The ocean isn't silent—it's a symphony of natural sounds that marine life depends on for survival. But human-generated noise pollution is drowning out this essential communication network with potentially devastating consequences. Michael takes us deep into the world of marine bioacoustics, revealing how political decisions directly impact ocean ecosystems. With three decades of experience studying underwater sound, Stocker paints a vivid picture of the challenges facing marine life today. We explore the shocking effects of military sonar on beaked whales, where intense acoustic disturbances cause animals to surface too quickly, resulting in catastrophic internal injuries similar to decompression sickness in human divers. Stocker describes how their bodies appeared like "milkshakes inside" during necropsies—a graphic reminder of how sound can kill. The conversation turns to innovative solutions, including Stocker's groundbreaking work using wavelet analysis to precisely track whale movements near shipping lanes. This technology could revolutionize marine mammal protection by allowing ships to "see" whales on their navigation systems and avoid collisions without necessarily slowing down—a win for both conservation and commerce. Climate change compounds these acoustic challenges, with melting Arctic ice eliminating crucial feeding grounds for gray whales. Whether discussing non-cavitating propeller designs that could dramatically reduce vessel noise or the devastating impact of bottom trawling on marine habitats, Stocker provides both expertise and hope. His parting advice offers meaningful action for listeners. Sites: https://ocr.org/ & https://ocean-noise.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (00:10):
Welcome to the Resilient Earth Podcast,
where we talk with speakers fromthe United States and around
the world about the criticalissues facing our planet and the
positive actions people aretaking, and the positive actions
people are taking.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Alleman, an
(00:35):
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
You can find Resilient Earth onSpotify, apple and Amazon
Podcasts, iheartradio, youtube,soundcloud and wherever you find
your podcasts.
Today we are talking withMichael Stocker, founder and
(01:03):
director of Ocean ConservationResearch in Marin County.
He has written and spoken aboutmarine bioacoustics and the
impacts ocean noise pollutionhas on marine life since 1992.
We dive first into how USpolitics could cause major havoc
(01:29):
to all ocean life by increasingthe noise pollution levels
through offshore drilling, windturbines and deep sea mining.
He speaks with us in thisepisode just before he left last
week for Prague in the CzechRepublic to attend the 7th
International Conference on theEffects of Noise on Aquatic Life
.
That and more coming up next.
(01:52):
It's good to have you back onthe show again, michael, and
again so much going on in ourcountry.
And, in fact, tree, why don'tyou bring up the topic that you
were just discussing?
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (02:08):
We know that recently there was a public
comment period that ended onJune 16th about the offshore oil
and gas drilling and you postedyour comment on your website
and I was most impressed by whatyou wrote and you know I just
thought you hit all thoseessential points so extremely
(02:30):
well.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (02:31):
So if you want to tell us more about that,
and also the bills that areright now in the process of
being amended, two of them whichdirectly affect the marine
protected areas.
Michael Stocker (02:44):
Well, I mean, these guys really want to tear
it all up as fast as possible,and every five years they have
to put out a leasing plan andreview and they are supposedly
to bring in the most currentinformation.
And the last time in 2017, theycame out with a plan and they
(03:07):
had a fairly systematic approachwhere they were going to start
in the South Atlantic and thenthey were going to move to the
Gulf and then to California andthen to Alaska, working with
Oceana and SouthernEnvironmental Law Center and
Surfrider of North Carolina, andwe worked on it for years.
(03:28):
But we managed to jam up theworks and Oceana is particularly
good at basically solicitingpublic support and when we had
Republican representatives onthe House floor giving noise
demonstrations, we knew we hadthem and so we thwarted that
whole plan.
Then the next administrationcame in in 2022 when the review
(03:51):
came up again, and fortunately Ithink largely due to the
efforts of Bernie Sanders whenhe realized that he's not going
to win the White House after theNew Hampshire win, because the
New York Times basically put out11 hit pieces on him in 24
hours.
So he decided to, you know, thebetter part of valor and he
(04:14):
would hand his voters over toBiden if Biden moved left and so
Biden did move left a littlebit and we had the Inflation
Reduction Act, which had a lotof great environmental bills in
it.
Had it not been for Joe Manchin, we would have really made a
significant shift, but JoeManchin kind of jammed up the
(04:35):
works.
But nonetheless we'd still gota lot of good things, including
areas in the Outer ContinentalShelf that were protected.
There was only three leasingareas and there were some of the
uglier provisions.
This is on the 2022 bill and itwas basically let out in 2023.
Purportedly, we would only haveanother review in 27, but this
(04:58):
administration came in and theyimmediately.
What they did is they have awhole revised plan.
And so they're going to drill onall coasts at the same time,
and this includes doing seismicsurveys in national monuments.
So these guys go to the heartof the issue and they really you
know they're deliberately beingbulls in China shop.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (05:21):
That's a good way to put it.
Michael Stocker (05:23):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Yeah, so, um, I'm not sure howmuch they're going to listen,
but we managed to get 75 000people.
That, or individual comments.
I mean a lot of more groupcomments as well.
Uh, what I put out in my piece,um included the comments that
were a sign-on letter fromamerican petroleum institute and
(05:43):
they had some 130 fossil fuelbusinesses that signed on to it.
They have to pay attention topublic comments under the
National Environmental PolicyAct.
That's what NEPA really does isallows the public and
stakeholders to comment aboutparticular things that are going
(06:05):
to compromise our assets, ournational assets and
environmental, you know out ofcontinental shelf, of course,
but also they have to putannouncements out for all kinds
of different things.
If you want to look at the typesof things, you can go to
regulationsgov and see what's up.
So you get public comments andinput on the thing.
And 75, 000 is pretty good.
(06:27):
And seeing as the preponderanceof them were against the
proposal, there were a number ofgroup sign-on letters put out
by earth justice and the nrdcand ocn I think had one.
They were basically groupsign-on.
A group sign-on is moresensible.
And so 75,000 comments.
The priests sort them by sayingare you an individual, are you
an organization, are you abusiness stakeholder?
(06:51):
They kind of pre-qualify it.
I don't know how much theseguys are going to pay attention
to it, because these guys arenot paying attention to anything
.
We want 85% of the public is nothappy right now with a lot of
things and these guys are justmoving ahead.
Is not happy right now with alot of things and these guys are
just moving ahead?
Yeah, we'll see where that goesRight now.
The comments period is out foroffshore mining.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (07:12):
Is it deep sea mining?
Michael Stocker (07:14):
Mining.
Yeah, there is this miningcompany that put in a request
for information about leasingareas off of American Samoa and
it's a horrible idea.
