The latest in a series of studies looking at responses of beaked whales to Naval mid-frequency active sonar has provided some new details that reinforce our understanding that this family of deep-diving whales is extremely sensitive to noise intrusions.  The study, which took place on a US Navy training range in the Bahamas which is outfitted with seafloor recorders, found that beaked whales react to sonar signals below 142dB, and that they move an average of 16km away as soon as sonar operations begin, not returning until 2 to 3 days later.

It’s long been known that beaked whales tend to leave the range when exercises are taking place, but this study was the first time that some whales were tagged, to track exactly how far they went and how long they stayed away.

“Results… indicate that the animals prematurely stop vocalisations during a deep foraging dive when exposed to sonar. They then ascend slowly and move away from the source, but they do resume foraging dives once they are farther away,” said David Moretti, Principal Investigator for the US Navy.

“It was clear that these whales moved quickly out of the way of the [navy] sonars. We now think that, in some unusual circumstances, they are just unable to get out of the way and this ends up with the animals stranding and dying,” said Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientist on the research project. However, Boyd added “There is a tendency to blame the Navy for every stranding event and that is ridiculous.”

“Perhaps the most significant result from our experiments is the extreme sensitivity of these animals to disturbance,” said Boyd. “I am also worried that the general levels of sound that humans make in the ocean from all sorts of sources like ships, oil and gas exploration and renewable energy may be a much more serious problem for beaked whales and some other sensitive species.”

See good coverage from BBC and the Daily Mail, and read or download the research paper at PloS ONE.

US News has a good piece today on Bryan Pijanowski’s research team at Purdue, about how the new field of soundscape ecology may help us to understand ecosystem dynamics and changes.

This April, when you step outside and hear the first sounds of spring, you won’t be hearing just songbirds and buzzing insects, but aural evidence of an awakening ecosystem. The emerging science of soundscape ecology is building on the established field of bioacoustics to create a new way of gauging ecosystem health and diversity—by listening.

“Natural sounds can be used like a canary in a coal mine, as a critical first indicator of environmental changes,” said Bryan Pijanowski, an ecologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Pijanowski and his colleagues outlined their vision of soundscape ecology in the March issue of BioScience. The new field will take a much broader approach to collecting and evaluating sound than ever before, although the authors caution that no coherent theory yet exists to categorize the ecological significance of all the sounds emanating from a landscape.

Scientists have been using sound as a tool for studying the natural world for some time, mainly through bioacoustics, the study of sounds made by animals. But most of these studies tend to focus on one or two individuals at a time, said Jesse Barber, a sensory ecologist at Boise State University in Idaho, who was not part of Pijanowski’s team.

“Using sound to try to discern something about the ecosystem as a whole is what is novel about soundscape ecology,” Barber said.

Follow the link at the top of this post to read the whole article.

An Ontario Superior Court has dismissed a legal challenge to the province’s wind farm siting standards, which call for 550 meter (1800 foot) setbacks in most cases. The Court ruled that it could only judge whether the process of coming up with the regulations followed proper protocols, including public consultation and the use of science-based evidence in coming to its conclusions. That lifts a cloud of uncertainty from developers of wind farms, says the president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. “We’re expecting this to be a record year for wind development in Ontario,” Robert Hornung said in an interview. “This decision just helps everybody put their head down and focus on the work.”

“It is not the court’s function to question the wisdom of the minister’s decision, or even whether it was reasonable,” the court ruled Thursday. “If the minister followed the process mandates by the Environmental Bill of Rights, his decision is unassailable on a judicial review application.”

The Court pointed out that the province’s Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) can consider whether setbacks are reasonable, on a case-by-case basis.  In fact, an ERT review is currently underway, challenging the standard setbacks at a wind farm in Chatham-Kent, the first new wind farm to be permitted under the new law. Read the rest of this entry »

Great article in the New York Times on the strides made at Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco, in restoring natural quiet.

At times, deep within this vaulted chamber of redwoods, it is almost quiet enough to hear a banana slug slither by. For the National Park Service, that stillness is as vital a component of the site as the trees’ green needles, or the sudden darting rays of sunlight.

A decade after the agency resolved to restore natural sounds to this park in a metropolitan area of seven million people, managers at Muir Woods, in Marin Country just north of San Francisco, have made big strides in vanquishing intrusive noise. Now the background sounds are dominated by the burbling rush of Redwood Creek, the soft sibilant breeze that stirs the redwood branches, the croak of a crow.

Much more in the full article, including summary of National Park Service research on the effects of moderate noise on animals, and the recent Grand Canyon noise management plan.

