Throughout the spring, China has been actively complaining about the presence of the USNS Impeccable off its coast (see earlier AEInews coverage).  This week, the “Bejing Review,” an English-language weekly, ran a story on the controversy, playing the environmental card in its efforts to reach in international audience, though some of its examples confused mid-frequency sonar-related strandings with the LFAS system, which has not been associated with any known strandings (though monitoring is nearly impossible, given its very long range), and falsely claims that sonar training was banned off the California Coast and that the Navy discontinued sonar training off Hawaii.  The story reports that a humpback whale was found stranded near Hong Kong “not long after”  the Impeccable had been driven away, though no details are included about any investigation into the causes of the stranding.

The Impeccable is one of the US’s two ships equipped with Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS), both of which are deployed in the western Pacific to monitor 
Chinese and North Korean submarines.  In addition to harassing the Impeccable (which both emits LFAS signals and receives echoes on its SURTASS towed array of hydrophones), Chinese Navy and fishermen have dogged  the USNS Victorious, one of several other US ships that can receive LFAS echoes on their own SURTASS arrays.

USNS Impeccable

China maintains that US warships must receive permission to travel in China’s Exclusive Read the rest of this entry »

One of the more exciting new technologies to come of age in the past couple years is ocean “gliders” that can cruise the seas, silently or nearly so, while collecting data ranging from temperature and salinity to sounds. The gliders are small (roughly 6 feet long), and surface periodically to send data to satellite communication systems. Some gliders are battery powered and can cruise for about a month, while the leading edge approach is to use a temperature-sensitive ballast that allows the glider to travel for up to five years at sea.  As a tool for working with ocean noise issues, gliders hold great promise for use in monitoring the seas before sonar trials, as well as for regional acoustic mapping/monitoring.  In late 2007, researchers at Defense Research and Development Canada used a glider to listen in on beaked whale calls; recording and analysis take place while the glider is below the surface; by the time it surfaces to send its data to researchers on shore, “it already thinks it knows whether it has a beaked whale or a sperm whale,” according to lead researcher Jim Theriault.  The US Navy has a few training ranges where bottom-mounted hydrophones make it much easier to monitor for beaked and other whales before and during sonar exercises; gliders could bring this advanced capability to sonar training anywhere at sea.

WHOI glider in the water

This spring, the US Navy placed orders for $6 million worth of Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Gliders (LBS-G), with options for up to $50 million more over the next four years.  It appears that, at least for now, the Navy is planning to use the gliders as part of their near-shore (littoral) defense system, rather than as adjuncts to monitor for whales near sonar exercises.   Early this year, the NATO Undersea Research Group (NRUG) ordered 4 to 7 gliders, though it’s unclear whether they will be outfitted with hydrophones.  At Woods Hole, Mark Baumgartner’s research group has been using a fleet of 20 gliders (which were initially developed at Woods Hole, before being commercialized by a WHOI scientist) to listen in on baleen whales as they study whale distribution and habitat in the Gulf of Maine; however, before long-term deployment and research can begin, the team is developing instruments and software to allow for near real-time assessment and classification of the sounds.  Once that’s up to speed, larger scale monitoring can begin.  Non-acoustic gliders are in use worldwide by Rutgers researchers, where the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (COOL) has been using them since 2003.

Gliders hold great promise as a benign yet active platform for ocean observing, especially in acoustics.  Any boat-based monitoring brings its own noise along for the ride, while bottom-mounted hydrophones need more complex communication systems (generally cables).  Gliders are effectively silent, and move so slowly that even in the case of a fluke collision with a sea creature, no harm will come to either party.  Keep an eye on this exciting new technology!

This one sat around for a while waiting for me to write about it, but it’s pretty timeless, so here goes!  One of the leaders in fish bioacoustics, Rodney Rountree, wrote a great overview piece in the Nov/Dec issue of Marine Technology Review on the groundbreaking work being done in fish biology using Passive Acoustic recording systems.  The article does a wonderful job of introducing the various approaches being taken to recording freshwater and oceanic fish.  The most exciting aspect of this work is that until quite recently, very few biologists even CONSIDERED fish as vocal or acoustic creatures (the emphasis was on chemical/smell and mechanical/tactile sensitivity).  As Rountree notes, “currently most biological sounds recorded in marine and aquatic habitats are unknown due to the lack of study and a lack of comprehensive sound catalogues.”  It’s agua incognita!  

