5. Animals and man

5.1 Anthropogenic noise

With the global explosion in human population, the industrial revolution and the phenomenal increase in travel by various means of transport, there is no shortage of anthropogenic sources of noise. Man is everywhere, on land and at sea, and the noise he produces is likely to affect the communications that animals establish between themselves, and as such can be considered pollution. Many bioacoustics researchers around the world are now focusing on the effects of anthropogenic noise on animal populations.

• Early research in this field focused on the impact of man-made noise on cetacean life. Researchers were particularly interested in the case of low-frequency military sonars and acoustic sounders used in off-shore...