What is Noise Pollution?
Noise pollution is the introduction of unwanted, damaging or harassing man-made noise into the environment. In the marine environment, most of the noise pollution comes from increasing vessel traffic, the use of larger vessels, seismic and sonar exploration by the oil industry and military sonar.
How does Noise Pollution affect cetaceans?
As cetaceans are highly dependent on sound for survival, noise can have serious effects on their lives: it can prevent or reduce communication between animals; decrease hunting success by interfering with the ability of the animal to echolocate or hear prey, affect predator evasion, drive cetaceans away from important feeding or breeding areas and in some cases can cause physical injury and death.
Noise Pollution in Trinidad and Tobago
Noise pollution is a growing concern in Trinidad and Tobago due to the increase in local vessel traffic especially large commercial vessels with loud engines. The oil industry also contributes to ocean noise pollution especially during oil exploration exercises but there is a growing attempt to reduce the impact of these activities on turtles and cetaceans by suspending seismic activities in some cases when these animals approach the work area.