Unbeknownst to most of us, a long-term National Forest Service approach to managing roads on its millions of acres of non-wilderness lands has been waiting for activation since January 2001, when the Forest Service finalized a plan for the long-term management of their oversized and under-maintained road system. That plan basically directed the agency to identify an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system that would meet resource management and recreational access needs. The plan projected that the agency might reduce the overall road system by more than 30%, and that as a result “unroaded” acreage might increase by up to 15% nationally.  Wildlands CPR fills us in on the details with this web post and a real nice pdf version of their magazine feature on the story.

A combination of political neglect and other factors has meant that even as the “minimum road system” goal remained on the books, and was part of the Travel Management Plan process that many forests engaged in over the past decade, implementation of the idea has never happened.

Now that has changed, with the release in late 2010 of a directive from the Forest Service Chief. The guidance memo directs all national forests to identify, through a science-based analysis, an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system by 2015.

In addition to the five years it will take to conduct this analysis nationally, it will likely take decades to actually implement the minimum system on-the-ground. But the plans developed through this process will, over the long-term, create a blueprint for future road maintenance and decommissioning investments, including Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative funding.

For those interested in large landscape connectivity for wildlife, this initiative presents an opportunity to reduce road densities as well as protect and restore linkages and core habitat. For those interested in clean water and fisheries, it is an opportunity to improve water quality and watershed health. And for those interested in fiscal responsibility, it is an opportunity to identify a road system that the Forest Service can afford to maintain.

Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would derail the National Park Service’s recently-released compromise plan to reduce noise levels in the Grand Canyon.  McCain’s initiative, apparently included in an amendment to another bill (details are sketchy so far, with nothing on McCain’s website so far), would declare that keeping half of Grand Canyon National Park relatively free of noise from air tours is good enough.  By contrast, the NPS proposal, which increased the total number of tourist flights allowed but concentrated them in smaller flight zones, would keep two-thirds of the canyon free of any aircraft noise (including commercial jets and non-tour private aircraft) for most of the day.

McCain seeks to codify what has been the Park’s modus operandi for the past 17 years, a 50% protection standard that was achievable without making major changes.  That interim approach was adopted while Park staff, environmental groups, and air tour operators attempted to come to a consensus on how to move forward.  While the NPS does not and cannot regulate commercial overflights, the sound from high-flying jets does impact the canyon, and the NPS included these sounds in its planning of air tour routes, so as to keep aircraft noise inaudible for 75% of the day in the “quiet” parts of the park (of course, allowing aircraft noise for 25% of the day hardly creates an experience of solitude…but this is part of the compromise that wilderness advocates are being asked to accept).  By not counting commercial flights in the total noise budget of the Park, McCain is rolling things backward.

The McCain approach would also do away with two of the Park Service’s key innovations: seasonal shifts of air tour routes, so that different parts of the park are quiet at different times of the year, and most importantly, the no-fly period that would keep the canyon truly quiet for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.

Ironically (or perhaps not, for those tracking the Maverick’s devolution over the past few years), McCain was the main proponent of the 1987 bill that set this process in motion, and called for “substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience of the park.”

Down East magazine, a Maine institution, has published a series of stories on wind power in Maine, with enough detail to be valuable to people in any rural state who are trying to find the proper balance on wind development.  The series includes in-depth articles on the University of Maine’s leadership in developing floating far-offshore wind farms and on controversy surrounding the potential for many ridgetop wind farms in the relatively wild mountains of western Maine, and an editorial noting the quick and fearful reactions of many communities to just the thought of a new wind farm.

In the article detailing facts about Maine’s current wind power sites and proposals (which reads as generally supportive of wind development), the short section on noise impacts, noting both the moderate noise levels and big impact reported by some neighbors, was followed by a surprisingly blunt recommendation about setbacks: “Half a mile, at minimum. But most agree that a mile is more advisable, as virtually no complaints have been lodged by neighbors this far from a wind turbine.”

The wildlands article makes the case for protecting Maine’s highest ridgetops (over 2700 feet) from development, and focusing on smaller-scale, distributed alternative energy generation, including solar as well as wind, built closer to existing power infrastructure.

The article on the future of floating offshore wind is especially inspiring.  The UMaine team plans to test three 1/3-scale turbines in 2012, with comprehensive environmental monitoring, including subsea impacts, and follow that with a full-scale 3-5MW turbine by 2014, the first “stepping stone” multi-turbine 25MW wind farm 20-50 miles offshore by 2016, and expansion to 500MW or more by 2020.   Here’s an excerpt:

“This is a one thousand-megawatt farm covering an eight-square-mile area,” says Habib Dagher, the man who created this vision and is now leading a team of engineers, environmental scientists, government policymakers, and offshore construction and energy industry leaders called the DeepCwind Consortium who hope to make it, the world’s first floating wind farm, a reality. “In the Gulf of Maine, that’s like an outhouse in the corner of a football field.”