And the reason why the UnitedNations Seabed Authority has
formed is because these are theoceans, or I should say the
ocean.
Everybody's got an interest init and we need to make sure that
(07:38):
we take care of it.
They're talking about going in.
You know, rutting around inareas where we don't even know
what the animals are down there.
You know there's.
You know, rutting around inareas where we don't even know
what the animals are down there.
You know there's, you know,hundreds of thousands of animals
that we don't even know whattheir role is.
So the Seabed Authority is theInternational Seabed Authority
is has basically, been skimmingthe development of that.
There was one effort off ofPapua New Guinea that they
(08:01):
started to get into and thenhalted because they realized
that we don't even know whatkind of damage we're going to be
done.
But with this metals company,they they're appealing to the
more prurient side of the Trumpadministration.
It's like, hey, we can turn itinto money, let's go.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (08:24):
And those companies are all like
greenwashing too.
Michael Stocker (08:28):
In addition to getting the support from this
administration, thisadministration and its allies
are really working overtime interms of creating alternative
narratives that aren'tsubstantiated by science,
experience or the real world.
I mean, an example is whenchristy gnome was basically
(08:49):
saying los angeles was on fire.
I had a friend who was going tola and her family.
Her mom said be careful downthere, it's dangerous, it's.
It's like a two block area.
The los angeles has got, youknow, 23 million people or
something that's living in itand, uh, and if you believe what
these narratives these guys arecreating, and it's the same
thing about the environment, youknow.
(09:09):
So, anyways, one of the issueswith this new seabed mining
thing and again, I don't knowhow much these guys are going to
pay attention to it, becausethey're still proposing in terms
of the offshore drilling therewas another proposal that came
up just last week about doingseismic surveys in our national
marine sanctuaries, and thechallenge that we all have is to
(09:30):
not tear our hair out.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (09:39):
So true, bill, the legislations that Joe
Biden just you know days beforehis presidency ended that I
thought that was supposed to bea very permanent type of
protection for this coast.
Michael Stocker (09:52):
Well, I mean, this current administration has
taken a whole different playbook.
Yeah, I have no idea whathappened to Congress, but the
Republicans absolutely have nospine at all and they're all the
power is being taken away fromthem and I can only assume that
it's not because they're worriedabout being primary.
(10:14):
I have a.
I have a feeling that they'reworried about being sued, having
thugs come in, knock theirchildren out, whatever.
I mean it's probably horriblestuff.
They're really fearful.
And then you have the Democrats, who also don't have any spine.
You know, when Joaquin Jeffries, after Trump was elected, he
says you know, presidents comeand go, but God will be sitting
(10:34):
on the throne.
I mean, it's like this is notwhat I want to hear from you.
And there's still.
I mean there's really, there'sgreat opportunities.
Everybody knows, knows like 80percent of the public is just
completely aghast at thisimmigration thing.
And what's Hakeem Jeffriessaying about it?
I didn't read it.
So there's a handful of them.
(10:55):
You know the handful ofrepresentatives.
The Democratic Party is notreading the tea leaves right now
.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (11:01):
They're not reading the tea leaves leaves.
Right now they're not readingthe tea leaves and I want to
also bring up the article thatyou wrote back on June 3rd that
you posted on your website, onthe Ocean Conservation Research
website, about the NationalAcademy of Sciences.
Michael Stocker (11:19):
It was a troubling report, oh yeah, oh
right, the boats that we use,you know, the research vessels
that we use.
The current administration hasbasically put a halt to all this
stuff and a lot of these boatsare 40 to sometimes 60 years old
and they're not suitable formodern science and we need to
build them.
(11:39):
And they take, you know, fourto six years to build some of
these things, sometimes evenlonger than that, and the
current administration hasdecided that it doesn't want to
hear about it, so they'vestopped all of the construction
and all funding for these ships.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (11:56):
And no one from the federal government
showed up to that meeting.
Normally doesn't you knowsomeone from NOAA or the
National Marine Fisheries?
Michael Stocker (12:07):
the EPA, the Marine, you recall at that time,
that's when Doge was going inand taking everybody's chair
away.
You know, people were freaked,they were fearful and they would
not get funding to attend ascientific meeting.
That's true.
I mean I have.
I have a real, real dear friendwho we did a project up in Cook
Inlet, manolo Casillate, and heis probably the foremost marine
(12:31):
mammalologist on belugasgenerally and then he was
studying a particular case up inthe Cook Inlet for I don't know
, 12 years.
Scott Mercer (12:39):
He had longitudinal studies on these
animals.
Michael Stocker (12:42):
And they're an interesting case because they
need ice to live year-round theones in the Arctic.
But when the ice retreatedafter the last ice age, these
belugas were left in the CookInlet and so they have certain
adaptations to that, both socialand physiological.
But he lost his job, they firedhim and he's working for
(13:07):
Microsoft now.
You know this.
This is a guy, then you knowjust the wealth stores of
information that he has aboutthis area, these animals, the
interactions.
You know his published papersare really brilliant and they
let him go, are really brilliantand they let them go.
And I have friends andcolleagues who are in NOAA
(13:30):
Fisheries, national MarineFisheries Service and you know
they're just keeping a real lowprofile right now.
Either that or they'rekowtowing, you know.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (13:40):
I too, we knew Maria Brown.
We've had her on before.
Scott Mercer (13:46):
And.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (13:46):
I ran into her down at the International
Ocean Film Festival at the pierthere in San Francisco and she'd
been moderating one of thepanels and I went up to her
afterwards and she said thatrecently they had just taken 20%
.
Said that recently they hadjust taken 20%.
They didn't ask whether or notthey were you know.
(14:07):
Could she go in and reduce thepoor performing ones?
They took all the topscientists, she said, and
they're coming for another 20%.
Well, she ended up being partof that 20% and she dedicated
decades of her life to thatprogram and she was head of, she
(14:28):
was superintendent of, bothGreater Fairlawns and the
Cordell Bank.
Michael Stocker (14:33):
Yeah, no, she's a gem yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:36):
Yeah.
Michael Stocker (14:37):
She dedicated her life to this.
Yeah, these guys are not, youknow.
I mean, of course, we know thewaste front of beef thing.
There are a couple of peoplenow who have come out of Doge
and saying I don't know.
I was in the VA, you know, andwe were there for a while and we
didn't really see a lot.
In fact, we saw a prettyefficient running operation
(14:58):
there.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:59):
I heard that too, yeah.
Michael Stocker (15:00):
Yeah, those types.
So I mean this is really kindof a fallout from Ronald
Reagan's nine most terrifyingwords I'm with the government
and I'm here to help ball.
