Ken Balcomb, who monitors local populations for NOAA, has spotted two baby orcas off Vancouver Island, a splash of good news for the Puget Sound orca population, which has been falling in recent years. My first reaction, though, was a realization that these young ones will—by virtue of their small bodies and fresh auditory systems—be at especially sensitive to the very factors that are challenging the survival of their population.  Boat and shipping noise is ubiquitous in their habitat, and young whales have more sensitive hearing than older ones….recent news confirmed fears that the orca’s main food source, salmon, are carrying high levels of toxins….and young animals may be more susceptible to stress responses (especially to the degree that communication with adults is hindered on a regular basis by noise)  that could make this combination of noise and toxins especially damaging.  So, swim strong, young ones!  Ken Balcolmb says these two look hale and hearty at a month old, well filled out and energetic; that’s just the sort of gusto that will be required of them, and we wish them many fruitful years in a habitat that regains its health over the course of their long lives.
Photo: Ken Balcomb 

See article on the new ones from the Seattle Times: [READ ARTICLE]

And, see Chris Dunagan’s Kitsap Sun news story and his blog post on an older male in their family, who it appears has recently died.

It appears that concerns about the impact of a major oil development in the midst of one of the western gray whale’s key feeding grounds are coming to fruition: the World Wildlife Fund is reporting that the critically endangered western Gray whales have largely abandoned a formerly crucial feeding ground near the ever-expanding Sakhalin oil and gas development in far eastern Russia. Disruptions from tanker traffic, offshore construction, and seismic surveys is blamed for the whales’ move from offshore Sakhalin (just north of Japan) to an area closer to western Kamchatka (a peninsula across the Bering Sea from Alaska), where plans for a new oil field are brewing. Source: Russian News and Information Agency, 2/19/09 [READ ARTICLE]

This year, the annual Acoustic Ecology Institute Spotlight Report on recent developments in ocean noise is too large for easy viewing on a web page. So, we’ve created a pdf version that you can download (or view in your browser if you’re a glutton for punishment). [AEI: Ocean Noise 2008 (pdf, 4MB)] Here’s what you’ll find there:

During 2008, four key pathways to future engagement with ocean noise issues clarified. Each of these over-arching developments are fleshed out in more detail in the full report.

• Behavioral impacts clearly replaced strandings and deaths as the key issue for marine mammals encountering human noise.  Several studies released during 2008 all suggest that whales of many species may stop or reduce their feeding when moderate to loud human sounds enter their habitat, and this particular impact is likely to become a central focus of future research and regulatory consideration.

• The legal tussles over mid-frequency and low-frequency active sonars continued, and the Supreme Court decision does not put an end to the controversy.  The Navy crossed an important threshold, completing full Environmental Impact Statements for their sonar training procedures for the first time; the lack of sufficient NEPA analysis was the root of most of the legal challenges.  The plans they are putting forward to govern sonar training off most of the US coastline continue to rely on safety measures that Federal Courts have found wanting, though it appears that challenges to their proposals are more likely to focus on avoiding biologically important areas than increasing the safety zones that are designed to avoid injury.  All parties seem to be accepting that gross injury is rare to the point of being difficult to use as a lever to shift the balance of interests with the Navy’s national security imperative, but NGOs, many field researchers, and agency staff are all looking more closely at the behavioral impacts that take place at much longer ranges (up to several or even tens of kilometers).  The next round of Navy sonar conflicts will center on how willing the Navy is to consider these subtler impacts, and whether NMFS or the courts will impose broader territorial restrictions on sonar training to protect areas where whales may be more susceptible to repeated disruption by sonar transmissions.

• Shipping noise is moving very quickly to the forefront of international concerns about rising ocean noise.  This year the US, with strong German support, initiated a two-year process at the International Maritime Organization to come up with ship quieting recommendations. Also, the unusual sensitivity of harbor porpoises to boat noise has become clearer.