Make that three outhouses. DeepCwind’s goal is to have three such wind farms bobbing twenty to fifty miles off the Maine coast and generating enough energy to power three million homes by 2030. It’s a breathtaking idea, and still it doesn’t fill the frame that has been drawn by Habib Dagher. He envisions Mainers converting to electricity to heat their homes and power their cars (the cost makes no sense now, he concedes, but it will in two decades, given the price increases predicted for fossil fuels) and the state becoming the Silicon Valley of offshore energy. Towers, blades, and other components will be manufactured right here, using technologies and materials pioneered by the University of Maine’s AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center, which he founded and directs.

For the first time, decades of oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico is being challenged in court, on the grounds that the noise of seismic surveys used to pinpoint oil reservoirs has a negative impact on the region’s endangered sperm whales.  A consortium of environmental groups, including the NRDC, CBD, and Sierra Club filed a formal notice of intent to sue, because 10 new oil exploration and development project have been approved in recent months without obtaining permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. “Seismic surveys have a vast environmental footprint, disrupting feeding and breeding of wildlife over great distances,” said Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “It is intolerable to think that the same species threatened by the Gulf spill will have to contend with the industry’s constant pounding, without any serious attempt to mitigate the harm.”

This legal challenge is similar to those mounted against Navy mid-frequency active sonar training, in that they are designed to assure that the behavioral impacts of seismic survey noise are considered, and that Incidental Harassment Authorizations are issued, with conditions meant to avoid any injury of animals, and minimize behavioral changes. The MMPA and ESA clearly require careful assessment and permitting of any activity that may negatively affect marine mammals or endangered species.

What is unclear, though, is how (if at all) oil and gas exploration activities might change after going through these proper legal challenges.  The US Navy now prepares full Environmental Impact Statements for all of its active sonar training areas, and receive IHAs from NOAA, but this legal compliance has not reduced their training activities or succeeded in putting any biologically rich areas off limits–in effect, NOAA has issued the permits after long official assessments that the activities have no significant impacts.  LIkewise, the oil and gas industry does have procedures in place to reduce sound output when animals are (very) close, and research into the behavioral effects of noise exposure at greater distances (lower sound levels) is ambiguous, though concerning.  See this earlier post about AEI’s work in this area, assessing research about behavioral impacts of moderate noise, including seismic.

The rhetoric from the litigants is surprisingly personal, implying that Gulf of Mexico exploration activity is being ramped up by this administration.  “Under Salazar’s watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of Mexico as a sacrifice zone where laws are disregarded and wildlife protection takes a backseat to oil-company profits,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity.  (See press release) What is unstated, and may in fact be more to the point, is that the Gulf has been a sacrifice zone for decades.  The fact is that these animal populations in this truly industrialized sea have been living with seismic exploration, drilling, and lots of ship traffic for many many years; some populations, including sperm whales, appear stable. While some may suggest this reinforces NOAA’s current stance that the activities do not cause any significant impact on wildlife, and others (including AEI) say it’s clearly long past time to consider the cumulative and long-term impacts of this activity on marine life, the villain is not Ken Salazar.  It’s our continuing addiction to oil, pushing us to search in ever deeper and more hazardous waters to fill our boundless needs.

A new study reveals yet another family of ocean life previously thought to be deaf actually use sound to avoid potentially dangerous areas.  It’s the latest fascinating study from a collaboration between British and Australian scientists that has been revolutionizing our understanding of the role of acoustic ecology in reef habitats. In this study, crustaceans that feed on plankton avoided reef sounds; such reefs are home to fish that would enjoy a crustacean lunch.

Many such small crustaceans are foundations of vast ocean food webs. Co-author Dr Andy Radford, who is leading a major project in Bristol to investigate the impact of anthropogenic noise on marine animals, said: “This highlights just how damaging the impacts of human noise pollution may be for so many different creatures.  Chronic noise from shipping, drilling and mining may mask crucial natural sounds, causing animals to make poor or even fatal decisions, which in turn will threaten vital fisheries and tourism resources.”