(15:20):
They don't want to level theplaying field, they basically
want to dominate by power, bruteforce.
And it's to the point now whereI mean I'm sure you've read all
the most speculative andinformed discussions about what
the technocracy and theChristian right theocracy and
(15:42):
where this is headed.
You know know that these guysdon't have a plan.
They have an objective andtheir objective is to destroy
the whole thing and once theydestroy it, the idea is that
they can reconstruct it towardtheir desires.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (15:59):
I was just talking about that today on the
show regarding a review of whathappened on no King's Day
protest turnout.
Yeah, yeah, and themanipulative narrative that they
use in gaslighting the public.
Right founder and director ofOcean Conservation Research in
(16:26):
Marin County, just prior to hisdeparture to Prague to attend
the 7th International Conferenceon the Effects of Noise on
Aquatic Life.
I'm Leanne Lindsay, host andproducer of Resilient Earth
Radio and Podcast, along with myco-host and co-producers, scott
and Tree Mercer, of theMendenoma Whale and Seal Study.
(16:47):
Now back to the show.
Michael Stocker (16:53):
I went to the Stand Up for Science rally in
San Francisco and the SanFrancisco Chronicle basically
had a helicopter out thereshooting the crowd, you know,
and the.
The pictures that they publishedwere shot probably at 11 in the
morning for a rally thatstarted at noon and their
headline was hundreds showed upto stand up for science and I I
(17:18):
mean, I did an informal count,which is easy enough to do I
stood up onto the, the back ofcity Hall, and kind of looked
over the crowds and there was atleast 5,000 people there at
least.
And this happened before, youknow, when we were objecting to
going into Iraq.
There was a rally down in SanFrancisco at that time as well,
(17:41):
but the people who were theorganizers knew that the press
was under reporting this stuffsignificantly, and so they had a
gateway that you had to gothrough and you grabbed a piece
of paper from somebody and thenyou stuck it in a bag and you
walked two steps and stuck it ina bag.
So you know you're essentiallyseparating those actions, and
the and the chronicle again saidyou know, hundreds of people
(18:03):
showed up to this rally.
Um, when they counted thepieces of paper is over 50 000
50 000 50 000 and this is thesame thing.
You know that I've seen numbersuh shrink and grow for this, uh
uh.
Most recent, no Kings Act stuff.
The number that the press seemshappy with is 5.5 million, but
(18:30):
I saw informal counts from 8 to12 million people Same.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (18:37):
And I only stuck with the conservative
number.
I may update that episode toinclude that data too.
Well, let's, let's.
Why don't we move towardsanother topic that I wanted to
make sure that we cover, becausewe want to talk about sounds in
the ocean, and you alsoattended a conference back in
(19:02):
May.
Was it in New Orleans?
Michael Stocker (19:05):
Yeah, that was a acoustic society conference
and yeah, that was a lot of fun.
It was a good conference andNew Orleans is, I mean it's
changed a lot.
I first time I went to.
New Orleans was in, I think, 98or 99.
And you know the hurricane thatbroke.
You know that destroyed the war.
It really changed a lot ofthings down there katrina yeah
(19:26):
yeah, katrina, right, I mean itjust changed a lot of attitudes.
Because it was really clear andit seemed to be a very
magnanimous place where blacksand whites got along really well
, and what have you.
And after katrina it was prettyclear at least the
infrastructure wanted to flushall the african-americans out of
there.
Some of them are still living intrailer camps outside of town,
(19:48):
so you know they mowed thehouses down and being messed so
and so that attitude is therenow and I saw, you know, of
course, anywhere in america alot more people destitute out on
the streets who are having ahard time.
Um, but it was a goodconference.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (20:08):
There was a lot of kids, uh conversations
going on and um, yeah, didn't itstart with music acoustics and
then go into animal bioacoustics?
Michael Stocker (20:19):
well the way that the acoustical society
works.
There's acoustics it's kind ofcost cuts everywhere.
There's everything from youknow, uh, medical acoustics.
Medical acoustics, yeah, peopleusing ultrasound, for example,
example, for both imaging andfor actually doing operations,
you know, using Ah right, right.
(20:41):
So there's medical acoustics.
There's acoustical oceanography, which I sometimes go into
depending upon what they'redoing.
Architectural acoustics,musical acoustics.
There is archaeologicalacoustics that's kind of an
interesting, interesting.
So there's all these differentsessions.
You know they're going on.
I am a member of of the animalbioacoustics community, so I go
(21:03):
to the AB sessions and they hadsome really good stuff there.
I think one of the I putanother piece out on on this
interesting imaging system.
It was both video and sound andthey had these kind of spheres
that had hydrophones on them andalso video cameras and they
were able to get like a 360degree uh or spherical view of
(21:26):
what was going on.
So you see these fish and ifyou drop a high single
hydrophone into a coral reef,you'll hear.
You know this.
You know sputtering andclarking and barking and hoots
and things like that.
But you don't know where that'scoming from because you know we
can't localize it that well.
That sound travels so fast andin water that you know it really
(21:47):
hits.
We can't make this timediscrimination to determine
where, where it is between ourears.
They uh, have, um, have theability to be able to pinpoint
where the sound comes from.
So they had these schools offish and instead of hearing this
, you know, click, click, click,you know, click, click, click,
click you would see where theclicks were coming from, and
(22:07):
these fish were clearly makingspace, communicating with each
other.
You know, and it's going toreally kind of in the way that
the drones have changed ourunderstanding of of how whales
and dolphins be, and thispicture behind me is, you know,
it was taken with a drone.
(22:28):
Well, these animals are playingwith each other.
They're just goofing off andhaving a heck of a time, and you
know.
So now we're starting tounderstand behavioral
interactions with these animals,taken from a perspective that
we have not had before, and it'sgiving us huge amounts of
information.
Well, I think that thisparticular 3D imaging will also
(22:52):
allow us to 3D sound imagingwill allow us to really
understand how animals in theocean interact with each other.
You know, for example, dodolphins, do they beam
information to each other?
Why would I say that.
Well, there's evidence, prettyclear evidence, that dolphins
(23:16):
can eavesdrop on each other.
So one dolphin will put somebiosonar clicks out and then
sonify a fish, and the otherdolphin will go and grab it.
So it's reading the reflectionof another dolphin's biosonar
(23:37):
and responding to it.
So that's an interestingphenomenon of itself.
But then this opens up thepossibility that these dolphins
could actually project images toeach other through sound.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (23:51):
That's amazing.
Michael Stocker (23:53):
Yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (23:53):
I mean really amazing how that can
happen.
And the more that we learnabout these things, the more
that hopefully people willunderstand also how sounds in
the ocean, their human generatedimpact, that kind of
communication.
