Noise Pollution Affecting Dolphins
New studies have shown that noise pollution has become an enormous problem, particularly affecting dolphins and it has been doubling every decade for the past 60 years. Noise pollution is harmful to humans and living organisms and it is harmful or annoying levels of sound. For instance, sea life is usually affected by Commercial shipping, military sonar, and human activity. Science research revealed that 90 percent of the 500 studies analyzed found excessive noise caused “significant harm” to sea life. And In 2014, Ifremer, a French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, revealed that worldwide ship traffic had increased by 300 percent since 1992.
Unfortunately, most sea life relies on communication in order to survive. Dolphins rely on vocalization and will usually use their whistle and something called echolocation, the location of objects reflected by sound, which is used to navigate through dark waters.
When you are in a noisy environment it can be hard to talk over each other and can be quite irritating. To dolphins, this noise is similar, like background noise they are being drowned out as noise pollution gets worse now having to “shout” to communicate with each other. As a result of this “animals may miss opportunities for coordinated cooperative acts, such as cooperative foraging or reproduction” Pernille Sorenson, researcher professor, states.
