Anthropogenic noise from traffic, shipping and industry causes chronic stress, communication disruption and welfare harm across marine and terrestrial animal populations.
Chronic noise causes physiological stress evidenced by elevated cortisol, reduced immune function and altered breeding behaviour in birds, fish and mammals. Acute noise from seismic surveys and naval sonar causes direct physical damage to cetacean hearing and swim bladder injury in fish. The welfare harm from noise pollution is both immediate — panic responses to sudden loud sounds — and chronic — the health cost of living in elevated background noise.