If you thought living in a city was noisy, try living under water these days, poor whales.
At a UN environment conference in Rome this week, the International Fund for Animal Welfare issued a report that shows that the distance over which blue whales can communicate has decreased by 90-percent due to intensified noise levels under sea.
The major noise culprits are ships and naval sonar systems. According to the report, ship noise in the Pacific Ocean has doubled every decade over the past forty years. And the size of the ship fleet itself is supposed to double by 2025.
And get this: worldwide naval sonar systems generate noises over a billion times more intense than the decibel upper limit deemed safe for human.
If this weren’t enough, researchers at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute say increased CO2 in the atmosphere may be aggravating underwater noise levels.
Many scientists believe mass strandings of marine mammals around the world are linked to underwater noise.
The European Union submitted a draft resolution to governments in attendance at the Rome conference, with dozens of suggested measures to reduce ocean noise.
Source: Environmental News Service
