Should Marine Protected Areas Consider Silence for Whales?

Global MPAs are on the rise but are their Conservation and Action Plans up to day with scientific reports?

As Global Ocean protected surface continues to increase with the creation of marine sanctuaries and marine reserves across the globe new questions begin to rise. New scientific studies are pushing the boundaries on how to make a marine protected area effective. 

Marine Protected Areas MPAs, Marine reserves, Marine Sanctuaries and other protected areas are created by law and backed up entirely by a protection, conservation and management plan. It is this plan which creates the boundaries, limits, maps and policy as well as establishes actions and what can and can't be done within a reserve. The plan also presents opportunities for diverse sectors. Some MPAs are rather new while others due to a restless scientific community delivering every day new revelations require updating. MPAs which protect endangered species are among the most common and Whale sanctuaries are of these the most numerous. Now new studies and discussions on Whale science prove that MPAs may have to reconsider just how loud they are.

Should Marine Protected Areas become Acoustic Sanctuaries, areas of silence? Why are scientists pushing for “silence” to be installed in the plans of ocean conservation areas?

Outside Magazine reported on January 21 that that the “Newest Way to Save Whales is Acoustic Sanctuaries”.

“Underwater noise pollution is causing measurable harm to whales’ abilities to reproduce and navigate. A team of researchers proposed quiet zones as a solution,” the Magazine states. 

Michael Jasny, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s director of marine mammal protection spoke about accoustic importance for Whales. 

“We’re drowning the Ocean in sound,” Jasny stated. 

The way whales and dolphins and other marine organisms hunt, navigate, and form social bonds is through acoustic.  

“Imagine trying to converse with a friend -or even think straight while the subway train passes by,” Outside Magazine reported.  

“It’s having a huge impact. It’s destroying their ability to communicate,” says Jasny, a leading expert on how ocean noise pollution affects whales. “If they’re not calling, they’re not effectively breeding or foraging.” 

Focusing in the Pacific Ocean basin which connects Seattle and Vancouver scientists described the waters as poor in visibility -just like many other waters which Whales call home. Whales and other marine organism use sonar or acoustic cognitive tools to scan and map the area around them to navigate. They actually use acoustic to create a map in their brain of the environment. Just like a sonar these organisms emit sounds and acoustic -sometimes beyond that of the human ear range. These “sounds” they emit bounce off the environment and return to them. The brain interprets the distance they have travelled by interpreting how long it took to the “sound” to bounce back and creates in way a detailed map in waters of poor visibility and just any other type of water. Marine organism with acoustic cognitive tools also use acoustic for extensive communication and vital living cycles.  

“The ocean is a world of sound,” Outside Magazine assures. The report ran by the magazine include highlights of a study which tracked 85 endangered killer whales.

But Whales living in these waters are not the only ones making noise nor are they the ones making the loudest noise. The area is known as the “Salish Sea” and is one of the most transited shipping route in the World. Over 11 thousand tankers and cargo stream through this Oceanic highway. Compared to this the acoustic of Orca Whales is music to the ear. 

If before -and still today Whale conservationist worry -and still worry today, about vessels impacting Whales in busy routes now they have another more subtle concern. Outside Magazine assures that the oceanic highway causes “unrelenting waves of noise which travelstens of miles underwater”. 

“Human activity is so loud in the straits between Vancouver and Seattle that the southern resident killer whales cannot communicate with each other 62 percent of the time, according to a 2013 article in the journal Animal Conservation. And on busy days, when the wind kicks and the shipping traffic is heavy, it’s too loud for the whales to interact a full 97 percent of the time,” the Magazine went scientific and quoted the study.

But Whale communication is a global issue and occurs throughout the World including in areas which are under conservation plans. 

BBC ran a report on January 23 titled “Whales that Speak in Code”. The news contained information on a new scientific report which assures that Whales of the Caribbean Island of Dominica have emitting the same sounds between themselves for the past 30 years. The repetition of sounds over such a period of time can only be interpreted as a complex language. 

BBC highlighted that these Whales could express a lot of information in just a few clicks. 

“Near the Caribbean island of Dominica, there is one group of sperm whales that has interested researchers for over a decade. Like others in their species, they have complex social lives. But what makes this particular group special is that they live in small family units, allowing researchers to quickly identify individual whales,” BBC reported.  

The report published on January 20 in the Royal Society of Open Science titled “Individual, Unit and Vocal Clan Level Identity Cues in Sperm Whale Codas” speaks of “culturally transmitted dialects of acoustic signals” or “codas”. 

