Millions of gallons of spilled oil aren’t the only danger to whales living in the Gulf of Mexico. The use of powerful sound waves by the oil industry to perform seismic surveys of the ocean floor has endangered the well-being of whales and dolphins, say four environmental groups that have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government to stop it from approving any further acoustic exploration by the industry.
According to the lawsuit, “marine mammals, such as whales and dolphins, and many species of fish have adapted to rely primarily on sound for their foraging, breeding, avoiding predators, navigating, and communicating—in short, for virtually every vital life function. They are therefore particularly harmed by intense underwater noise.”
“Dozens of powerful seismic surveys are conducted each year by the oil and gas industry throughout the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS),” stated the Center for Biological Diversity in a prepared statement. “These surveys use some of the loudest underwater sounds generated by humans to explore oil and gas reserves below the ocean floor. Day and night, for days and months at a time, large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico are inundated with high-intensity sound pulses 250 decibels or more at their source, billions of times more intense than the noise levels known to compromise feeding, breeding and basic communication in endangered species of whales.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff