Vessel noise pollution on marine wildlife, Cockburn Sound case study | Fieldwork
Lincoln Hood | October 11, 2020
Cover image
Pelagic BRUVS deployment off Geographe Bay, Western Australia.
Biology as art 2019
Chris Thompson was awarded the head of school commendation on the print of a Samson
SUMMARY
Marine noise pollution is unseen but a growing concern due to its pervasive nature and impacts on wildlife. These impacts range from physical damage and death of zooplankton, reduced larval settlement on reefs, to alteration of animals’ abilities to hear necessary environmental cues for foraging, predator avoidance and navigation, as well as impacts on communication and navigation in marine mammals. The largest global contributor of anthropogenic marine noise is vessel traffic. Currently, 80–90% of international trade occurs via marine shipping, the global fishing fleet is estimated to have grown 118% since 1950, and both numbers are expected to increase in the future. However, recreational vessels also contribute significantly to marine noise pollution: in Australia alone, there are more than 910,000 registered recreational boats, so it is important that we understand how noise from these vessels may impact our marine wildlife.
Cockburn Sound, WA, which is the most intensively used marine embayment within WA, will be used as a case study to understand the cumulative impacts of vessel noise pollution on marine wildlife. It is an active area for industries, i.e., shipping, oil and gas, Australian Defence Force activities, and fisheries and aquaculture, and is also used extensively by recreational boaters.
The expedition team, consisting of PhD candidate Lincoln Hood and two volunteers, make daily trips to Cockburn Sound during seasonal fishery closures to deploy seabed Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems (BRUVS) throughout Cockburn Sound. Approximately 120 hours of video footage are collected on each expedition and will document diversity, abundance, size, biomass and behaviour of marine wildlife within Cockburn Sound. This BRUVS data will be paired with vessel data from satellite Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), boat ramp surveys and remote camera surveys to determine the overall density of vessels, as a proxy for the amount of vessel noise, within Cockburn Sound to examine the impact cumulative vessel traffic noise has on marine wildlife within Cockburn Sound.
These results will inform management and provide guidelines to create and adapt policies for vessel traffic within Cockburn Sound. This case study will also demonstrate how these methods can be used to estimate noise pollution impacts in areas of high conservation value such as marine protected areas, both within WA and globally, and can be used in future marine spatial planning to identify quiet areas to protect or areas of importance to reduce vessel traffic.
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Not only fish
The Australian pied cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius) was observed of the BRUVS footage
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Deployment
PhD candidate Lincoln Hood deploying seabed BRUVS in Cockburn Sounds.
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Cockburn Sound
The team launch the research vessel from Woodman point to sample the embayment.
FUNDING & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This expedition was undertaken aboard the vessel Ecklonia in collaboration with the Bertarelli Foundation.