The Effect Of Noise On Wildlife: A Literature Review

Noise pollution, as it effects humans, has been a recognized problem for decades, but the effect of noise on wildlife has only recently been considered a potential threat to animal health and long-term survival. Research into the effects of noise on wildlife, which has been growing rapidly since the 1970s, often presents conflicting results because of the variety of factors and variables that can effect and/or interfere with the determination of the actual effects that human-produced noise is having on any given creature. Both land and marine wildlife have been studied, especially in regards to noise in the National Parks System and the onslaught of human- made cacophony in the oceans from military, commercial and scientific endeavors. Most researchers agree that noise can effect an animal's physiology and behavior, and if it becomes a chronic stress, noise can be injurious to an animal's energy budget, reproductive success and long-term survival. Armed with this understanding it should follow that humans would attempt to minimize the threat to wildlife by reducing the amount of noise that they are exposed to in natural areas; but this has not been the situation. Natural areas continue to be degraded by human-made noise, wildlife continues to suffer from these disturbances, and to date the majority of the debate revolves around the egocentric demands of people to either produce more noise in nature (through motorized recreation, scientific research, military exercises etc.) or experience natural areas in the absence of anthropogenic noise. Neither side has adequately addressed the issue from the biocentric view of wildlife and the known, or as yet undiscovered, damage that our increasingly noisy human-altered environment is inflicting upon them.