Michael Stocker (24:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Most of the models we use interms of impacting animal
communication has to do withmasking, and we see that a bit.
I mean, I've got somerecordings of pilot whales and
dolphins, you know phonating.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (24:38):
And then a boat goes through and you can
hear they try to to keep up andat some point in time they just
stop here's a clip from arecording about which michael is
talking when it comes to thecommunication between pilot
whales and dolphins and themasking that occurs when a
vessel travels overhead anddisrupts that communication, and
(25:00):
then we'll get back into theconversation.
Thank, you.
Michael Stocker (25:53):
They have adapted morphologically to this.
They have in terms of theirstress responses.
I mean there's a lot of studieswith.
I mean in the late 90s theyintroduced a sonar technology
that maybe was using that wascalled C53, Charlie 53.
(26:14):
Very nasty sound.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (26:19):
Now prepare your ears for this sonar sound
that I'm about to play, becauseit is piercing, so you can just
imagine how it impacts marinemammals in this acoustic
environment.
Michael Stocker (26:41):
Initially what was happening.
These animals were gettingstartled.
So the first really apparentmass stranding that happened
that was caused by the sonar wasthey were doing a military
exercise down in the Bahamas and, coincident with that, some 17
(27:05):
beaked whales and one minkewhale washed ashore.
And when they did necropsies onthese animals they found that
their uh, the tissues in theirbody.
I mean they look likemilkshakes inside.
And why was that?
Well, these beaked whales, they, they dive really deep.
(27:26):
You know they go down 5 000feet.
You know we're talking about100 atmospheres and they have at
surface they have a 32 literlung capacity.
When they go down that deep itcompresses down to about two
liters um and it goes into the,you know, the tissues of their
body and what have you.
And just like human divers, whenthey come up they need to take
(27:50):
their time because otherwisethey get the bends, you get
nitrogen neis.
So they need to take their time.
But what had happened after all?
The smoke had settled becauseinitially the Navy was saying we
didn't do that.
That's like let's put two andtwo together here and find out
if there might be somecorrelation.
So it took a couple of yearsfor people to really realize
(28:13):
what had happened.
But these animals were divingdeep and then they heard this
deafening, nasty signal.
It was like ice picks in theirears and they freaked out and
they rose because they need tobreathe.
They came to the surface asfast as possible.
All that nitrogen necrosishappened.
They, you know, just blew uptheir insides and they were just
(28:35):
as I said.
They would look like milkshakesinside because it was all a
mess and there were a number ofstrandings.
For a few years after that theywere associated with C53, sonar
and then some studies, I thinkBrandon Southall.
Southall EnvironmentalEnvironmental did some
(28:57):
behavioral exposure studies onthese animals and they're
finding that when you warn themahead of time that this horrible
noise is coming, they leave.
They leave the area.
Scott Mercer (29:10):
So they're now.
They've got the program.
Michael Stocker (29:12):
They say, okay, when you hear this stuff, just
get out of here.
So we haven't had thecatastrophic strandings, but we
have now a stress response inadonisetes.
That is not good for them.
It's not good for them.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (29:30):
I was just thinking about the impact on
these marine mammals and theyare already stressed enough.
Scott and Tria, they've gotupdates on some of the whale
activity along our coast rightnow that there's a lot that are
showing up that are dead orinjured, Did you guys want to
(29:51):
just talk on that just a moment?
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (29:58):
want to just talk on that just a moment.
Oh sure, the recent strandingsin the bay of the grays, an
unprecedented number.
We're even seen going into thebay, over 30.
And I think of the 30, 22 ofthem were dead, washed ashore
dead.
You know that's caused by otherreasons.
You know that's caused by otherreasons either starvation,
which led to ship strikes, mostof them, unfortunately, they
(30:22):
were either couldn't reach themto do a necropsy or too far
decomposed in order to do anecropsy.
But it's a pretty sad situationwith what's going on with the
gray whales that is.
But I'm interested, michael, inif they were to start drilling
again off the coast, they wouldhave to use the sonar or seismic
(30:50):
methods correct to find outwhere the spots are located.
Michael Stocker (30:55):
That's what the survey are located.
That's why I wrote that up.
The survey is really.
They have to know where thedeposits are Right.
Essentially, this large air gunexplosion or they usually have
a number of them, up to 20.
They time the explosion so theycan aim the impulse, in certain
(31:15):
ways what's favorable to whatthey're trying to pick up.
But it's a loud explosion.
I mean you can hear thesethings 2,000 miles away 2,000
miles, so the impact of thiswould be immense.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (31:32):
Enormous because of the way sound travels
.
Yeah.
Michael Stocker (31:37):
Yeah, they have been doing surveys in the Gulf
of Mexico for as long as they'vebeen drilling down there and
the noises are not deadly noises.
It's actually pretty.
It's an air gun bubble thatpulses out and it's noisy.
It's an explosion.
(31:58):
It doesn't kill the whales.
It does damage zooplanktonSeriously.
I want to do a study on thisand at some point in time I will
attempt to get funding andsomebody and a funder with
enough imagination, the bubblepulses out and that's what
(32:20):
creates the impulse, but at somepoint in time it retracts.
And what I think is happeningwith the zooplankton is that it
retracts.
And while zooplankton are builtto be able to deal with
pressure variations because they, you know, they dive deep and
they come up to the surface atnight and you know so they have
(32:42):
a pressure gradient they canhandle, what I think the problem
is is when the bubble retracts,you get essentially a negative
pressure gradient.
They're not good for that, soit's negative.
Barotrauma, as I think, iswhat's happening, how different
animals deal with it.
Dolphins don't really hear thatwell in that low frequency
(33:03):
range.
Trauma, as I think, is what'shappening, how different animals
deal with it.
You know dolphins don't reallyhear that well in that low
frequency range.
And you know one of the reasonswhy we had to go and update the
marine mammal exposureguidelines to incorporate the
various hearing ranges ofvarious animals to, you know,
low frequency myositis seats andhigh frequency adonis seats and
(33:26):
it's because they havedifferent hearing regimes that
they're working with.
That was again another thingthat Brandis Southall was able
to introduce, and we knew weneeded to do that, because when
you had dolphins that weresurfing on the bow waves of
seismic survey vessels,obviously they were being
exposed to noise that wasexceeded the regulatory
thresholds and they weren'tbeing bothered by it, but it was
(33:49):
all low frequency noise.
On the other hand, you know, uh,the larger whales, the maestas
seats, they phonate down inthose lower frequencies.
So they, um, you know, theyobviously hear it.
And how does it affect them?
