A recent New York Times article by Charles Siebert deserves to be read by anyone who cares about human impacts on other creatures who share this Earth home. In this case the impact is noise.

Mass beachings in 2002 of beaked whales in Mexico and the Canary Islands shared a disturbing feature: autopsies showed the whales died of “the bends,” or surfacing from deep water too rapidly for the body to accommodate. Why would deep-sea creatures make that deadly mistake? The two beachings shared one thing in common: noisy boats in the area, one a naval vessel carrying out exercises, the other a research ship setting off underwater air guns. Read More…