To enter this fascinating new acoustic world, Rountree has compiled three distinct yet complementary overviews:

• The article in MTR is on Page 40 of this pdf version of the issue. 
• You can download his 42-page “e-book” nominally written for children, but in fact a wonderful layperson overview of the history and current discoveries in fish acoustics; it’s full of links to websites. 
• And, his academic website FishEcology.org has a page that is full of fish sounds, including a slew of unidentified sounds. 

Two UK environmental and research organizations that were monitoring whale activity during a recent NATO naval exercise report that minke whales were seen fleeing along the surface while their hydrophones were picking up loud mid-frequency active sonar signals.  Observers from the Hebrides Whale and Dolphin Trust saw “two minke whales within an hour displaying unusual and worrying behaviour. At the same time they heard military sonar on the hydrophone – sometimes so loud that they could not keep the headphones on. The whales were both moving in the same direction at high speed, regularly leaping clear of the water. This behaviour, known as ‘porpoising’, is more typical of dolphins and rarely seen in undisturbed whales.”

Porpoising minke whale. Credit: HWDT

Nienke van Geel, HWDT’s Biodiversity Officer said “Seeing minke whales porpoising many times successively is very unusual. Both whales moved very fast, too fast for us to keep up with them to try to take identification pictures. We estimated they were traveling at least at 15 knots. Our research has already shown a decline in minke whale sightings in the last few years, so we’re worried about anything that might adversely affect the population.” The incident is reported on in three posts from the HWDT’s colleagues, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).  The first includes the initial report of the incident, the second details the situation more fully and stresses the need for the UK Navy to conduct fully environmental assessments as the US Navy has begun to do at home, and the third clarifies that the US Navy should be, according the the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, applying for permits for sonar activities in UK waters, though it currently only does so for training in US waters.

After my participation on a Canadian government expert group looking at offshore oil and gas noise, I headed west to Banff for my second appearance as a plenary speaker at the Alberta oil and gas industry’s biannual Spring Noise Conference. Here, participants are largely agency staff and noise control contractors, with a few oil and gas companies participating as well. Alberta has a vibrant oil and gas industry (read: most important economic driver for the Province), and while the landscape is heavily tapped by traditional oil and natural gas drilling, coalbed methane development, surface coal mining, and, infamously, oil sands development, Alberta’s noise regulations are among the most stringent in the world: impact on neighbors cannot exceed 5dB above the local ambient noise conditions.  This year’s conference (and the very informative pre-conference workshop I attended) expanded from its roots in oil and gas development, to include wind farms.

Read the rest of this entry »

On May 12 and 13, I was invited to be part of a Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat workshop that was called by the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian sister agency to NOAA) to assess the Canadian government’s mitigation measures to protect marine mammals from noise impacts of seismic surveys used to explore for offshore oil and gas. Thanks to my previous involvement in the Ocean Noise Coalition, a Canadian ONC member recommended that I be invited—thanks, Kathy! Longtime ONC colleague Michael Stocker of Ocean Conservation Research was also there, and we shared some nice rambles around the city. The two-day workshop included a day of “working papers” in which various participants shared research and information meant to inform our assessment of how well marine mammal observers, safety zones, and passive acoustic monitoring perform in their goals of protecting marine mammals from the effects of seismic survey noise. Most of the 40+ participants work for agencies, oil and gas companies or trade groups, or for environmental consultants who write EISs or manage marine mammal observing operations for seismic survey companies. Four of us were from the “environmental community,” and of those, I was the only one to present a working paper.  

My paper was the sole piece of the workshop that addressed impacts beyond the 500m exclusion (or safety) zone, meant to protect animals from injury; Read the rest of this entry »

