Underwater noise pollution from shipping, seismic surveys, sonar, and construction causes significant welfare harm to marine mammals through masking communication, causing physical injury, and disrupting behavior.
Noise pollution causes multiple welfare harms for marine mammals. Intense sounds from military sonar and seismic surveys cause auditory trauma, disorientation, and in beaked whales, fatal decompression injuries from abnormal diving behavior in response to sonar. Chronic shipping noise impairs communication, foraging coordination, and mother-calf contact maintenance in cetacean populations. The difficulty of monitoring acoustic welfare in the marine environment means much of the welfare harm from noise remains unmeasured and unaddressed in environmental impact assessment.