Underwater noise from shipping, military sonar, and industrial activity causes disorientation, stress, and mass strandings in marine mammals that communicate, navigate, and hunt using sound.
Marine mammals experiencing chronic noise pollution live in a degraded sensory environment that impairs communication, prey detection, and navigation — the equivalent of trying to function while exposed to constant industrial noise. Mass strandings following sonar exercises suggest acute disorientation causing animals to beach themselves, a desperate and often fatal response to sensory overwhelm. Regulating shipping routes, requiring quieter vessel designs, and restricting military sonar use near sensitive marine mammal habitats addresses both individual and population-level welfare impacts.