Coral reefs are noisy places, and this noise can be an important cue for animal orientation. Dr. Steve Simpson is quoted in a University of Bristol press release: “The combination of clicks, pops, chirps and scrapes produced by resident fish, snapping shrimp, lobsters and urchins can be detected with our hydrophones from many kilometres away.  Our research has already found that reef noise is used by the larvae of fish and even corals to locate and select habitat after their early development in the open ocean, but using noise to avoid reefs, that is a first.”

The mechanism of hearing in these tiny creatures is poorly understood, although co-author Dr Andrew Jeffs and his group from the University of Auckland have found that both tropical and temperate water crabs and lobsters are attracted by the noise of their adult habitat.  Dr Jeffs said: “It is clear that some crustaceans use sounds for orientation, and that noise can induce a downward-swimming response. But this study throws wide open our understanding of crustacean hearing, and much more research is now needed to understand how and what these little critters can hear.”

The National Park Service has released its proposed air tour management rules for the Grand Canyon.  Key features of the plan include increased flight altitudes near North Rim overlooks, reducing flights in Marble Canyon, moving routes away from some key visitor use areas, and establishing an hour-long flight-free period for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.  This last change will be especially appreciated by backcountry hikers and river-runners, for it provides two hours a day of true extended natural quiet, at the times when the soft, rich light brings the canyons walls most subtly and dramatically alive.

The proposal caps nearly 25 years of work, initiated in the wake of a 1987 congressional mandate to come up with a plan that “provides for substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience” of the Canyon.  The proposal would allow slightly more flights than are currently operating, but would largely concentrate them in one long and one short flight loop. The plan is now available for download and public comment through early June.  The NPS press release notes that the plan should increase the area of the park experiencing substantial natural quiet for most of the day from just over half to close to two thirds.  The objective measurement standard used by the Park Service defines substantial natural quiet to mean that in these areas, no aircraft will be audible for at least 75% of the day; so, you might hear a plane for up to one minute of every four, or fifteen minutes of each hour, though undoubtedly there will be some areas of the park far enough from the flight routes that the noise will be very faint and far less common.  Once we have time to read the full Draft EIS, it may become clearer whether there are some areas in the park that are virtually free of air tour noise (commercial airline flights regularly pass directly over the park; the plan does not suggesting shifting these routes).

The busiest year on record, 2005, saw 57,000 air tour flights provide birds-eye-views of the Canyon to over 400,000 visitors annually; the new plan would allow up to 65,000 flights annually, and up to 364 flights a day, 50 more than the busiest day on record.  Initial reactions from the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club, both of which have pushed for flight regulations, has been supportive.

Update, 2/4/11: Steve Bassett, president of the U.S. Air Tour Association, characterized the National Park Service’s recommendations for the Grand Canyon as “unconscionable” and the document as “designed to drive the industry out of existence.”  His objections are largely centered on the requirement that within ten years, all planes must be modern low-noise aircraft. He also objected to the annual cap of 65,000 flights, claiming that the annual number of “possible flights” is now 94,000 (presumably this totals all current operators, if they all flew the maximum number of flights possible per day; in fact, as noted above, the busiest year on record saw a demand for just 57,000 actual flights).

Update 2/6/11: Good article from Las Vegas newspaper, stressing the role of Grand Canyon tourism as part of what Vegas visitors want to experience, often by air.

Update 2/7/11: Good detailed post from National Parks Traveller, including longer response quotes from Park staff and conservationists.  One key piece: the plan continues the practice of allowing flights over the canyon near Hermit’s Rest, a popular spot for short hikes into the canyon:
“We had advocated that they move the Hermit flight path a little bit further to the west so that it really didn’t affect people who would take a quiet stroll down from Hermit’s Rest, down that little canyon,” said NPCA’s Mr. Nimkin. “That’s where you can sit there and every 90 seconds have a helicopter or a plane flying overhead. It would seem like that’s a pretty highly visited area, maybe one of the only times that people who are taking a shuttle out to the end of the road there would sort of stroll down into the canyon. To have that be the flight path seems inconsistent.”

See earlier AEInews coverage of Grand Canyon overflights here.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010, championed by John Kerry and the National Federation for the Blind, was signed in early January by President Obama. Spurred by concerns that new, near-silent vehicles may pose a danger to both the blind and those not paying attention visually, the law will eventually require all vehicles on the road to make some sound to help keep pedestrians safe. For now, the law calls on the Secretary of Transportation to “study and establish a motor vehicle safety standard that provides for a means of alerting blind and other pedestrians of motor vehicle operation.”

This year’s new entrants in the electic car sweepstakes already include features that help with this problem. The Nissan Leaf makes a sound to warn pedestrians when traveling at slow speeds (at higher speeds tire noise is sufficient), and the Chevy Volt includes a chirping sound that can be triggered by the driver (as a subtler alternative to the horn).

For a look at some sound design concepts for electric vehicles, see this AEINews post from about a year ago.

Repost of a column by park staff, printed in the Valley Courier, the local paper in nearby Alamosa, Colorado:

Have you ever heard the rustling sound of a bird’s wings flapping overhead…before you saw the bird? What about the sound of a rabbit chewing on a blade of grass? Most Americans don’t have the opportunity to hear those subtle sounds of nature at home, thanks to the backdrop of human-produced noises which drown them out.

Many people, however, say that the opportunity to hear natural sounds is an important reason to protect national parks, based on a 1998 study of the American public. And most respondents to a 1995 survey of national park visitors said that enjoying the sounds of nature and natural quiet were compelling reasons to visit national parks.

But-what exactly is ‘natural quiet’? Most of us would say that it’s the sounds of nature without an overlay of traffic, airplanes, machinery and other kinds of human-produced sounds. But anyone who has ever spent a windy night camping at the Dunes knows that windy nights might be ‘natural’…but they’re sure not ‘quiet’!

In order to learn just how quiet-or not–the natural world is at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the National Park Service’s Natural Sounds Program installed a temporary acoustic monitoring station Read the rest of this entry »

Jump on over to Scientific American to read this great overview of the many different ways that animals are using to adapt to increasing human noise in their habitats. The author is an NYU science reporting student, and she promises a new sound blog soon on Scienceline….

Can you hear me now? Animals all over the world are finding interesting ways to get around the human din

Seven years after the Southern resident killer whale population in Puget Sound was declared endangered, US government regulators appear poised to finally enact new regulations to protect orcas from boat noise in key foraging areas. In 2009, NOAA proposed increasing the minimum buffer that boats must give orcas, from 100 yards to 200 yards, and creating a half-mile “no go” zone along the entire west side of San Juan Island, where orcas gather to feed.  After extending the comment period into early 2010, finally – a year later – NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has formally completed its analysis process; now, the Department of Commerce and Office of Management and Budget must OK the plan before the new rules go into effect, hopefully before this summer’s whalewatching season.

Reducing boat noise is a key piece of the puzzle for orca health.  Several recent research projects have identified impacts of boat noise, including reducing foraging time and interfering with communication.  The primary direct cause of orca decline is malnutrition as salmon runs decline; for this reason, it’s crucial that orcas are not impeded by boat noise as they seek out the fewer salmon that remain.

Seattle’s Q13 Fox News has covered the story well in recent months, including a recent update, along with a three part series that ran in November 2010 (all four stories have video components).

On the Canadian side of the border, things are moving even more slowly.  In December, a Canadian court ruled that the Canadian government’s approach, which uses voluntary guidelines, is not sufficient in dealing with an endangered species.  But Canadian officials have appealed that ruling, and it appears that nothing will change for the foreseeable future.

“It’s another season where we’re allowing more stress to be put on these animals.  You have to start asking how much more they can take?  If you ask anyone, a politician anybody about the Orca they would say they’re wonderful and beautiful and magnificent.  Why is it we can’t turn that into action?” asks Christine Wilhelmson of the Georgia Strait Alliance.

Follow this link for all previous AEI News coverage of orca issues.

Been wondering what’s the latest on the Snowmobiles in Yellowstone front?  Then head on over to this good long article from New West, which sketches the history and explores the current tone in gateway communities.

The short story is that after spending the summer accepting public comments on the latest round of “permanent” winter use planning, the Park is operating this winter is operating under the same temporary plan as last year, which allows 318 snowmobiles per day.  Local businesses are adapting to the changing clientele, which includes more skiers and snow-coach tour riders, and far fewer snowmobilers.  My only quibble with the article’s narrative is that it downplays what appears to have been the key factor that has reduced snowmobile use: while the Bush administration overturned the Clinton-era ban which was about to go into effect, and set much higher daily limits (750 machines), a requirement was added that ALL snowmobilers must be part of guided tours.  The loss of free-wheeling exploration by groups of friends led to several winters in which the daily limits were rarely reached; there is plenty of gorgeous National Forest land in the region where snowmobilers can romp freely, so why putter along on group tours in the Park?