The revised draft of wind energy wildlife impact guidelines released by a US Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Advisory Committee was released in March, and like the first version, contains not a single occurrence of the words “noise” or “acoustic.” The Committee is directed to “recommend effective measures to avoid or minimize impacts to wildlife and their habitats related to land-based wind energy facilities.” How they can provide provide this guidance without considering acoustic impacts is simply unimaginable.  Modern wind turbines are hundreds of feet tall, and create significant sound; even the minimal setbacks for human residences are 1000 feet, with many cases of bothersome noise (especially at night) at a half mile or more.  Wildlife impacts of wind farms are sure to include increased ambient background noise over a fairly large area (half mile to a mile in diameter), which can make it more difficult for predators such as owls and coyotes to find their small prey, and likewise force prey animals to be more vigilant against attack, which has clear energy costs for the animals.  In addition, low-frequency noise radiated into the ground could affect burrowing animals.  Especially in “islands” of woods along ridgelines surrounded by farm land, this acoustic degradation could displace animals from key habitat; even in larger woodlands, steep terrain along ridgelines often contains a different mix of trees and thus habitat that is locally important.  As AEI noted in comments submitted to committee members in February, “In at least some situations/locations, acoustic impacts could be a primary or substantial contributing factor in displacement from habitat, as well as triggering stress that may have synergistic relationships with other impacts.”  Such considerations are basic requirements for effective analysis of impacts on wildlife.  The Committee briefly considered noise impacts, but concluded that no data (specifically involving turbine noise) was available with which to assess the possible effects.  As with ocean noise, though, this lack of specific data does not preclude assessing possible or likely impacts, using studies of other noise sources or even other species than those present at a given project area; NOAA and the Navy routinely take this approach to assessing the impacts of various ocean noise sources.  There is plenty of research on the noise impacts of oil and gas installations, road noise, and aircraft noise on many families of wildlife (birds, rodents, large mammals, etc.).  The National Park Service Natural Sounds office and bioacoustics researchers at universities across the country are good sources of information that this Federal Advisory Committee surely needs to consult before moving forward with guidelines for assessing the impacts of wind farms on wildlife.  These guidelines will shape wildlife impact analyses for years to come, and need to be done right.  

For more on the FWS wind advisory committee, see:
http://www.windaction.org/articles/21154
Industrial Wind Action Group letter to Sec. of Interior Salazar, May 2009

http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/windpower/wind_turbine_advisory_committee.html
Advisory Committee website 

Debate continues to swirl around wind farm development across the US, as local communities struggle to find the right balance between green energy and minimizing impacts on wind farm neighbors.  At the crux of the issue is how close to homes turbines should be built.  The wind energy continues to push for setbacks as small as 1000 feet, while local residents report significant noise impacts up to a half mile or mile.  In Wisconsin, where five wind farm proposals have been derailed since 2007 by local setback ordinances of 1800 feet to a mile, which the industry deemed too severe, a push is on in the state legislature to transfer all decision-making power to state authorities, stripping localities of regulatory authority.  In Maine, two physicians have urged the state to take note of clear health effects caused by audible noise from the Mars Hill windfarm: Read the rest of this entry »

The Minerals Management Service suffered a major defeat this week, as a Federal Appeals Court ruled that its current five-year leasing program plans for Alaskan waters be vacated and remanded to the Department of Interior for more substantial environmental analysis.  The program includes oil and gas leasing from 2007-2012 on the Outer Continental Shelf; only one lease has been offered in Alaskan waters, though more are in the planning stages.  MMS did produce a 1600 page environmental assessment, but the court found it lacking. Among the primary considerations cited by the court was inadequate analysis of the effects of exploration and drilling noise on migrating Bowhead whales, and similarly inadequate assessment of effects on fish. Kim Elton, director of Alaska Affairs for the Department of the Interior, said his office is still studying the ruling. Though industry officials and some Republicans in the US Congress have called for a quick approval of further offshore development, Elton said the latest ruling should convince people that rushing to formulate land-use policies leave them open to challenge in court and not make hurried assumptions based on the work of the previous administration. “We too often end up doing things in a rushed way without recognising the fact that the paradigm is likely to be challenged,” he said. “And if we don’t do our upfront work we allow a group of people wearing black robes or a person wearing a black robe to set policy.”

More on this:
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article176453.ece
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alaska-drilling18-2009apr18,0,1920171.story
http://www.koaa.com/aaaaaa_down_to_earth/x586944506/Court-blocks-Alaska-offshore-drilling

A new report issued in the wake of an active sonar mitigation workshop held by the European Cetacean Society calls unequivocally for sonar training to be limited to relatively small dedicated areas.  By contrast, the US Navy continues to insist that it needs access to nearly the entire eastern seaboard and most of the west coast as well, in order to have enough flexibility to train “realisically.”  The ECS working group report, by an impressively diverse set of researchers ranging from NRDC’s Michael Jasny to Woods Hole scientist Peter Tyack, calls on the world’s navies to “commit without delay” to “minimum procedures” including: Read the rest of this entry »

