Subject: Info: Puget Sound SOUNDS expt.
Michael Williamson (pita@whale.simmons.edu)
Thu, 23 May 1996 10:58:54 -0400 (EDT)
More info on research in Puget Sound.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 10:00:54 EST
From: Dagmar_Fertl@smtp.mms.gov
To: Multiple recipients of list MARMAM <MARMAM@UVVM.BITNET>
Subject: news clip - underwater sounds
By PEGGY ANDERSEN
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE (AP) -- Environmentalists and operators of whale-watching
boats say they are concerned that a proposed underwater sound
experiment off the coast of Washington state could harm local marine
mammals.
Scientists want to send bursts of sound through Haro Strait to
learn more about the "front" where salt and fresh waters meet in the
channel between the San Juan Islands and Canada's Vancouver Island.
"The only way you can communicate underwater is using sound. That's
what whales have known for millions and millions of years," said
Henrik Schmidt, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology who requested a marine mammal harassment
permit for the Navy-funded study.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has solicited public comments
about the 26-day experiment, which is scheduled to begin June 10.
The marine mammals that would be affected include killer whales,
also called orcas, harbor seals, and harbor and Dall's porpoises.
"Probably the orcas won't even notice we are there," Schmidt said.
Others aren't so sure.
The strait "is not a vast ocean ... it's a narrow highway that the
orcas travel through," said Peter Hamilton of the Lifeforce
Foundation, an environmental group in Vancouver, British Columbia.
While the researchers' permit application suggests animals that are
bothered can just swim away, Hamilton says it will take time for area
marine life to learn that the noise is harmful. His group wants the
researchers to shut off their equipment when they know whales and
other marine mammals are nearby.
The Northwest Whale-Watcher Operators Association, whose 18 member
companies take people out to observe the whales and other marine life,
voted 17-1 to oppose the project -- despite a bylaw that calls for
them to support and encourage research.
The scientists "just don't know what it's going to do. The industry
just doesn't want to take the chance," said group president Roy
Sayvetz from the Vashon Island offices of his Island Institute.
Also, Sayvetz said, the experiment is planned for the height of the
tourist season "when there are more whales around than any other time
of year."
Patrick Miller, a graduate student in biology both at MIT and at
the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution, has a separate grant
from the Office of Naval Research to monitor the experiment's impact
on wildlife.
He maintains that more noise is made for longer periods by boats --
including whale-watching boats -- and by fish finders, bottom sonars
and deterrent devices at hatcheries.
"It (the noise) might not bother them (the killer whales and other
marine mammals) at all," he said. "They seem to be awfully resilient"
about noise from area boat traffic.
The fisheries service has noted that most of the sounds planned for
the study are at levels so low they do not require authorization. The
researchers "are correctly taking a cautious approach" because of
recent controversy surrounding acoustic research off the California
coast by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the federal agency
said.
The researchers plan to transmit sound -- in short-term clicks --
from several points for about four hours a day. Two underwater robots
will be used to collect data. The frequencies involved in the Haro
Strait study will be much lower than those used by Scripps, Schmidt
said.
The researchers are consulting with whale study groups and trying
to keep the process as open as possible, he noted -- to the extent of
creating a web page on the Internet
(file://sardine.whoi.edu/pub/html/haro.html) for those with an
interest in submarine acoustics.
The researchers are making every effort to reduce the impact of
their experiment, said Miller, who was invited to participate when he
raised concerns about the project.
In addition, an independent panel of four area scientists will
follow the effort and can call for suspending the experiment if there
is evidence of harm, Miller said.
The permit application suggests that the study's effects on marine
mammals could include harassment, temporary or permanent hearing loss,
habitat displacement or even death, though it says any harmful effects
will be addressed with an effective monitoring plan.
Miller said even temporary hearing loss was unlikely.
The loudest sounds will register about 195 decibels. That's about
the equivalent on land of a 135-decibel jet takeoff, Miller said,
though he noted that is an ongoing sound, not short-term clicks like
the sounds that will be used for the experiment.
"Animals have been shown to respond very differently to clicks ...
they have a very different impact than a long-duration sound," he
added.
An outboard motor registers about 170 decibels -- 110 decibels
underwater, he said, contending that only by monitoring the effects of
such sounds can society knowledgeably deal with the impact of boat and
ferry traffic on marine mammals.
Miller said he hopes his research "will give us some idea what
levels of sound actually matter to the animals" and help protect them.
Schmidt said the research is an environmental study "with no direct
military application whatsoever."
The salt and fresh water fronts the researchers want to study are
similar to those in the atmosphere, but little is known about how they
behave and develop, he said.
Killer whales pass down the front to feed on salmon drawn by food
that is stirred up there, he said. "The behavior of this front plays a
very important role for that ecosystem."
In the event of a major oil spill, the front would have a role "in
determining how oil is mixed with water mass," Schmidt said, noting
that 30 tankers a day pass through the strait.
"That's a very attractive goal," said Howard Garrett at the Center
for Whale Research, which has its headquarters at Friday Harbor in the
San Juans.
However, he said, he was not sure how the research would help
increase such understanding. He noted that the Coast Guard is already
quite familiar with area tides and currents.
Porpoises likely will be driven from the area by the noise, Garrett
said, though killer whales who avoid the area during the study would
have no difficulty finding food nearby.
The center, which monitors area killer-whale "pods" or family
groups, is "taking a sort of noninvolvement stance," but will alert
the study participants to any behavioral changes attributed to their
activities, Garrett said.
"They'll get to play with some very expensive toys and be on a nice
island," he said.