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is going back to the table to write a new EA or EIS to assess the impacts of exploratory oil and gas wells in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge in southern Colorado.  After initial approvals were derailed by a lawsuit and injunction that stressed the noise impacts of drilling at Great Sand Dunes National Park, the FWS settled the lawsuit in September by withdrawing its previous approvals and agreeing to more comprehensive environmental studies.  Wasting no time, the scoping meetings for the new EA or EIS took place in late October, and scoping comments are being accepted until November 10, after which FWS will begin writing a new EA; if significant impacts are found, an EIS will be produced. A pdf version of the FWS Powerpoint at the public meeting can be viewed online. Drilling operations at each of the two sites would last for 90 days; if the exploratory wells find significant potential for commercial development, further environmental analysis would precede any future activity on the Refuge.

Baca National Wildlife Refuge

The Baca NWR was established in 2003 and is not yet open to the public; a “conceptual management plan” was released in 2005; the lack of a completed management plan was part of the reason that the earlier drilling was challenged.

In September, the Arizona Game and Fish Department released a noise study for a proposed shooting range on a site that lies 1-3 miles from the boundary of Walnut Canyon National Monument, east of Flagstaff. The results have spurred the Superintendent of Walnut Canyon to express concerns to the Game and Fish Department about the effects of the noise on visitors and wildlife, in the hopes that planned berming and other noise mitigation measures at the facility can reduce noise to the point that it is inaudible in key areas.

The Foster Ranch Shooting Range site was purchased last year after a 16-year effort to find a suitable location for a state-run range in Northern Arizona; previous sites fell victim to local resistance or grazing leases that were still active.  The noise study found that shooting was audible, but well within state noise limits, at all locations monitored, which included a nearby residence, random sites a mile away, and one site at Walnut Canyon, 3 miles from the range (download pdf of study). At Walnut Canyon, gunshot noise ranged up to 52dB, Read the rest of this entry »

I was pleased to be able to attend the 8th Wind and Wildlife Research Meeting, which took place in Denver from October 19-21.  Sponsored by the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative, this event brings together folks from agencies, the academic research community, some NGOs, and the wind industry.  The major focus is direct impacts on wildlife, including bat and bird strikes and habitat disruptions (see this recap of the meeting from NWCC, and view or download most presentations and posters here). This year, for the first time, noise had a place at the table, with an oral presentation by one of the lead researcher on the recent breakthrough National Park Service research into animal listening areas (see this AEInews post), and a poster by yours truly, embedded below.

In conversations with participants, there was a lot of interest in the emerging fact that even moderate noise levels can have a dramatic effect on animals nearby.  I stressed the point that while noise may rarely be a primary factor in animal impacts, the increased stress caused by dealing with elevated noise levels can often create synergistic effects that amplify the effects of other known impacts.

My detailed poster introduced what is known about individual variability to noise within animal populations, summarized some impacts of moderate noise on wildlife, explained noise levels around wind farms, and suggested several situations in which noise impacts on a more-sensitive subset of the local population could be a factor in wind farm impact planning (click image to view on SlideShare, or click full screen to view larger):

Zion National Park has become the first of its brethren to adopt a formal Soundscape Management Plan, the culmination of three years of work.  For the first time, soundscape measurement metrics that have been in development at the NPS Natural Sounds Program office in Ft. Collins, Colorado, will be driving forces in ongoing Park management and assessment procedures.  One of these metrics is the “noise-free interval,” or average time between the audible presence of human sound.  According to Frank Turina, an NPS Natural Sound Program planner, “Now it’s two to three minutes before you hear a human-caused sound, usually involving an overflight, and we want to expand that to a seven-minute period. If we meet that goal we will reassess the situation to see if a longer interval is warranted.”

While some environmental groups had pushed for the Park Service to set a higher standard for back country visitors, this first step, if successful, would effectively reduce sound intrusions to less than half their current level.  And the fact is, even this first step will depend on cooperation from the Federal Aviation Administration, which has so far been slow to take on the necessary shared responsibility for National Park overflight issues.

In more active areas of the Park, such as around visitor centers and within the first mile of trailheads, where the vast majority of visitors spend their time, the goal is to reduce noise by changing some Park staff and maintenance procedures. For example, the use of leafblowers may be reduced in favor of rakes, and new vehicles will be assessed for possible noise-reduction systems.  “Surveys have shown that 90 percent of people who visit the national parks want natural quiet and to be able to hear the sounds of nature,” said Kezia Nielson, who worked on the plan. “They cannot have that experience with human-caused sound.”

For more, see this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, or visit the NPS Natural Sounds Program website.

