Imagine if your entire life depended on one sense - hearing. Imagine that the working of this one sense dictated if you would survive. Now imagine that someone damages it and deploys a deafening sound every ten seconds, 8 times louder than a jet engine, for days and weeks on end. We can imagine as much as we'd like to, but this is the true reality of whales, dolphins and other marine creatures every time they are struck by seismic-blasting airguns.
What are Seismic Airguns?
Seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep underneath the ocean floor. Airguns are so loud that they disturb, injure or kill marine life, harm commercial fisheries, and disrupt coastal economies. Seismic airguns are towed behind ships and shoot loud blasts of compressed air through the water and miles into the seabed, which reflect back information about buried oil and gas deposits. These blasts harm marine mammals, sea turtles, fish and other wildlife. (source: Oceana)
Offshore Drilling
Mankind is in constant need of oil. The oil industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the biggest contributor to climate change. We need oil for everything from transportation to electricity and even the production of synthetic materials, like plastic. Oil is a huge source of energy for mankind, and so to obtain this oil, we drill the ocean-bed and dig deep enough till we find oil, in large quantities. Oil is a fossil fuel, and a non-renewable source of energy. Eventually it will run our (According to The World Counts, if we keep on burning oil as we do today, we will run out of it in 2054. The demand for oil has never been higher.) Oil can be replaced with renewable forms of energy, or ones that will never run out, like solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectricity etc. The faster we switch to renewable energy, the better our world will become, with reduction in climate change, disturbances in ecosystems and pollution. Also from The World Counts, in just 71 minutes the Earth is hit by enough solar energy to power the world for one year. If we could exploit just one tenth of one percent of this energy we would have more than enough energy to meet the world's total energy demand.
The Impact
Impacts include temporary and permanent hearing loss, abandonment of habitat, disruption of mating and feeding, and even beach strandings and death. Airgun blasts kill fish eggs and larvae and scare away fish from important habitats. For whales and dolphins, which rely on their hearing to find food, migrate, communicate, and reproduce, being able to hear is a life or death matter. (source: Oceana)
What You Can Do
To accelerate new offshore drilling, federal lawmakers are considering legislation to promote seismic blasting, an industry practice that damages marine life and pollutes the ocean with noise. Please contact your elected officials to protect marine wildlife from this harmful practice. Outside the US, you can write to officials about seismic blasting and request them to take action against it.
Spread awareness. This can be done through rallies, protests (peaceful, please! No riots!), petitions and even teaching it in classrooms and talking about it in general. You have the power to take action, so use your power well!
Research. If this is the first article you have ever read about seismic blasting, I hope it has been of interest to you, and that it has sparked some kind of change. Continue researching about this issue through websites like WWF, Oceana, Surfrider Foundation and more, because the more you know, the more you are empowered as a citizen.
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