• The scientific community appears to be entering a new phase in its engagement with ocean noise, a natural result of the increasing emphasis on these issues over the past five years.  The European Science Foundation, the US Marine Mammal Commission, and a National Marine Fisheries Service-led group have all recently published important reports that attempt to provide frameworks within which future research priorities can be clearly considered.  These frameworks promise to provide much-needed big-picture coherence to what has been largely a scattershot approach to increasing our understanding of ocean noise.  An independent and striking development this year was the emergence of more scientists speaking out forcefully about their concerns about ocean noise; these scientists have, at times, directly critiqued the more modest and diligently objective conclusions of the larger institutional reports just noted, and are representative of a subset of scientists who are more willing to push for extra precaution in our noise-making until we better understand what the effects are. 

Read the rest of this entry »

In the Philippines this week, over 200 melon-headed whales appeared in near-shore waters across a large bay from Manilla, and appeared confused about how to get out.  Initial speculation ran wild, as a Philippine Senator called for an inquiry into whether the US research vessel the R.V. Langseth had created the trouble while doing a seismic survey that has garnered criticism from environmentalists, and was apparently on the Senator’s radar.  The inquiry is likely to be brief, as the Langseth is currently over 4000 miles away, working near Fiji.  (The surveys in question, which are currently awaiting a permit from the US NMFS, will take place later this spring and summer in various areas between China, Japan, and the Philippines.)  While our growing understanding of the impacts of human noise does make it worthwhile to consider whether noise may be implicated in strandings, jumping to ill-considered conclusions serves no one.  In this case, there is also speculation about dynamite fishing in the region; according to Environment Minister Jose “Lito” Atienza, he directly questioned the local Governor, who “confirmed it (was taking place).  He also said he was battling this illegal activity.”  Adding to the mystery is the simultaneous appearance of melon-headed whales in two widely-separated bays (Hawaii and Marianas Islands) in July 2004; these events took place on the same night during a full moon, and there is speculation they were following prey, perhaps squid.  In Hawaii, the next morning US Naval forces used mid-frequency active sonar beyond the mouth of the bay, and the whales appeared agitated, and perhaps were driven into shallower waters, in the Marianas the animals were apparently less disturbed, and “interacting with humans.”  This points to the possibility that noise can become an aggravating or additional factor in some situations, even if not the primary causative factor in bringing the whales into a dangerous situation.  The moon is again bright this week, though certainly the dynamite fishing deserves continued diligent scrutiny.

Press coverage of this incident: Senator blames Langseth, Dynamite fishing considered
US Navy description of earlier full-moon incidents
 

At last month’s Arctic Frontiers conference, Einar Svendsen, research director at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research noted that fish stocks have rebounded nicely in Norwegian waters, but that increasing oil and gas exploration activities could pose a danger.  According to the Nature.com blog In the Field, he strongly advised that no seismic surveys be conducted during the spawning season. See the full post by Quirin Schiermeier 

The Arctic Frontiers conference included presentations on new research findings in the arctic, the possible implications of global warming and regional melting, and oil and gas development strategies.  You can download all presentations and view video of the proceedings at the Arctic Frontiers website.

Plans to build a pipeline to move the fruits of Alberta’s oil fields and oil sands to the deepwater port of Kitimat, in order to ship it to Asia, are spurring widespread concerns among residents and researchers in northern British Columbia. In addition to fears of a tanker accident and rural resistence to the pipeline, University of BC biologist Rob Williams stresses the noise impact of increased tanker traffic. “Caamano Sound may be one of the last chances we have on this coastline to protect an acoustically quiet sanctuary for whales,” says Williams. “We don’t exactly know why this area is so rich, but there are some long, narrow channels that serve as bottlenecks for food, making it easier for whales to feed.” The researcher has been using acoustic monitors to gauge the level of underwater shipping noise, known to have an impact on the ability of toothed mammals, such as orcas and dolphins, to use echolocation for finding food. A detailed feature article in the Vancouver weekly The Georgia Strait provides an in-depth look at the plans and at the hurdles that must be crossed to bring it to fruition. Source: Strait.com, 2/5/09 [READ ARTICLE]