David Abram, whose widely acclaimed first book, The Spell of the Sensuous, addressed the mixed legacy of the written word in our culture, has released a new one, Becoming Animal, which draws on another decade of deep experience with the human and more-than-human world.  While the first book was his Ph.D. project, and veered deeply into academic phenomenology in an effort to contribute some fresh ideas in that field, the new one is much more rooted in David’s stellar storytelling voice.  David’s always been a strong advocate for my work with acoustic ecology, as his vision has much in common with our intention to listen more clearly to the voices around us.

Learn more about Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology on David’s Alliance for Wild Ethics website; there are a few short videos there as well, providing a quick taste of his uniquely engaged mind and heart.

An article in Der Spiegel reveals that the environmental impact study at a 12-turbine wind farm 30km off the coast of Germany has reported that during construction of the turbines, porpoises avoided an area in a 20-mile radius of the two-square mile construction site.  Harbor porpoises are well known to be more sensitive to sound than many ocean creatures, and may serve as a sort of “canary in the construction zone,” their stark behavioral response standing as an indicator of noise levels that likely interfere with other animals, as well.

Future construction could affect a far larger number of animals than the relatively modest construction that has taken place so far. (click to see larger Der Spiegel image)

Wyoming has been at the center of the storm over how much wind farm developers should be subject to limits on development in the name of protecting wildlife habitat, thanks to the hot-button issue of the sage grouse, which has been dancing on the edge of federal endangered species listing for several years. In general, with the exception of bird and bat deaths caused by flying into or near whirling turbine blades, wind farms have been assumed to be benign in relation to wildlife habitat.  The noise made by turbines is considered to be moderate enough to have minimal impact on nearby wildlife (though recent National Park Service research that quantifies the dramatic reductions in listening area caused by small increases in background noise may eventually change this thinking).

This week, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department approved a set of recommendations that will guide the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council on permit applications for major projects in the state, including wind farms numbering at least 30 turbines. Under the guidelines, construction activity will be halted within two miles of an active grouse lek during the mating season each spring, though turbines will be allowed to operate in any location more than a quarter mile from a lek (increased to six tenths of a mile for one species). Restrictions on wind farms within two miles of wildlife refuges were softened in the final draft, which requires simply that developers coordinate with the Game and Fish Department and US Fish and Wildlife Service when building near refuges or state wildlife management areas.  Developers are urged to avoid big game wintering and birthing ranges, but if siting in these areas “cannot be avoided,” then construction activity must cease during the relevant times of year; again, construction is assumed to be a disturbance, while operations are assumed to be benign.

Many ranchers opposed the new rules, citing private property rights, while environmental advocates urged larger buffers, including six-tenths of a mile for all species. “You’ve got one set of concerns saying we don’t have enough restriction, and the other side saying we’ve got way too much,” WGFD deputy director John Emmerich said. “I think we’ve done a credible job of trying to address the needs for wildlife and still accommodate reasonable levels of development.”

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner and Casper Tribune, and download the recommendations here.

UPDATE 3/25: In response to a quick wave of outrage on editorial pages and some Park Service lobbying, Senator McCain has withdrawn his proposed amendment.  It remains to be seen whether he will let the NPS EIS process set the final rules, or seek to have the Senate write rules if the process lags or heads toward a resolution that differs from his sense of the proper balance.

That John McCain can sure be a puzzle.  Or is it a case of the old maverick’s bait and switch, staking the high moral ground while pursuing a typically old-guard agenda?  Whatever he’s up to, let’s hope the rest of his Senate colleagues don’t buy into it.  Way back in 1987 McCain led the push to enact the National Parks Overflights Act, which called for the FAA and NPS to come up with a plan to reduce the aircraft noise experienced by Grand Canyon visitors.  This was a truly welcome and indeed, maverick move.  In the 23 years since then,  as noted by the Arizona Republic this week, “the process of adopting a noise-management plan often seemed to move at the same geological pace as the forces shaping the Canyon. ”  This has frustrated advocates for natural quiet, and it has frustrated Senator McCain.  So when the Senator introduced an amendment last week to codify air tour rules, saying that  the amendment reduces excessive aircraft noise “without waiting another 23 years for progress,” it might appear that he’s still taking the high road, standing up to the ridiculous bureaucracy.

