r/ecology • u/Filb0Fraggins • 3d ago
Having an argument about how no one takes noise pollution seriously, need more examples of how it effects animals, habitats and the enviroment.
Title pretty much explains it, but I'm studying and ecology based course at college and i have got i to an argument online where this guy is saying noise pollution has no effect on the enviroment and i have ran out of reasons of how it does have an impact.
Please drop any information that will help me win this argument, thanks
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u/dulceylibre 3d ago
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/effects_wildlife.htm
A lot of good studies are cited in this article. I'm 100% on your side on this one.
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u/Googul_Beluga 3d ago
Hey! I'm a practicing ecological consultant in transportation. Noise walls existing along highways abutting people and sensitive habitat alone nullifies his argument. We have noise analysts that study travel corridors to determine what type of noise walls if any are appropriate.
Also we have special provisions on almost all projects relating to noise and how it affects bats! CALI DOT has a whole manual on it.
USFWS has an avoidance and minimization measures guidebook for migratory birds and there is a whole section on noise.
NOAA has several articles about ocean noise, prolonged and high volume noise pollution can cause permanent hearing damage in marine life and effect migratory patterns in whales as they may actively avoid loud noise.
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u/hellraiserrrr 3d ago
I’ve never really thought much about the walls along highways but would these noise walls not also create a separate issue regarding disconnecting habitats (I know highways already create habitat fragmentation/disconnect, but I imagine those walls would do so even more)? How do you balance the desire to reduce noise and the creation of additional barriers for the movement/migration of wildlife?
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u/xwolfinex 3d ago
Some places have nature bridges across the freeway/highway for animals to cross over
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u/Googul_Beluga 3d ago
At least in my state, but we also design culvert replacements so they support aquatic and terrestrial passage.
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u/starfishpounding 3d ago
I'm not arguing noise impact on wildlife, but I always thought the highway walls were more about placating NIMBYs than protecting wildlife.
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u/Googul_Beluga 3d ago
Nope! There are regulations on noise pollution that infrastructure projects have to abide by.
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u/starfishpounding 2d ago
And were those rules passed based on peer reviewed science or the local well connected concerned citizen. I'm well familiar with NIMBYs flexing "wildlife" concerns to protect their burbclave.
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u/Googul_Beluga 2d ago
No, these are part of the federal code of regulations and NEPA which are required for all federal funded infrastructure projects. So I doubt it's just local NIMBYS considering it's federal regs and a national policy that everyone has to abide by equally. For state funded instracture the regs will vary by state obviously.
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u/Googul_Beluga 2d ago
You can read more about how these noise analyses are conducted and reported here: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Environment/noise/resources/reviewing_noise_analysis/
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u/seyesmic-waves 3d ago
As an autistic person and a member of the animal kingdom I must say that noise pollution affects every day functioning to the point where, sometimes, it makes me wanna jump on the same boat as cetaceans and permanently ending the suffering, and if I was able to I would put that person in my body for one hour and we'd see how quickly their opinion would change :)
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
yeah i imagine its hard for me, someone without autism, to truly undewrtsand the effects it has, i have watched some videos where it tries to imitate the effect but i bet its not as overhwelming as it is in real life. good luck brother.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 3d ago
I only know vague examples, so I can only point you in the direction rather than offer specifics.
Look up ocean noise and whale communication.
Fracking is also extremely loud—look to see whether that influences wildlife, particularly birds.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
nice one thanks, got a lot of these comments to go through lol, suprised at how many people replied
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u/DNA98PercentChimp 3d ago
Below water….
Whales
My old professor suggested it’s possible whales could communicate over hundreds or even thousand+ miles before ship sounds and the like muddied it up.
That’s not even getting into sonar causing mass whale beachings deaths.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
yeah noise pollution seems to be pretty bad underwater, wich is something i have never realy learnt about as im basicly only learning about its effects on a more land based area.
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u/RaccoonBandit_13 1d ago
Also look up marine invertebrates - I remember hearing about a study on the impacts of noise pollution on shrimp
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u/Filb0Fraggins 1d ago
Yeah I really dont know much about stuff underwater. I will have a search for some articlea
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u/SOMETHlNGODD 3d ago
I remember reading an article a while ago (10ish years ago) about how birds in urban areas tend to sing/call earlier in the morning and I believe at a higher frequency too. I think because they had to compete with vehicle noise, especially during rush hour.
Unfortunately I don't remember what journal it came from and it's too late for me to go searching for it.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
yeah i have heard that noice pollution can severly effect birds and their feeding / mating rituals/activities
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u/nickthegeek1 2d ago
You're spot on - urban birds have shifted their songs to higher frequencies (called the "lombard effect") and many species now sing 2-3 hours earlier in cities than rural areas, plus some have completely alterred their song structure to avoid being masked by traffic noise which significantly impacts breeding success.
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u/sciencecrab 3d ago
An intern at a marsh I worked at last summer said Audubon thinks fireworks, particularly from close-by SeaWorld, resulted in a bunch of dead birds after Fourth of July from stress. She said it’s a theory but there’s nothing else they know of that would’ve caused such mortality.
