean-borne trade in the last half century.
The increase in shipping noise didn’t exactly sneak up on us; physical oceanographer Donald Ross predicted the increase as far back as 1976 – just as international trade was really beginning to take off.…

Posted in Partner Stories |

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International stakeholders sound out about ocean noise

It was once a popular belief that the ocean was “the silent realm.” This was largely due to the fact that humans are poorly adapted to hearing underwater, and marine animals don’t appear to have “ears” that look anything like the ears of terrestrial animals. We are now finding that the ocean is anything else but silent. In the dark depths of the sea animals have evolved a panoply of adaptations to underwater sound. Some animals use high frequency “bio-sonar” to “see” their surroundings, others use acoustically-generated ‘particle motion’ to sense the proximity of prey and predators; some use long wavelength sounds to navigate over long distances, others chorus with conspecifics like crickets do to keep tabs on their “acoustic communities.”…

Posted in Partner Stories |

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