There was an interesting paperthat was written by susan parks
(34:10):
and rosalind roland susan's gota lab up in the bay of fundy
area and, uh, and she's beenstudying the north atlantic
right whales up there, uhrecording them, and Rosalind.
Rowland was up there.
I don't know if she was outworking in the same lab, but
they were probably workingtogether.
What Dr Rowland was doing wasmeasuring the cortisol levels in
(34:33):
the feces of these whales, andcortisol is essentially a proxy
for stress.
Yes, and so she was measuringthis.
And then they were doing this.
2000, 2001, 2002, they had the9-11 disaster and they shut down
the shipping in the world forlike a week and the noise levels
(34:56):
went down and with that thestress levels went down in these
animals.
It was really rapid.
And when the noise startedcoming up, then the stress
levels went down in theseanimals.
It was really rapid, and whenthe noise started coming up,
then the stress levels startedcoming again so there's
obviously a direct correlationbetween ambient noise and stress
, uh, in these animals.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (35:11):
So and what can be done.
I mean as far as what are youdoing at ocean conservation,
research and what are othersdoing to raise the awareness
about what's happening and ifthere's some change that can be
made.
And then I'd like to talk aboutsome of the projects you've got
going on.
Michael Stocker (35:29):
Yeah, well, what can be done is, I mean,
raising awareness is the bigthing.
I mean, I first started workingon this ocean noise issue in
1992.
When I was telling people aboutnoise in the ocean, they didn't
have a clue.
Jacques Cousteau set mybusiness back 20 years when he
came out with the series MoldeSalon.
(35:50):
It was, you know, the silentworld of Jacques Cousteau.
People thought the ocean wassilent, because it's anything
but silent, you know.
I mean, sound works so well inthe ocean that all these animals
have all kinds of amazingadaptations to it in terms of
sensing, you know, pressure,gradient and particle motion and
being able to distinguishsounds in the time domain that
(36:11):
allow them to navigate theirsurroundings in both fine pitch
and large pitch ways that youknow.
Do we know if large whales uselow frequency phonations to like
biosonar, like the dolphins usehigh frequency?
I mean it could be that theyare making these noises across
(36:31):
large distances.
And Chris Clark, who was atCornell, the head of their
bioacoustic department up therefor a long time he's retired,
but he put out a paper back, oh,in early 2000 or something.
It wasn't really paper, youcan't because you can't really
prove or disprove it, but hefought, he tracked the um
migration of uh humpback whalesfrom the gulf of alaska down to
(36:55):
hawaii, because they breed downin hawaii and they feed up in
alaska.
And these animals don't justbeeline it.
You know they're not working ona magnetic compass, they're not
looking at the stars, they headtowards underwater features
like a seamount or a ridge lineor a trench.
So the speculation which againis something that would be hard
(37:17):
to prove because there's no nullhypothesis you couldn't take
the sound away and see if youknow whatever they're doing,
essentially echolocating withthese in long wavelengths, which
brings up another issue havingto do with noises that we're
making.
I've got a paper that's inreview right now.
(37:37):
Actually, I got it back from anew one.
I got to do the edits on thething right now actually it's, I
got it back from a new one.
I gotta do do the editsomething that looks at the
infrasonic, which is the lowfrequency noise that's generated
by wind farms, by wind turbinesgreat, and it's very noisy.
And the problem with that isthat, as I point out in the
paper, is that if it's true thatwhales use low frequency noise
(38:03):
or sounds that they make tonavigate around the world, and
it's either either through theirown signals or, you know, being
able to hear the pulses of thewaves on the beaches or other
types of micro baroms that arehappening with the swells on top
of the water.
what's going to happen if that'sall masked by the noise of wind
(38:23):
farms?
And then we have birds which weknow also use low-frequency
barometric pressure gradients tonavigate?
What's going to happen to themif they have, you know, 3,000
turbines along the AtlanticFlyway and these animals which
need to know, you know, is astorm front coming, Should we
(38:45):
get in front of it or should westick to the ground?
If it's fluctuating, if it'sunstable front, they'll hang out
until the kind of wind buffetsthrough the area and then, when
they have a real honest decreasein barometric pressure, they'll
get up in front of it becausethey can get tailwinds you can
get 200 mile an hour tailwindsand it helps them migrate.
But if the cues that they useto sense the barometric pressure
(39:09):
are being masked by you know,3000 thumping turbines, you know
what's going to happen.
They have this adaptivemanagement paradigm they talk
about.
They have this adaptivemanagement paradigm they talk
about, which is they're doingthings at a level that they
can't really determine what thedamage is until we start seeing
(39:29):
it, because there's no way totest.
You know how is it going tohappen, but you know by that
time it's going to be too lateOnce we start seeing that it's
interfering with bird migration.
You know how are you going toadapt to that.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (39:41):
There's just so much short-term thinking
versus long-term thinking.
Michael Stocker (39:45):
Yeah, yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (39:46):
We talked earlier about both hydrophone
and the Farallons, and I believethat's one of the projects
you've got going on right now.
Michael Stocker (39:56):
Yeah, we're actually working on a proof of
concept for this right now.
We're going to be puttinghydrophone arrays out next to
the shipping lanes and we'll beable to use those arrays to site
in on whales who might befeeding or frolicking in the
shipping lanes and be able towarn the ships that the whales
(40:20):
are there.
Well, they can kind of do that.
Right now there's a projectthat the Benioff Ocean Institute
is funding called Whale Safe.
They have a single hydrophoneand they can tell if there's
whale activity in the area andthen they have some really
excellent behavioral models sothey can determine, you know,
(40:40):
what type of behavior is goingon and where they most likely be
found.
The challenge that they have isthat they're using what's
called fast Fourier transform toidentify the animal.
We need to see the sound.
We can't distinguish asprecisely as they can the sounds
(41:00):
that they're making.
So in order to figure out whatkind of animal is doing what, we
need to know what they'recalled repertoires and then use
that to inform the behavioralmodels.
But FFT only gives you anapproximation.
You can kind of get aprobability map of where they
are.
That's because thatfast-forwarding transform is a
(41:24):
mathematical process where theydivide the signals up into these
little frequency bands and theydetermine the amplitude of the
sound coming out of each ofthose buckets and then they can
use that to visualize it, to putit up on a screen and visualize
it.
We're using a process calledwavelet analysis, and wavelet
analysis is a different way ofdiscriminating sounds.
(41:47):
Instead of sucking them up andputting them into filter bins,
we are going to be putting theminto a process where they have
these certain wavelet signalsthat interact with the signals
and the interaction patternlights up, and WaveletServe was
originally designed to processhuge amounts of data.