In the final days of the Bush administration, the Minerals Management Service completed preliminary planning for offshore oil development on the Outer Continental Shelf along the entire eastern seaboard and the California coast.  For the past couple of years, MMS has been laying the groundwork for new drilling, as it became clear that Presidential and Congressional bans on offshore development first implemented in the early 1980’s and renewed ever since, would expire.  The recent documents outline 21 proposed lease areas, and announce plans to conduct a “programmatic” EIS to analyze environmental impacts of multiple seismic surveys off the coasts, as the areas are inventoried using modern surveying equipment (which makes lots of very widespread noise).  The strangest element in the “notice of intent” to conduct the EIS, which would be required before any exploration could take place, is that MMS notes that it has no money to conduct the study, and it actually solicits financial support from the oil and gas industry to keep the EIS moving, stating that it “welcomes participation from outside sources,” and that without funding, the EIS would likely not be completed in time for the 2010-2015 leasing period.  Below the fold, see the AEI News Digest coverage of this issue, including comments from MMS and incoming Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and links to the Notice of Intent and Congressional committee set to oversee OCS development.

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NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has formally given the Navy its seal of approval for the third of the Navy’s “Big 3” sonar training EISs, just in the nick of time as the Navy’s 2-year national security exemption expires.  The Atlantic Fleet Active Sonar Training (AFAST) EIS, along with the recently approved EISs covering Hawaii and Southern California (SOCAL) training ranges, all contain virtually identical analyses of impacts and proposed safety measures, which mirror the “29 Safety Measures” the Navy formally adopted in January 2007 when it received an exemption to the MMPA in order to complete the then-newly-initiated EISs with fewer legal impediments.  The Navy’s sonar nemesis, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) immediately issued a press release that stressed the millions of marine mammals that the EISs predict will hear sonar signals and respond by some behavioral changes (2 million per year, for five years). Read the rest of this entry »

The Navy took another step on its reformed NEPA compliance path this week, as it received a formal Letter of Authorization to proceed with sonar training missions in waters around Hawaii.  The Hawaii training range was the first of 11 Navy ranges to complete its Environmental Impact Statement; the Navy began planning this step of NEPA compliance in 2006 (belatedly, and spurred on by legal challenges), and received a national security exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in early 2007 to protect the training from legal challenges until the EISs could be completed.  Two other ranges have released final EISs (Atlantic coast and Southern California), with five Draft EISs recently released (including the Pacific Northwest and an Undersea Warfare Training Range off the southeast Atlantic coast).  It is unclear how sonar training will proceed in these other ranges once the exemption expires in late January; perhaps a shorter exemption will be issued to allow the EISs to be completed, or an agreement will be reached to eschew legal challenges in the interim.

The NOAA authorizations largely affirm the Navy’s current mitigation measures, including safety zones that have been challenged in the past as too small, and refusing (in the name of operational flexibility) to set any areas off-limits to sonar.  While NOAA expects that the Navy’s safety measures should prevent injury, they acknowledge that in some situations strandings have occurred, and the authorizations allow for up to ten deaths of each of eleven species.  (In Hawaii, sonar training has taken place for decades, and none of the clearly sonar-related stranding events have taken place there.)  See below the fold for the AEI News Digest item on this story, with quotes from NRDC and links to the Letter of Authorization.

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Here at AEI, one of the fun tasks on my plate is writing lay summaries of new scientific research.  Usually.  Early in 2008, a dense volume of the journal Aquatic Mammals was published, which featured the results of a multi-year effort by an all-star team of American ocean noise researchers, who were attempting to distill all the current research on ocean noise, and to recommend Exposure Criteria for marine mammals.  Suffice to say, I read it several times, highlighting madly, but kept putting it aside, reticent to attempt a coherent narrative summary.  

Well, I finally followed through, and what follows (below the fold) is a pretty decent summation of what they came up with.  The headline news is twofold: in addressing noise that may cause physical injury (defined as permanent hearing loss), the authors present a dizzying array of extrapolations and assumptions (largely precautionary but sometimes pure leaps of faith) in order to try to assess the impact of extremely loud sound on marine mammals, given that there is very very little direct data to work with.  They conclude that safety limits could be modestly increased without deafening more whales.  On the behavioral side of the ledger, things are not that much clearer, but much more fascinating.  A series of charts that compile results from all known behavioral response observations highlight the wide range of responses that a given level of sound may cause, but also provide some solid evidence that many marine mammals show fairly dramatic behavioral change when encountering fairly modest sound levels, far below those that current regulations consider necessary to monitor.  With that, if you want to know more, I invite you to click on through….

