The Not-So-Silent World

Human activities may be emitting levels of noise that harm marine life.

- Joyce Yip

ALMOST A DECADE INTO DR MATTHEW Pine’s career as an underwater acoustics expert, he’s still met with dazed looks when clients learn that fish can hear. He says the misconception stems from the 1956 underwater documentary The Silent World, shot by the renowned French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. Fish can definitely hear and the ocean is far from silent.

“Much of marine life is sonic animals whereas humans are visual animals. Think of sound for fish like you would vision for us. If we turn off the lights it becomes very difficult to live,” says Pine, Marine Scientist and Principal Underwater Acoustician at Australia’s University of Victoria [shown here].

Given this gap in our understanding, it’s not surprising that we have filled the oceans with our own noises with little thought for their impact. In fact, though a realm of research that began only two decades ago, underwater noise pollution affects marine beings from Instagram-worthy whales and dolphins down to the fish we most usually see served on our plates and even species naked to the human eye like zooplankton.

According to the US Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a number of species may be being pushed towards extinction in part due to the impact of high-powered air guns used to generate data about the seabed in the search for oil and natural gas.