Meldungen: Archiv

Conference Year of the dolphin in Europe 2007

Keynotes and download of the presentations

Simmonds, Mark

An introduction to the increasing threats posed by underwater noise pollution

• The marine environment is Europe is changing very fast as a result of the de-ployment of new technologies combined with national ambitions that increasingly include developments at sea. Many of these new technologies produce loud noise. Examples include seismic surveys, the pile-driving associated with marine wind-farms, expanding boat traffic and military and other sonars.
• Small cetaceans, as intelligent highly social animals whose primary sense is hear-ing, are especially vulnerable to changes in the acoustic environment.
• Nature conservation activities do not appear to be keeping up with the threats arising from underwater noise pollution, which is generally a little appreciated is-sue, and we may therefore be doing significant damage without fully appreciating it.

Further information and recommendations for actions to address this issue can be found in the WDCS report “Oceans of Noise” available on the WDCS website www.wdcs.org.

Presentation: 11-Mark_Simmonds.pdf