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The US Navy and the NRDC and its co-plaintiffs have settled a long-running lawsuit that challenged the Navy’s overall management of its mid-frequency active sonar program (this suit was separate from more high-profile challenges to specific training missions, one of which recently ended up in the Supreme Court). The resulting agreement formalizes the Navy’s recent commitment to NEPA compliance, which is by all accounts much improved since the suit was filed in 2005, and provides for increased transparency by the Navy about its sonar operations. Both parties trumpeted their glad tidings of prevailing over the stubborn demands of the other (see below), though it is far from clear how the parties will resolve continuing underlying disagreements over what degree of safety measures are necessary.  The most significant new piece of the settlement is a commitment to pursuing three lines of research of interest to both parties, most strikingly studies of stress in marine mammals.

(Details of the settlement, with analysis of the potential benefits, are below the fold)

Read the rest of this entry »

The Navy, as planned, has released its final EIS governing mid-frequency active sonar training along the entire eastern seaboard, as well as a similar EIS for southern California sonar use.  While the documents consider formal Alternatives that would limit sonar training to specific areas—either permanently or seasonally, based on marine mammal breeding, feeding, and migration patterns—the Navy concludes that these restrictions would not make a significant difference in how many whales are affected, so they propose to continue training at will within their entire current Operation Areas (OPAREAS). Read the rest of this entry »

The US Navy and others are working hard to find ways to detect elusive beaked whales so that they may be less apt to be triggered into behaviors that seem to cause them to occasionally beach and die.  One “great white hope” is passive acoustic detection, or listening for their calls.  A recent paper from a team of well-known researchers suggests that we should be able to quite easily detect beaked whales while they are foraging (and echolocating)….but with several important caveats.  First, detection is highly likely only within 700 meters, with perhaps 50% likelihood of detection at 2-3km, and virtually no chance of hearing them beyond 4km. Read the rest of this entry »

An AEI lay summary of the following report:
Marine Board—European Science Foundation. The effects of anthropogenic sound on marine mammals: A draft research strategy .Coordinating author: Ian Boyd. Contributing authors: Bob Brownell, Doug Cato, Chris Clark, Dan Costa, Peter Evans, Jason Gedamke, Roger Gentry, Bob Gisiner, Jonathan Gordon, Paul Jepson, Patrick Miller, Luke Rendell, Mark Tasker, Peter Tyack, Erin Vos, Hal Whitehead, Doug Wartzok, Walter Zimmer. [DOWNLOAD REPORT(pdf)]

This important report has just been released, though the workshop at which the ideas were originally developed took place in 2005. An all-star cast of researchers from the US and UK gathered the year after an IEEE workshop on the impacts of seismic surveys on marine mammals (a topic also addressed that year at the IWC), to grapple with how best to coordinate and design future research, to assure that we move efficiently toward answering the key questions surrounding the effects of human sound on ocean life. The report states: “There is a need to pursue a vision of future management of marine resources where the expansion of human activities will be accompanied by a sound understanding of the risks and appropriate tools
to mitigate those risks.” Further, “a key message of this report is that it is unlikely that a small number of focused experiments will provide the information necessary to solve most of the major concerns. Instead, one must rely upon an accumulation of evidence combined with a process of objective assessment of this evidence through periodic independent review. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an AEI lay summary of the following academic paper:
Parsons, Dolman, Wright, Rose, Burns. Navy sonar and cetaceans: Just how much does the gun need to smoke before we act? Marine Pollution Bulletin 56 (2008) 1248–1257.
This paper represents a clarion call by several biologists who are convinced that we now have enough information about the impacts of sonar on whales to justify the imposition of more stringent safety measures. In contrast to Navy insistence that there is no widespread problem, and to the slow and patient progression of scientific data to clarify exactly what the mechanisms that lead to strandings may be, these authors lay out a compelling case for a change in course.