(42:08):
This type of process is beingused when you're doing a Zoom
meeting.
The picture behind me is notmoving, and so once it's
determined what it is, there'sno extra data that needs to be
processed there.
The only thing that needs to beprocessed right now in terms of
the Zoom meeting is my movinglips.
(42:29):
Everything else is pretty muchstatic.
So the way that wavelets workis when they see something that
is different in a data set, itlights it up, and things that
are not different, it doesn'tprocess it.
So it allows for you know youto have a screen with 20
different people on it alltalking away.
(42:49):
That's a huge amount of datathat is being processed, and
they can do it using this typeof technique.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (42:56):
And I know you collaborate with so many
other organizations.
I can imagine the Marine MammalCenter in Sausalito being
excited about this.
Michael Stocker (43:04):
Well, everybody's excited about it.
We just need to get the fundersexcited about it.
But yeah, no, I mean I thinkwe're pretty hot on the trail
now once we have a proof ofconcept, Because Benioff was
interested in it.
We introduced it to them anumber of years ago and they
were interested in it, but theyneeded to them a number of years
ago and they were interested init, but they needed to see
something that was moreambitious, because I was going
(43:25):
to basically be sending out thesignals and letting people deal
with it themselves, and thatwasn't sensible.
What we're going to do is we'regoing to basically put out the
signal into what they call anautomatic identification system,
AIS, which is used in theshipping industry to identify
boats.
So if you type in AIS systemsand maritime and look at what
(43:47):
you there's a number ofdifferent organizations that
process this and you can see allthe boats on the water that are
larger than 60 feet.
You know where they're from,what kind of vessel it is, what
their heading is, what theirspeed is.
I mean, all this stuff is onscreen in the wheelhouse of your
boat.
It's something that we can thenuse those AIS signals to
(44:12):
identify the whales that we'resighting in on and give them AIS
identification numbers.
Now we can watch them and theycan show up on the screen and in
the wheelhouses of these shipsand they can steer clear.
They can see them, they cansteer clear.
So the way that the whale savesystem informs skippers is when
there's a lot of whale activity,they can slow down voluntarily.
(44:33):
The challenge with that is ifthey have a tight schedule to
meet, it costs money and in thisparticular case, if they knew
where the whales are, they canactually steer clear of them,
they can avoid them and theywon't have to slow down.
I have a pal who's a skipper.
He's got an organization calledBayQuest.
They're doing scientificstudies in the Bay, but he's a
(44:56):
skipper and he's been working100-ton license and he said you
know, this thing is going tocompletely change the game for
whales in the ocean.
So that's what we're looking todo to try to save whales.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (45:08):
That's a definite positive thing, and,
scott and Tree, I'm sure you'vegot a lot that you want to ask
too, because, michael, you arejust filled with so much data
and knowledge that you sharewith us each time, and did you
guys have something that youwanted to add here?
Scott Mercer (45:26):
Kate Stafford was on a webinar last night talking
about her bowhead research someof it and she mentioned that
when the ice is out and aroundthe Bering area that the noise
will probably go up about 10times over what it is now.
But what I didn't understandwas if she meant when the ice is
(45:49):
out because that area would beice free or it would be because
of the ice not being there, orif the ice not being there
because of shipping traffic.
But I was wondering what youthought.
You thought it was probablyjust talking about the shipping
traffic.
That was going to go up 10times.
Michael Stocker (46:04):
Well, that's definitely going to happen if
the Arctic is ice-free.
People are going to go to thetop.
They're going to have to gothrough Panama Canal, so there's
going to be a lot more shippingup there.
Ice makes noise too.
When it cracks and breaks upit's not really quiet.
But this brings up anotherthing.
We're talking about thestarving gray whales.
(46:26):
Gray whales feed on amphipods.
They're mud feeders.
They take in mud and theyfilter out all the various
invertebrates in the mud and eatthat.
They used to call them mudwhales because of that, and the
amphipods and otherinvertebrates that are up in the
Arctic area where they feedrely on this constant rain of
(46:47):
phytoplankton that is comingdown from the ice.
As the ice retracts, that algaesource of foods, the amphipods
is going away, and so we'reseeing a lot of starvation
because the ice pack isdisappearing.
It's a shame and it's not reallya lot we can do about it.
They've seen some opportunisticfeeding that these animals do
(47:10):
where they're trying to getanchovies or krill or whatever
out of the water column.
But unlike the rorquals thathave pleated gullets you know
those big pleated, you knowgullets, you know big pleated,
you know gullets that they canfill with lots and lots of water
and then squish the water outand the krill or anchovies or
whatever is left behind.
(47:32):
The gray whales don't have thepleated gullet, and so they may
be able to feed, but what youknow is the feeding effort going
to pay off.
Do they have enough?
Energy that they can get fromthat, that they can basically do
that kind of feeding.
And there are people studyingit right now, but it's not
(47:56):
promising.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (47:57):
The length of the gray whales.
They're becoming shorterbecause they're not getting the
caloric value for what they'refeeding on.
Now, with the decrease in theamphipods, they can adapt to
maybe a different source of food, but it's not providing them
with that same nutritional value, and they're considerably
(48:18):
shorter than generations thatcame before.
Michael Stocker (48:22):
Yeah, the feeding effort is is challenging
.
So, yeah, it's going to benoisy up there, unless you start
going through.
I mean, what is the solution tothis?
There is an interestingpropeller design.
There's a company calledSherrow S-H-A-R-R-O-W and they
(48:44):
have a propeller design thatdoes not cavitate and
consequently it's really quietand it's appealing not just in
terms of its noise, because I'msure they'll be a lot more
expensive than a standardpropeller, because it's an
elaborate casting, it's a lot ofenergy behind a cavitating
(49:05):
bubble and they have to replacepropellers on these large ships
every five to seven yearsbecause the trailing edge gets
all chewed up with thiscavitation and it's expensive to
change propeller.
It costs millions and millionsof dollars.
You've got to take a ship andput it in a dry dock.
You've got to pull this thingoff.
You've got to pull propeller.
It costs millions and millionsof dollars.
You've got to take a ship andput it in a dry dock.
You've got to pull this thingoff.
You've got to pull another one.
If they had thesenon-cavitating propellers large
(49:29):
enough to push these shipsaround, that would solve a huge
problem.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (49:33):
Wow, that's really interesting.
It'll be good to follow up withthat.
That Shero, you said yeah,shero, bottom tra.
Scott Mercer (49:39):
Sharrow, you said the company.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (49:41):
Yeah, Sharrow and bottom trawling and
the noise that that generatesand the impact that that has.
I wanted you to touch on that.