“We examined variation in coda repertoires among both individual whales and social units...using data from nine Caribbean social units across six years. Codas were assigned to individuals using photo-identification and acoustic size measurement. We identified 21 coda types. Two of those...made up 65% of the codas recorded, were shared across all units and have dominated repertoires in this population for at least 30 years,” the online report published reads. 

Further up North and into much, much, much, much colder waters Rob Williams spoke to Outside Magazine about scientific realities of today. 

Williams not only created Oceans Initiative “to bring scientists and conservationists together to produce original research on the region’s marine wildlife but won the prestigious Pew Marine Fellowship for his work -so when he speaks on the issue it is wise to listen. 

“Underwater acoustics has become a specialty, he says, because “you really can’t be a Whale Conservation Biologist without acknowledging that their world is an acoustic one,” Williams stated. 

“We’ve saturated their core summer habitat with noise,” he says. “We can ask ships to slow down, we can ask ships to go on the other side of an island, but I think realistically we’ve missed the opportunity to have a quiet marine protected area for them.”

But Outside Magazine reported that Williams has not lost all hope. Working with other scientists Williams took the bull by the horns and was able to release a new study which sets the grounds for what some day could be a “must” for every Ocean Conservation Plan in the World. In the paper published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin -just last month Williams speaks of “Acoustic Sanctuaries”.  

Williams explains that Acoustic Sanctuaries are “are habitats (off the coastof British Columbia) where marine mammals spend time, but that are not currently polluted by anthropogenic noise”.

Using acoustic equipment which can be obtained almost anywhere in the world -such as underwater microphones, computers and other technology the team went on the hunt for locations where the Ocean was “quieter”. 

Using the sound data they gathered they were able to compose a map which they overlay with a “soundscape”. The areas they chose for the creation of these new Acoustic Sanctuaries are those which are not dominated by human generated noise. 

“These quiet areas could be pain-free places for governments to formally institute quiet zones,” the paper argues. Ships wouldn’t have to be rerouted, the authors note they would simply have to continue avoiding sensitive areas.

“We’re trying to find a way where we can do the most good for the whales while inconveniencing the fewest people who make their living from the sea,” Williams told Outside Magazine.

The Paper was published by Science Direct as is tilted “Quiet (er) Marine Protected Areas”. Its main bullet points are severe. 

“Anthropogenic ocean noise can harm acoustically sensitive marine organisms but area-based management can separate wildlife from threats, including ocean noise,” the paper says. 

Williams urges for the finding of “opportunity sites” where key marine valuable species live and where silence prevails. 

“Keeping quiet habitats quiet will be easier than making noisy habitats quiet,” the paper concludes but other scientists disagree and believe that a solution for quieter environments can be found even in the most solicited locations. Whatever the way the term “Acoustic Sanctuary” has become a very attractive term. 

“Sound can travel through the Ocean across vastly greater ranges than light -100s of km versus 10s of meters. The marine environment imposes constraints on the sensory systems marine animals use for orientation, feeding, predator detection, navigation and social interactions, and these constraints have shaped the evolution of marine mammals, their predators and their prey. The acoustic channel is the primary modality available for social interactions and the only one that allows interaction over distances greater than a few body lengths. Human-generated noise is now a persistent feature of many ocean acoustic environments, especially the Northern Hemisphere,” Williams words -no argument there. 

"Substantial potential exists for area-based management to reduce exposure of animals to chronic ocean noise. Incorporating noise into spatial planning -critical habitat designation or marine protected areas may improve ecological integrity and promote ecological resilience to withstand additional stressors,” Williams ends it. 

BBC´s report on the the Caribbean Whales stresses the importance of quieter locations just by revealing how rich the “language” of Whales is. 

The Whales studied in the Dominica all speak the same “pattern of clicks” even when they are hundreds of individuals and some live thousands of miles one apart from the other. 

“They are the first evidence of the "social complexity hypothesis" in a marine species. The idea here is that if an animal has a complex social world, it has a greater need for diverse ways to communicate,” BBC reported.

The media highlighted the fact that the Dominica clan of Whales is but the tip of the iceberg. Whale Clans spread across the World -some reach numbers of over 1 thousand. 

“The findings push our understanding of the cultural complexity of Whales to another level,” Lori Marino -Neuroscientist and Animal Right Advocate at the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy told the BBC.  

“Working with existing patterns in ocean noise and animal distribution will facilitate conservation gains while minimizing societal costs, by identifying opportunities to protect important wildlife habitats," Williams ended it.