OCS Seismic Inventory Threatens Fish, Whales and other Ocean Wildlife
Support the amendment to be offered by Senators Nelson, Martinez and other Senators to delete the OCS inventory from the Senate Energy Bill
The Senate energy bill would require an inventory of all Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) areas, including sensitive coastal waters long protected from oil and gas activities by the 24-year bipartisan congressional moratorium. The inventory would be conducted using seismic airgun arrays, which use explosive blasts to map subsea rock formations. Sound from these blasts can be detected for thousands of miles. Hundreds of millions of blasts would be required to survey the US OCS, with major consequences for marine life. Documented impacts of seismic surveys include:
1.) Fish: Most fish use hearing to detect predators, find prey, communicate, and find mates, and loss of hearing can have profound – even fatal – effects on fish. Airguns can also result in severely diminished fish catches. In one series of studies, airguns caused extensive and apparently irreversible damage to the inner ears of pink snapper – damage severe enough to compromise survival. Declines in the catch rate of rockfish, haddock, and cod attributed to the use of airguns have also been reported; one study showed that catch rates of cod and haddock declined dramatically (between 45 and 70%) in an area over 1400 square miles in size and did not recover within 5 days after operations ended. Squid, an important commercial species in many regions, have been found with damaged organs after exposure to loud pulses of sound in the ocean.
2.) Whales and Other Marine Mammals: Marine mammals use sound to locate food, avoid predators and other hazards, find mates, care for young, and navigate. Seismic blasts can interfere with all of these critical activities. A September 2002 stranding of two beaked whales in the Sea of Cortez appeared to be associated with the deployment of a 20-airgun seismic survey array. Airgun blasts have been observed to affect the feeding behavior of sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico, migrating bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea off the Alaskan coast; and harbor porpoises, which have been seen to engage in dramatic avoidance responses dozens of kilometers from an array. Last year, the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee, one of the preeminent bodies of whale biologists in the world, concluded that increased sound from seismic surveys was “cause for serious concern.”
Airgun activity associated with seismic surveys must be considered an invasive procedure, inappropriate for sensitive marine areas and economically important fishing grounds.
For more information: Michael Jasny, Natural Resources Defense Council, 310-434-2300
Richard Charter, Co-Chair, National OCS Coalition, 707 875-2345, 707 875-3482
Recent studies indicate that seismic activities related to oil and gas exploration can damage the sensory organs of fish. See Robert D. McCauley, et al., High Intensity Anthropogenic Sound Damages Fish Ears, 113 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 638 (Jan. 2003); Robert D. McCauley, et al., Marine Seismic Surveys: Analysis and Propagation of Air-Gun Signals; and Effects of Air-Gun Exposure on Humpback Whales, Sea Turtles, Fishes and Squid, prepared for the Australian Petroleum Production Exploration Ass’n (Aug. 2000); Arill Engas, et al., Effects of Seismic Shooting on Local Abundance and Catch Rates of Cod (Gadus Morhua) and Haddock (Melanogrammus Aeglefinus), 53 Can. J. Aquat. Sci. 2238 (1996).