Anything else you'd like totalk about?
Michael Stocker (49:50):
Yeah Well, I mean bottom trawling.
The noise is whether it'scolumn trawling or bottom
trawling.
The boat's the big noise there,but the devastation to the
habitat is unbelievable there.
But the but the devastation tothe habitat is unbelievable.
I mean when I was a kid I usedto fish with my family off
between catalina island and losangeles.
There was a area called thehorseshoe kelp and it was a kelp
(50:13):
bed that had been around sincethe ocean was a lot shallower
when, during the ice age, youknow, it was 100 meters
shallower out there, the kelpstarted and it was like 600 feet
deep.
Currently it's 600 feet deepthere.
Every weekend we'd go out there.
There'd be like 300 boats,people the recreational fishers
(50:35):
you know enjoying it, catchingbonita and yellowtail and rock
cod and all kinds of crittersthat they were pulling up, and
some jerk organization wentthrough there and they drag
trawled the entire horseshoekelp oh, that hurts destroyed it
, destroyed it completely.
(50:57):
And because it was 600 feet deep, the kelp, it doesn't get any
light down, they can, can't grow.
You know it had.
You know when it started, orwas there during the ice age,
there was enough light and thenthe kelp just grew up larger and
larger, up towards the sun andthey were able to
photosynthesize.
They were able to stay alive.
That way, whole thing, anddestroyed, destroyed an asset
(51:21):
that thousands and thousands ofpeople fed their family and
enjoyed the holidays, enjoyedthe weekends and whatever, and
and and this guy was maybegetting 35 cents a pound for the
fish he was pulling in and hewas only, you know, processing
the ones that he could sell.
You know the stuff he didn'tsell I, he just threw it
overboard.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (51:42):
It's like comparison of the value of a
whale that gets harvested fromthe ocean instead of thinking
about the value of theirservices over their lifetime and
how much more valuable that isthan a dead whale.
Michael Stocker (51:59):
In the end, all they were doing with the whale
is just a blubber.
The Japanese and the Norwegiansand the Icelandics they eat the
meat.
But now the meat is so becauseof tropic concentration of heavy
metals, it's toxic.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:15):
I've been hearing about that too.
Michael Stocker (52:16):
Yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:17):
And Iceland.
By the way, I hear whaling hasstopped.
Michael Stocker (52:21):
They've stopped .
Yeah, it's not cost effective.
They were sending a lot oftheir whale meat to Japan and
the Japanese were trying to.
The whalers were trying to getthe schools to put it in their
venues so the kids would gethabituated to it.
But when the moms found outabout the heavy metal stuff,
(52:43):
they said, oh great, anothermini Mata.
Thank you, you know, we reallyappreciate your taking care of
our kids here, so they weren'table to get that school thing
going.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:53):
So in these last couple of minutes, michael,
what exactly would you like toconvey to our audience again
that we I know there's so muchto cover, but what's really
important on the top of yourmind right now?
Michael Stocker (53:06):
Well, in terms of what we individually can do,
there are two things.
I tell people don't buy crapfrom China.
The shipping I mean there are106,000 boats that are insured
by Lloyds of London and thoseboats are carrying I think 20 or
30% of it is fossil fuel andthe rest of it is stuff that we
(53:29):
buy that manufactured elsewhere.
And if you saw the story ofStuff, it's an interesting
animation movie that talks aboutwhat happens.
How long does the stuff stickaround?
That stuff lasts about 18 daysbefore you buy it in the store
and in 18 days it's mostlythrown away.
(53:51):
Most stuff is like that.
So stop buying crap from China.
We sell some swag, somet-shirts and things like that,
but our stuff is manufactured onthis continent, so we don't do
the trans-oceanic shipping.
That's the noise thing, and theother is use less energy.
(54:13):
I'm headed off to Prague in afew hours.
Actually, I'm taking off thisafternoon.
When I go to the airport there,I just go downstairs and grab a
train.
You know it's that easy.
I was in Washington DC lastApril.
I wanted to take a train fromWashington DC to Pittsburgh and
it's like a five and a half hourcar drive and they were 11 and
(54:35):
a half hour train rides.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (54:38):
I remember you telling us about this.
Michael Stocker (54:41):
And they screwed up, and 36 hours after I
took off from Washington DC, Iwas in Pittsburgh.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (54:48):
No comparison.
Michael Stocker (54:49):
Yeah, Hopeless.
We have a train here you cantake from Larkspur Landing,
where the ferry comes in fromSan Francisco, all the way up to
the Santa Rosa airport andthey're going to take it up
(55:10):
further, I think, eventually.
But people have been grousingabout, you know, the fact that
the ticket sales are not evencovering 10% of what the cost of
running the thing is.
And somebody had done a chatGPT search on all the reasons
why this was such a failure andthe question he didn't ask was
(55:30):
how can you justify running atrain line and at the same time
putting billions of dollars intowidening the Petaluma Narrows
for cars?
People are going to take carsbecause it's easy.
That's right, and they'respending billions and billions
of dollars on that and nobody'sgrousing about that.
If they decided to keep thePetaluma Narrows narrow, that
(55:55):
train would be jam-packed.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (55:58):
Right, that's right.
Well, michael, thank you forbringing us up to speed on so
many different topics.
You guys cover so much, and weappreciate having you today here
to talk with us well.
Michael Stocker (56:13):
Thanks, it's been an honor.
I really enjoy you guys companyand ocean conservation research
.
Our website is ocrorg, and thenwe have a blog site which is
ocean-noisecom oh, okay, that'sright.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:29):
Great example of noises that are
natural versus human generatedyeah, that's on the.
Michael Stocker (56:36):
That's on the ocrorg.
There's a sound library on that.
That's a lot of fun.
There's a lot of otheractivities on that.
And then the ocean noise is thewebsite of the blog site is.
I have some like 650 short, 500word essays on there.
That's talks about this issue.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:52):
Really.
And you also have youreducational series, the video
series.
Michael Stocker (56:56):
Yeah, that is on on YouTube and I think Vimeo
too.
That's Daniela's department.
It's on your website.
Yeah, vimeo too, that'sDaniella's department.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:03):
It's on your website.
They're YouTube videos, butthey are linked there in one of
the pages.
Michael Stocker (57:11):
You can find it there.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:12):
So much information on your website.
Michael Stocker (57:15):
Yeah, I'm an information junkie.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (57:19):
Yeah, yep , you are.
Michael Stocker (57:25):
It's wonderful.
Safe travels, travels.
Have a good trip, take care.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (57:27):
Bye.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:37):
Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth
podcast, where we talk aboutcritical issues and positive
actions for our planet.