The paper begins with a litany of strandings that have stayed below the radar of most observers, Read the rest of this entry »

What does it mean? How will this ruling affect the ongoing debate as the Navy rolls out its regional EISs to govern sonar training in offshore ranges around the US coastlines and Pacific ocean? It’s interesting to note that the Navy did not appeal two aspects of the lower courts’ safety measures: establishing a 12-mile coastal buffer and avoiding a key biologically rich area in the offshore California range that this case concerned. A key issue in the EIS process is shaping up to be the Navy’s reluctance to set any areas off limits for sonar training; some observers speculate that the Navy’s hard line on this in draft EIS’s is designed to give them room to “give” a bit here in final negotiations with regulators and environmental advocates. It is also worth noting that the Navy did not appeal additional safety measures that were imposed by a Hawaiian court at nearly the same time as this California court made its decision;it appears that the California approach, which imposed shut-downs at larger distances (rather than simply reducing power gradually as whales came closer), and ordered mandatory power-downs in surface duct conditions whether whales were present or not, was too absolute for the Navy to accept, while the Hawaiian approach, which called for gradual shifts of operational procedures only when whales were observed, was deemed less disruptive to Naval training needs. Read the rest of this entry »

 This week, the Supreme Court ruled in the Winter v. NRDC case, finding that that the District Court “failed properly to defer to senior Navy officers’ specific, predictive judgments” about how the Court-imposed additional safety measures would impact the Navy’s ability to effectively train its personnel. The case addressed only two specific additional safety requirements that the Navy had appealed (it chose not to appeal 4 others): a much larger (over a mile) safety zone requiring shut-down of sonar whenever whales were present, and reduced power when surface ducts were present. Three opinions were written, expressing the range of responses among the nine Justices: Read the rest of this entry »

For two hours on Wednesday, the long-running dispute between the Navy and NRDC over mid-frequency active sonar had its day in the Supreme Court, and while the Justices did broach some questions about the relative likelihood of harm to cetaceans or Navy training, the legal case itself rests on more procedural grounds having to do with the powers of Federal Judges to invoke new environmental standards, and of the Executive Branch to set aside judicial rulings in the name of national security. Court watchers suggested that the Justices seemed to split in a traditional left-right formation, based on comments made during the hearing. A ruling is not expected until spring. Read the rest of this entry »

AEI laymans summary of the following paper:
Hester, Peltzer, Kirkwood, Brewer. Unanticipated consequences of ocean acidification: A noisier ocean at lower pH. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, L19601.

This is a theoretical, rather than field research, study that calculates the likely current and future decreases in sound absorption caused by increasing ocean acidity (lower pH). The bottom line result is sobering for anyone who is already concerned about the rising tide of ambient noise in the world’s oceans. Increasing shipping noise, in particular, is reducing the effective communication ranges of great whales and creating an urbanized environment in many coastal areas. This research suggests that the well-documented increases in ocean acidification are already helping sound to travel further, with dramatic increases likely in coming decades.

The paper considers four causes of increasing ocean acidity, including deposition of CO2, Nitrogen, and Sulphur, and some chemical effects of warming (which itself contributes in a much smaller way to decreased sound absorption). The net result is that it appears likely that low- and mid-frequency sound absorption has already decreased by 10-15% as ocean pH has gone down by .12; Read the rest of this entry »

Miller, Solangi, Kuczaj II. Immediate reponse of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins to high-speed personal watercraft in the Mississippi Sound. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (2008), 88:1139-1143 [ABSTRACT, CONTACT AUTHOR]

This study, using opportunistic observations in the Mississippi Sound (a 90-mile intercoastal waterway, between the coast and a series of barrier islands; depths up to 20 feet), evaluated the responses of bottlenose dolphins to the appearance of personal watercraft (jetskis). In just under half the incidents, a dolphin group’s behaviour changing within one minute of the presence of a high-speed personal watercraft. The most notable changes were that groups that were feeding shifted dramatically to “traveling”mode. Interestingly, groups of dolphins that were already in “traveling” mode often paused and began “milling.” In addition, mean dive duration increased dramatically, from 12-16 seconds to 42-82 seconds. Researchers note that “The results demonstrated an immediate, short-term change in dolphin behaviour, suggesting that an increase in the frequency of high-speed personal watercraft in this area could produce long-term detrimental effects.” The authors suggest more research into the differences in reactions to high-speed and lower-speed jetskis and the effects of increasing distance of jetski approach; in addition, they note that long term studies of growth and reproduction in places with different densities of personal watercraft would help clarify any population-level impacts that may accumulate over time.