Representative Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) marked Earth Day by announcing the introduction of a bill that would provide $25 million per year to the Marine Mammal Commission to fund new research into the effects of human activities on whales and dolphins, with a particular focus on the effects of active sonar. “We need to end the fighting and resolve these issues, but we can’t really do that until we’re sure we all know what we’re talking about,” Abercrombie said in a statement. “We have to fully understand the effects of human activities, including underwater sound, on marine mammals and determine how to mitigate any harmful impact. That requires expanded and focused research.”  By comparison, the Navy, currently the largest source of research funding, spends $26 million per year on its marine mammal research programs, which include studies of the effects of sound as well as many other topics, including a wide range of population studies, and a recent agreement between the Navy and NRDC will devote $5 million per year to several topic of mutual interest. For several years, the MMC has recommended that an independent research initiative such as the one proposed by Abercrombie be established; many environmental advocates have also long called for research funding to be more independent of the Navy and the perceived constraints that its priorities impose on research topics.  Abercrombie is serving what is likely to be his last of ten terms as an Hawaiian congressman; he has announced plans to run for Governor in 2010.

An earlier version of the bill, HR 5106, was introduced in January 2008; it appears likely that the new bill is substantially similar.  Read the old bill here.

This is kinda cool, though apparently will not be fleshed out as fully as it may deserve:  Bruce Heald, a sound designer/composer created a soundtrack for an ad using orchestral instrumentalists to mimic the various sounds found in humpback whale songs.  The ad (for a cell phone company) creates the impression that an orchestra actually went out to play for and with the whales; while compelling, this was purely staged (near a dock, no less).  An email exchange with the composer confirms that there are at present no plans to create a full-blown version of the work (the 90-second commercial contains what is for now the complete composition), though he’d love to find funding for that.  But the website the company created includes a nifty Flash interface in which we can trigger the individual sounds ourselves, creating a whalesong composition in real time, as well as some short films with whale researchers and the musicians.  Check out Heald’s sound design site here and play with whale sounds by clicking on “Inspiration” at: http://www.optuswhalesong.com.au/

Earlier this month, the US Navy spent a night testing sonar and communications systems on the USS San Francisco, a submarine that had recently completed major repairs to its sonar dome after crashing into a seamount in 2006.  

A recent photo of the U.S. Navy submarine, the U.S.S. San Francisco (Photo: RLW)

The sub was doing “required training dives” in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula, with an escort ship also present; the Navy ships did not enter Haro Strait, a more constrained channel where sonar training stirred up considerable controversy in 2003.  Orca researchers throughout the region picked up unusual sounds (sonar pings and human voices) from 7pm to 3am on the night of April 6-7; the sounds were audible from San Juan Island to Whidbey Island and Port Washington and Port Townsend.  

Read the rest of this entry »

A study published this week in the British journal Biology Letters has raised a bit of a ruckus, with headlines suggesting that it confirms that sonar can deafen dolphins (even Nature and New Scientist ran such heads).  The paper is a brief report (3pp) on a study in which a captive dolphin was exposed to recordings of actual mid-frequency active sonar signals (5.6kHz) at gradually increasing volumes until a consistent temporary threshold shift (TTS) was induced.  Surprisingly, considering the long-running controversies over these sonars, this is the first study to use actual sonar sounds in this way, rather than generic stand-in sounds.  The researchers found that they had to ramp up the sonar sounds to 203dB SPL rms (214dB SEL) to “consistently” induce a TTS of 6db; such exposures would occur only within about 40m of sonar vessels, though in some situations (multiple ships, clear sound propagation conditions), could occur at greater distances. This shift faded rather rapidly, to 4dB at 10 minutes, and back to baseline hearing in 20 to 40 minutes.  This is not “deafness,” but rather what one of the researchers termed a “rock concert effect” Read the rest of this entry »

An AEI book review of:
One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest for Natural Silence in a Noisy World
Gordon Hempton and John Grossman
Free Press, 2009

After a quarter century of listening to and recording the sounds of the world around him, along the way becoming one of the most respected natural sound producers on the planet, Gordon Hempton has written a book-length reflection on the perilous state of our natural soundscapes.  The story is shaped around a cross-country journey during which Hempton visits a variety of American landscapes, visits allies old and new in his quest to raise awareness about the insidious expansion of human noise, and finally arranges a series of meetings with “movers and shakers” in Washington, DC, to press his cause of creating the nation’s first noise-free zone in Olympic National Park.