But wait: what the good Senator neglected to mention is that the NPS Environmental Impact Statement governing overflights is due out sometime in April.  Yes, the 23-year wait is at its end, after years of collaborative dialogue and NPS research, and within a few weeks, we’ll see what the NPS has proposed.  Yet for some reason, the great champion of the process wants to undercut that work and impose his own version of what would be right and good.  According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the plan McCain is putting forward would allow more air tours than are currently permitted, and otherwise constrain the Park Service’s ability to manage air tours in order to fulfill the original 1987 Act’s stated purpose of “substantial restoration of natural quiet.”  While most of McCain’s amendment seems to mimic what the NPS has indicated it’s aiming for, an FAA-convened working group fell apart over some of the NPS ideas, seasonal limits on certain popular air-tour corridors.  Air tour managers were upset at some NPS provisions, and in the wake of the group’s failure, the FAA’s role is diminished as the NPS moves ahead.  While the EIS is due in April, comment period will follow, and of course, lawsuits by air tour groups or environmentalists looking for more quiet could also delay implementation.  All this may well fuel McCain’s efforts to get something closer to the FAA or air tour groups’ sense of a fair balance into law, rather than wait through the likely challenges.

The Senate is likely to vote on McCain’s amendment this week; the measure may well slip through, as it is co-sponsored by both Arizona and both Nevada Senators (yes, Harry Reid); many air tours originate in Las Vegas.  The NPCA is urging members to call their Senators, and the Arizona Republic also weighed in against short-circuiting the nearly completed EIS.  (Ironically, the NPCA honored McCain in 2001 for his leadership on the overflight issue.)  See also Senator McCain’s floor statement, and the text of his amendment.  If you do call your Senator, this is Amendment 3528, being attached to the Senate’s consideration of HR 1586, which proposes a tax on bonuses paid by some recipients of TARP funds.

A key research paper from National Park Service and Colorado State scientists has been published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.  The paper, which got a lot of press when it was first made available online in the fall, introduces two key new metrics for measuring the effects of noise on animals.  The first, “alerting distance,” is the distance at which sounds can be heard: these may be sounds made by a species to alert others to danger, or sounds made by predators (which prey animals want to hear, so as to take cover).  The second, is “listening area,” the full area around an animal in which it can hear other animals’ calls, footsteps, and wingbeats.  A key insight offered by this approach is that even moderate increases in background noise (from nearby roads, airplanes, or wind farms) can drastically reduce an animal’s listening area.  The paper, which was free while in pre-press, is now available only to subscribers to the journal or other academic journal services; an article published in Park Science magazine and free to view online introduces much of the same material (be sure to click on the links to the figures, as they illustrate the concepts very well): see the article here, and check out the entire special soundscapes issue of Park Science here.

A very good article in the Aspen Times introduces the research, and includes many extremely insightful quotes from the researchers.  Go read the whole article! Three bits that are especially worth keeping mind are:

• “The male sage grouse, in its mating displays, produces high-frequency popping sounds and swishing sounds,” Fristrup said. “It also uses a low-pitch hooting sound, which carries the farthest from the display area as a long-distance advertisement. The danger is, it doesn’t take a lot of noise to substantially reduce the range at which females or other males could hear that low-frequency hoot. So the attraction radius of the display ground could contract substantially with the inability to hear a hoot.” The authors note that some species can reduce the effects of masking by shifting their vocalizations. This is especially true when members of a species are communicating with each other. However, when the sounds a species depends on emanate from another species (such as a mouse burrowing under the snow, which an owl needs to hear as it hunts), there is less room for compensation.
• Carnivores like lynx, who sit at the top of the food chain, can be particularly sensitive to habitat degradation of any type — including auditory — since each individual requires a huge hunting territory. “If one part of the range of a top-level predator is compromised, it may not take much to squeeze it out,” Fristrup said.
• Contrary to what one might expect, noise is not always more disruptive when it’s louder. Snowmobiles or cars, for example, might be less disruptive to elk or deer than a hiker or cross county skier would be. “There’s pretty good evidence that so-called quiet use can disturb wildlife. If it’s a noisy source, the animal perceives it a long way off and can track its progress. There are no surprises, and it can go on feeding or doing whatever else. A quiet sound, like a snowshoer’s footstep, is only perceptible when it is very close, potentially startling the animal,” Fristrup said.

To read AEI’s detailed lay summary of the research paper, published here in December, see this link.

Zion National Park is gearing up to begin incorporating soundscape planning into their management priorities.  Park Superintendent Jock Whitworth has announced two open houses in March on the topic, and public comments are being accepted until April 9 as part of an initial information-gathering stage.  This will inform the drafting of a Soundscape Management Plan Environmental Assessment, which will aim to to link soundscape management to the existing park management direction, and “ensure that natural soundscapes are protected for present and future generations.”

Zion NP. Photo: David Iliff

To participate in the public comment process, see this National Park planning page.

You can also learn more about the Park Service’s efforts to protect natural soundscapes by visiting the NPS Natural Sounds Program website, and by reading this 2007 review of Park Service soundscape management by sound consultant Nick Miller.