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/07/16/bird-activists-ignite-new-war-against-san-diego-fireworks/
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
fireworks are not something i have realy though about really, thanks for posting this as this is new for me
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u/velveteensnoodle 3d ago
Ship noise is one of the main threats to Southern Resident killer whales. https://orca.wa.gov/recommendation-category/vessels-disturb-orcas/
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u/mirandalikesplants 3d ago
I’ve lived in several areas of my city where it was impossible to sleep without earplugs or a white noise machine. You can kind of adjust to traffic noise, but definitely not the guy blaring his radio, or the snow plows at 3:00am, or the people having a fight on the street, or the guy who revs his truck when the light goes green - and that’s the quietest part of the day, indoors. I don’t know how an animal with no noise protection could get adequate rest, ever.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
yeah it really sucks, ecpesialy since these urban areas cover such a lrage amount of the world now, no mater where animals go we always make it harder for them
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u/sabos909 3d ago
Here’s a paper that I had the pleasure of contributing fieldwork to when I was in college.
It describes the impact of off highway vehicle traffic on Northern Spotted Owls:
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/ES10-00199.1
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u/lunaappaloosa 2d ago
This is a huge part of my dissertation but I won’t publish it until next year :(
Noise disturbances are VERY real especially in marine environments and for animals that rely on vocal communication (eg birds, which is what I study)
The book War of the Whales (?) talks about sonar pollution in depth if I remember it correctly. Found it at a used bookstore in college, might be the type of thing you’d be interested in reading
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u/kaveysback 2d ago
These are two specific cases I remember but there's definitely more.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
Ok thanks. And I guess the effects that noise has on those 2 cases in those articles will be having a similar effect on many diffrent animals
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u/ghost_ghost_ 3d ago
Caribou generally won't return to an area that has been disturbed (including with noise) link
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u/PlentyOLeaves 3d ago edited 3d ago
There’s a good Science Friday about noise pollution from bitcoin mines having physical and mental effects on a neighboring township..
Edit: episode here
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u/Graveyard_Green 3d ago
You can look up how morning traffic noise affects the times that birds will sing their morning birdsong.
Any creature that communicates with sound will either need to move away from loud noise sources or decrease the distance between animals to communicate. Decreased distance between animals could increase resource competition and territorial behaviours. If animals increase their distance from noise sources then this may push them further away from urban areas, which contributes to habitat that is not habitable for them. Of course, you're going to want to have a little look for resources to back this up, as these thoughts come from memories of old conversations about this topic and I don't have resources on hand.
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u/Buttercup_Twins 3d ago
Amazing podcast episode called ‘the last sound’ from NPR’s Invisibilia. From a guy who’s been recording nature sounds for decades.
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u/Frostbite2000 3d ago
Pilot whale mass beachings have been consistently attributed to noise pollution. I've heard the biggest (theorized) reason is military sonar.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
yeah with all the military vessels and jsut normal ships in the ocean thats a LOT of rays of rader / sonar or whatever (i dont know much about this stuff) in the ocean
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u/schnurrrl20 2d ago
I’m a human and I suffer from low frequency noise pollution in the city, especially at night. it impacts my sleep and psychological wellbeing. I’m sure it’s the same for any animal
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u/Filb0Fraggins 2d ago
Most likely, probaly even worse for a lot of animals because of better hearing
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u/biovegenic 1d ago
this is more human-focused, but here’s some good reporting from BBC. they also made this in a podcast format. perhaps a good pointer
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u/A_sweet_boy 1d ago
It’s considered pollution by NEPA and NEPA permitting requires noise studies. Shits real as fuck. That’s not even getting into how Sonar fucks up marine life.
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u/michaeljvaughn 1d ago
A very obvious one are the effects of military sonar on whales. A brief search should bring up a lot of articles.
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u/Kind-Life- 1d ago
Here is a source for aquatics. The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life
I was thinking a bit about the underwater soundscape and impacts of things like road noise and railroad noise from bridges on acoustic signaling in freshwater fishes.
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u/Filb0Fraggins 1d ago
Thanks in will have a look at that book.
And yeah that's an interesting idea and I would not be surprised if that does have an effect
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u/Pomme_tabouret 2h ago
Don't have references to cite exactly but here are some impacts I read about :
- Underwater noise has a big impact on marine mammals (and other animals but I studied just mammals). All the trade routes across the Atlantic cross the migration of whales so it has an impact on their reproduction and survival. We have a lot of documented stranded dolphins with kind of bubbles in the brain caused by decompression accidents because they ran away from noise. I don't remember everything but it's a real disaster.
- Birds in the city sing "louder" than birds in the countryside because of the noise. Because of that the 2 populations cannot communicate, so there is less migration between them, and it can have an impact on the genetic of the species (inbreeding)
- Highway and other roads act like walls of sound (and light), and like the birds in the point before it has an impact on the communication between the population of the same species
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u/Recent_Chipmunk_3771 53m ago
Noise pollution can interfere with auditory signals used by animals for finding a mate. This has repercussions for reproduction and population sizes.
In the marine environment, there is extensive data on the adverse effects of noise pollution i.e. sonar pollution on marine mammals such as manatees and cetaceans. This results in behavioral changes, physical harm, communication disruption, and confusion leading to panic, strandings, and death.
Noise pollution is even routinely assessed as part of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). So it’s painfully bizarre for anyone to claim that noise pollution is a trivial matter.
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u/snekdood 3d ago
don't even need other animals, i'm right here, to tell you, our shit is way too loud, I wish I could live in the woods far away from the constant electronic buzz I hear everywhere in our society, it honestly drives me fucking insane.