Hempton is, of course, a sensitive listener.  The book is best read, it seems to me, as three related but distinct threads, interwoven throughout the telling.  The first is the raison d’etre for the project: to make a case for actively protecting natural quiet (rather than simply reducing noise); here Hempton draws on the voices of a dozen or so other careful listeners, Read the rest of this entry »

Public hearings on the US Navy’s Northwest Training Range Complex have turned, predictably enough, into a circus of public outrage and Navy insistence that no big changes are planned.  While it’s true that the training being proposed is little different than that which has been ongoing for many years (decades) off the Pacific Northwest coast, with little indication of major impacts on wildlife or fisheries, the public is making the most of the first opportunity for public comment, now that the Navy is finally conducting full Environmental Impact Statements to assess their offshore training activities. Read the rest of this entry »

The University of Utah’s free digital archive of recordings from wild habitats in the American West has grown to over a thousand items. “Our premise is that the sounds of the west are unique and that they deserve a closer listen,” says research librarian Jeff Rice. “As our lives become more urbanized, we are losing our connection to the natural world and its rich sounds. There are whole generations of kids growing up that have never heard coyotes, or even frogs, in the wild. This is our heritage and we want to help restore some of that connection.” By focusing on the sounds of the western U.S., the archive emphasizes the connection between sound and place—something that is not only culturally valuable, but also biologically crucial, say scientists. Scientists recognize that even the same species of animals can sound different based on their geography. Birds, especially, can sing in dialects unique to their areas“Frequent recordings in many areas help create a database that will give insight into how the ‘singing culture’ of birds changes over time and space,” says Dr. Franz Goller, a biologist at the University of Utah. “Efforts like the Western Soundscape Archive are therefore very important in documenting acoustic behavior.” Source: Innovations Report, 3/18/09 [READ ARTICLE]
Western Soundscape Project Website: [MAIN SITE] [VIDEO INTRODUCTION]

Increasingly, local regulators are settling on a half-mile setback for wind turbines, despite many reports of noise issues beyond that distance.  At the Willow Creek Wind Farm in Morrow County, Oregon, local residents raised concerns in November when the developer’s noise models indicated that the farm would not meet the relatively stringent 36dB noise limit.  The company responded with new noise modeling that indicated they would indeed be quiet enough to meet this standard.  However, once the turbines began turning in December, neighbors found that the typical promise of not being any louder than a refrigerator in the kitchen “was a crock,” and they fired up their own hand-held decibel meters, regularly recording levels of 40-50dB, peaking to 67dB at the worst.   The county is now requiring the company to do real-world sound measurements.  The nearby neighbors insisted they aren’t against wind towers and are all for green energy, just not so close to their homes. “If they had just used a little foresight and moved these back a little farther…,” Michael Eaton said wistfully, “but they didn’t.”

Read more at East Oregonian, 3/7/09 [READ ARTICLE] The Oregonian, 3/25/09 [READ ARTICLE]

The early 2009 issue of Conservation magazine, the popular press publication of the Society for Conservation Biology, has a great overview piece on the effects of noise on animals. It focuses on changes in animal behavior and song that have been observed over the course of the past decade, drawing on studies from several different researchers. Much will be familiar to AEI regulars, but it remains highly recommended for sharing with others and for the concise overview it provides.

See the article at http://www.conservationmagazine.org/articles/v8n2/not-so-silent-spring/

The USS Impeccable, one of two US Navy long-range Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) surveillance ships deployed in the western Pacific, was repeatedly harassed by Chinese Navy and other Chinese ships during March. The Chinese attempted to snag the towed array cables with poles, and to obstruct the ship’s passage by dropping wood in the water and buzzing it with its ships. The incidents took place 75 miles offshore from Hainan Island, site of a key Chinese submarine base; China claims sovereignty of its entire 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone, while the US recognizes only the 12-mile territorial water limit, and insists the Impeccable was therefore operating legally in international waters. While the Impeccable is well-documented as one of the US Navy’s two LFAS ships designed specifically for monitoring quiet submarines, and deployed in areas where they can keep tabs on Chinese and North Korean navies, some press reports seemed to downplay or obfuscate this; for example the BBC report said that the Impeccable’s sonar is used to “map the ocean floor.” Sources: American Chronicle, 3/22/09 [READ ARTICLE] BBC, 3/10/09 [READ ARTICLE] SEE US NAVY VIDEOS OF THE INCIDENTS [YOUTUBE]

