Ocean bioacoustics, human generated noise and ocean policy Free

The recent release of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) report, just a year on the heels of the Pew Oceans Commission report, has alerted policymakers and the public about the precarious biological health of our seas. While the reports discuss ecosystem based management, ocean bioacoustics is given short treatment in both reports. The ocean is not a visual‐dominant environment, rather it is an acoustic environment. Most animals in the sea depend on sound, but we know next to nothing about how living organisms use it. We do know from recent studies that ocean habitats are being seriously compromised by human generated noise in evidence through stranded whales and, more recently, high fish mortality and low productivity in fishing areas due to seismic exploration and civil engineering. Due to the ubiquity of sounds and noises in all of our ocean enterprises, legislating anthropogenic sound promises to be a Byzantine endeavor. This paper examines some of the known challenges to crafting ocean noise policy.