An interesting sidelight to this research highlights the difficulty inherent in almost all field research of cetaceans: the study took place over two years, four days per month, and resulted in 329 encounters with dolphin groups, among which there 137 instances in which a watercraft passed by. However, only 17 of these 137 were suitable for the study purposes (ie, they were high speed personal watercraft, and 10 minutes of video of the dolphins was captured before the watercraft passed). Two years of diligent study resulted in just 17 useable encounters! And, truthfully, n=17 is pretty impressive compared to most cetacean field studes….

The BBC has run a three-story series that reflects on the stranding deaths of six beaked whales during NATO sonar training exercises in late September 2002. Coming two years after a similar incident in the Bahamas during a US Navy sonar training exercise, the Canaries stranding cemented a growing concern about the potential for injury in the deep-diving beaked whale family. Studies that took place in nearby Las Palmas revealed the first clear evidence of tissue damage in the injured whales, and while scientists still are not certain of what sort of disruptions in the dive patterns may cause the injuries, this set of tissue lesions has become a “smoking gun” for sonar-induced injury. Read the rest of this entry »

Oral arguments on the California sonar case will take place before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 8, in the culmination of perhaps the most convoluted sonar challenge to date. The case began as a simple NEPA challenge to routine Naval sonar training off the Southern California coast in early 2007, and has turned into a test of the powers of both the executive and judicial branches to set environmental standards. Read the rest of this entry »

A new Draft Overseas EIS released by the Navy shifts the preferred site for a long-planned sonar training range from North Carolina to Florida, near Jacksonville. The 575 square mile Undersea Warfare Training Range would be outfitted with a grid of instrumentation which is designed to provide detailed feedback during training missions using mid-frequency active sonar. The instrumentation, including passive listening devices, would also allow for more robust monitoring for marine mammals. Read the rest of this entry »

LAY SUMMARY OF THE FOLLOWING RESEARCH REPORT: 
Jochens, A., D. Biggs, K. Benoit-Bird, D. Engelhaupt, J. Gordon, C. Hu, N. Jaquet, M. Johnson, R. Leben, B. Mate, P. Miller, J. Ortega-Ortiz, A. Thode, P. Tyack, and B. Würsig. 2008. Sperm whale seismic study in the Gulf of Mexico: Synthesis report. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2008-006. 341 pp. [DOWNLOAD REPORT]
For four summers, from 2002-2005, a diverse team of researchers studied the sperm whale populations of the northern Gulf of Mexico; this final report presents the results of three distinct lines of research: to learn more about the population sizes, social patterns, and group and individual behavior of this population of sperm whales, to characterize habitat use in this area, and to examine possible changes in behavior in response to the noise of seismic survey airguns. By all accounts, the study was very successful on the first two counts, dramatically increasing our understanding of the overall populations and habitat use, especially in the key areas of the Gulf where the oil and gas industry is moving into deeper waters. It is the third topic, effects of noise, that especially interest us here at AEI, and on this count, the results were not as clear-cut. Over the course of two field seasons in which researchers attached acoustic D-tags to sperm whales, only a total of eight whales were tagged and subsequently exposed via controlled exposure to air guns towed by ships participating in the study. Read the rest of this entry »

The Minerals Management Service has released the final report of the Sperm Whale Seismic Study, which lasted five years and used acoustic D-tags that track the movements of whales while also recording received sound levels. Unfortunately, few of the 98 whales that were successfully tagged during the study came any closer than 5km to the seismic survey air guns being used as the test sound source, so the final conclusions only address long-range impacts. According to Doug Biggs of Texas A&M, one of the lead scientists, “The bottom line is that airgun noise from seismic surveys that are thousands of yards distant does not drive away sperm whales living in the Gulf.” Biggs also noted that some individual whales feeding at depth reduced the rate at which they made echolocation clicks while in search of prey when the air guns came closer; not enough instances of this occurred during the study to make definitive conclusions about how large an impact this might cause. The study provided a wealth of new information about the Gulf of Mexico sperm whale population, which appears to be genetically distinct from open-ocean sperm whale stockes, smaller in size and with distict vocalization patterns. Sources: PhysOrg.com, 8/21/08 [READ ARTICLE]  ScienceDaily/Texas A&M, 8/21/08 [READ ARTICLE]