Re: Loud Music & Reefs
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9510785#post9510785 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ThomasinKind
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this question... Sorry in advance if someone has to move it.
I think that's an excellent question and this seems like the appropriate forum to discuss it. Thanks for bringing it up!
I'm sure we are all familiar with the damage done to marine mammals by certain intense forms of sonar. And the literature is full of reports of fish dying from the effects of damn building and pile driving operations. Those are extreme examples but they do show that loud noise can have adverse effects on marine life. Heck, loud noise has an adverse effect on me, too. The older you get, the more sensitive you become to loud noise. At least I do.
Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) did some studies in San Francisco Bay in 2001 in preparation for the building of the new replacement span between Yerba Buena island and Oakland. They're spending upwards of $6 billion to replace that part of the bridge between Oakland and San Francisco across San Francisco Bay. You may remember that a section of it fell during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Caltrans conducted pile driving experiments and collected the dead fish that rose to the surface. Some were bleeding and others had suffered swim bladder damage. Then Caltrans expanded their experiments to include fish held in cages at different distances from the pile driving source.
Results indicate that there was mortality caused by exposure to pile driving sounds, with dead fish of several different species found to at least 50 meters from the pile being driven. They also observed an increase in catch by over flying gulls during pile driving, further indicating fish mortality.
Public aquaria around the world are aware of the effects of knocking on the front glass of their displays and all of them take preventive measures, such as public warning signs, to reduce this disturbance. The effects of knocking on the glass seem to be limited to disturbance of the aquatic animals and perhaps an increase in stress levels.
I think those examples -- pile driving and knocking on aquarium glass -- probably represent the extremes of the problem. The question then becomes one of assessing the degrees of harm that might result from anything in between those extremes. I suspect that loud music in close proximity to an aquarium is something that we should avoid.
The last time I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, they were displaying their captured great white shark (the first one, the female) and there were signs all over the place asking that visitors please refrain from using flash photography, yet flashes were going off every ten or fifteen seconds even while the aquarium employee was talking. The aquarium notices warned that the great white shark in particular was sensitive to light flashes. Every time the great white came around to the front of the display, flashes would go off and you could see the shark flinch. Finally the flashes stopped after the aquarium employee repeated the warning at least twice during the presentation.
