Undersea noise caused by humans a major threat to whales and dolphins

The Irish Times featured MaREI projects Jonas and Saturn in the recent article Another Life: Undersea noise caused by humans a major threat to whales and dolphins

In the article, they spoke to MaREI’s Dr Gerry Sutton who co-ordinates JONAS, a partnership of EU Atlantic scientists aimed at existing noise impacts, and now he leads SATURN, a project launched this year and aimed at the noise from shipping. A €9 million project with multiple EU partners, it finds the ocean unusually quiet as Covid cuts sea traffic and keeps cruise liners at anchor.

This fortuitous pause offers “a good time for listening”, as one researcher puts it, and further assessment of damage to marine life. A recent world review in Science found “massive declines in the abundance of sound-producing animals” and impacts extending to fish and seabed creatures, seabirds and reptiles.

Read the full article here.