 The United States and Pakistan are cooperating in a new initiative to supply the Pakistani Navy with 445 sonobuoys, including mid-frequency active sonar units used to detect quiet submarines. It is not clear what subs would be the target for this program (the “Taliban Navy” and “Taliban Airforce” are often tossed out by bemused observers as the only likely mutual threats), or how carefully they would be deployed in regards to marine mammals. Source: Domain B, 3/9/09 [READ ARTICLE]

The Hawaii Superferry, which began operations last summer under a special state law that allowed it to begin runs while completing its state-regulated Environmental Impact Statement, has been docked after the state supreme court ruled the law unconstitutional. The EIS is underway, amidst vehement complaints that it is a toothless process. The Ferry is under fire on several fronts, including that it uses massive amounts of fossil fuels, and that it travels at such a fast speed that whale strikes are more likely. According to some local activists, the ferry company has resisted requests to do underwater noise studies; some locals claim the ferry will produce Level B Harassment of whales (i.e. cause behavioral changes) at distances up to 1000 yards. Hawaiian waters are also home to many freighters, delivering essential goods; how loud are they? I wouldn’t be surprised if they also trigger behavioral changes out to a half mile to mile. Should the Ferry have to meet a different standard? Or, is it indeed much louder than tankers and freighters? For more on this see the following media reports:
The Nation, 2/25/09: big picture view of local resistance to the Ferry
KHNL, 3/17/09: report on the suspension of service after the court ruling
Honolulu Advertiser, 3/19/09: Hearing on EIS
Honolulu Weekly, 3/18/09: Noise concerns

A new noise-cancelling system being developed in Germany could help to minimize what has become a major source of concern for residents near wind farms. While some noise-dampening systems are already used in turbines, they are “passive”, meaning that they reduce certain frequencies or sources of vibration noise, but do not respond “actively” to the changing frequency ranges of an operating turbine.

The new system “listens” for vibrations and then produces vibrations that exactly match, in reverse, the problematic motion within a turbine tower or base. From PhysOrg:

“These systems react autonomously to any change in frequency and damp the noise – regardless of how fast the wind generator is turning,” says André Illgen of the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Dresden. The key components of this system are piezo actuators. These devices convert electric current into mechanical motion and generate “negative vibrations”, or a kind of anti-noise that precisely counteracts the vibrations of the wind turbine and cancels them out. The piezo actuators are mounted on the gearbox bearings that connect the gearbox to the pylon. But how do these piezo actuators adjust themselves to the respective noise frequencies? “We have integrated sensors into the system. They constantly measure the vibrations arising in the gearbox, and pass on the results to the actuator control system,” says Illgen. The researchers have already developed a working model of the active vibration dampers, and their next step will be to perform field trials.

A three-year research project in Scotland has been announced, which will study the impacts of tidal energy turbines on sea life. From Wave and Tidal Energy News:

The groundbreaking study will be conducted through a PhD studentship at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS UHI). It will look specifically at the background noise levels in areas being considered for tidal renewables development, as well as the noise made by tidal turbines. It will also explore the extent to which marine animals, particularly protected species, can detect and, potentially, avoid colliding with such devices.

Marine ecologist Dr Ben Wilson, who will be supervising the project, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to both sustainable marine energy extraction and conservation. Scotland is rapidly becoming a magnet for the companies developing devices to capture energy from tidal currents. These machines however will have to share the sea with vulnerable and protected species like whales, seals and fish. Understanding how these animals will perceive and behave around underwater turbines is a mystery but sound will undoubtedly be the most important sense for them, particularly at night and in murky water. Knowing what the natural sound-scape is like in prospective tidal energy sites and the noise output of different devices will help us identify those devices that marine animals will most easily move around without harm. With this understanding we will be better able to promote those machines that have the most gentle ecological footprints.”

I’ve known Gordon Hempton for quite some time; this is a good peek into his quest to find and hopefully protect natural quiet.  He claims that several years ago he could only found two places in the lower 48 where human sound did not intrude on a regular basis…..

Defender of quiet places | csmonitor.com

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