Resilient Earth is produced byPlanet Centric Media, a 501c3
nonprofit, and Seastorm StudiosInc, located on the rugged North
(57:58):
Sonoma coast of NorthernCalifornia.
On the rugged North Sonomacoast of Northern California,
I'm Leanne Lindsey, producer andhost, along with co-hosts and
co-producers Scott and TreeMercer of Mindenoma, whale and
Seal Study, located on the SouthMendocino and North Sonoma
coasts.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Alleman, an
(58:22):
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
Discover more of his musicanimations, ballet, stage and
(58:42):
Amazon Podcasts, iheartradio,youtube, soundcloud and wherever
you find your podcasts.
Please support us bysubscribing or donating to our
cause.
Welcome to the Resilient Earth Podcast,
where we talk with speakers fromthe United States and around
the world about the criticalissues facing our planet and the
positive actions people aretaking, and the positive actions
people are taking.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Alleman, an
(00:35):
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
You can find Resilient Earth onSpotify, apple and Amazon
Podcasts, iheartradio, youtube,soundcloud and wherever you find
your podcasts.
Today we are talking withMichael Stocker, founder and
(01:03):
director of Ocean ConservationResearch in Marin County.
He has written and spoken aboutmarine bioacoustics and the
impacts ocean noise pollutionhas on marine life since 1992.
We dive first into how USpolitics could cause major havoc
(01:29):
to all ocean life by increasingthe noise pollution levels
through offshore drilling, windturbines and deep sea mining.
He speaks with us in thisepisode just before he left last
week for Prague in the CzechRepublic to attend the 7th
International Conference on theEffects of Noise on Aquatic Life
.
That and more coming up next.
(01:52):
It's good to have you back onthe show again, michael, and
again so much going on in ourcountry.
And, in fact, tree, why don'tyou bring up the topic that you
were just discussing?
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (02:08):
We know that recently there was a public
comment period that ended onJune 16th about the offshore oil
and gas drilling and you postedyour comment on your website
and I was most impressed by whatyou wrote and you know I just
thought you hit all thoseessential points so extremely
(02:30):
well.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (02:31):
So if you want to tell us more about that,
and also the bills that areright now in the process of
being amended, two of them whichdirectly affect the marine
protected areas.
Michael Stocker (02:44):
Well, I mean, these guys really want to tear
it all up as fast as possible,and every five years they have
to put out a leasing plan andreview and they are supposedly
to bring in the most currentinformation.
And the last time in 2017, theycame out with a plan and they
(03:07):
had a fairly systematic approachwhere they were going to start
in the South Atlantic and thenthey were going to move to the
Gulf and then to California andthen to Alaska, working with
Oceana and SouthernEnvironmental Law Center and
Surfrider of North Carolina, andwe worked on it for years.
(03:28):
But we managed to jam up theworks and Oceana is particularly
good at basically solicitingpublic support and when we had
Republican representatives onthe House floor giving noise
demonstrations, we knew we hadthem and so we thwarted that
whole plan.
Then the next administrationcame in in 2022 when the review
(03:51):
came up again, and fortunately Ithink largely due to the
efforts of Bernie Sanders whenhe realized that he's not going
to win the White House after theNew Hampshire win, because the
New York Times basically put out11 hit pieces on him in 24
hours.
So he decided to, you know, thebetter part of valor and he
(04:14):
would hand his voters over toBiden if Biden moved left and so
Biden did move left a littlebit and we had the Inflation
Reduction Act, which had a lotof great environmental bills in
it.
Had it not been for Joe Manchin, we would have really made a
significant shift, but JoeManchin kind of jammed up the
(04:35):
works.
But nonetheless we'd still gota lot of good things, including
areas in the Outer ContinentalShelf that were protected.
There was only three leasingareas and there were some of the
uglier provisions.
This is on the 2022 bill and itwas basically let out in 2023.
Purportedly, we would only haveanother review in 27, but this
(04:58):
administration came in and theyimmediately.
What they did is they have awhole revised plan.
And so they're going to drill onall coasts at the same time,
and this includes doing seismicsurveys in national monuments.
So these guys go to the heartof the issue and they really you
know they're deliberately beingbulls in China shop.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (05:21):
That's a good way to put it.
Michael Stocker (05:23):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Yeah, so, um, I'm not sure howmuch they're going to listen,
but we managed to get 75 000people.
That, or individual comments.
I mean a lot of more groupcomments as well.
Uh, what I put out in my piece,um included the comments that
were a sign-on letter fromamerican petroleum institute and
(05:43):
they had some 130 fossil fuelbusinesses that signed on to it.
They have to pay attention topublic comments under the
National Environmental PolicyAct.
That's what NEPA really does isallows the public and
stakeholders to comment aboutparticular things that are going
(06:05):
to compromise our assets, ournational assets and
environmental, you know out ofcontinental shelf, of course,
but also they have to putannouncements out for all kinds
of different things.
If you want to look at the typesof things, you can go to
regulationsgov and see what's up.
So you get public comments andinput on the thing.
And 75, 000 is pretty good.
(06:27):
And seeing as the preponderanceof them were against the
proposal, there were a number ofgroup sign-on letters put out
by earth justice and the nrdcand ocn I think had one.
They were basically groupsign-on.
A group sign-on is moresensible.
And so 75,000 comments.
The priests sort them by sayingare you an individual, are you
an organization, are you abusiness stakeholder?
(06:51):
They kind of pre-qualify it.
I don't know how much theseguys are going to pay attention
to it, because these guys arenot paying attention to anything
.
We want 85% of the public is nothappy right now with a lot of
things and these guys are justmoving ahead.
Is not happy right now with alot of things and these guys are
just moving ahead?
Yeah, we'll see where that goesRight now.
The comments period is out foroffshore mining.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (07:12):
Is it deep sea mining?
Michael Stocker (07:14):
Mining.
Yeah, there is this miningcompany that put in a request
for information about leasingareas off of American Samoa and
it's a horrible idea.
And the reason why the UnitedNations Seabed Authority has
formed is because these are theoceans, or I should say the
ocean.
Everybody's got an interest init and we need to make sure that
(07:38):
we take care of it.
They're talking about going in.
You know, rutting around inareas where we don't even know
what the animals are down there.
You know there's.
You know, rutting around inareas where we don't even know
what the animals are down there.
You know there's, you know,hundreds of thousands of animals
that we don't even know whattheir role is.
So the Seabed Authority is theInternational Seabed Authority
is has basically, been skimmingthe development of that.
There was one effort off ofPapua New Guinea that they
(08:01):
started to get into and thenhalted because they realized
that we don't even know whatkind of damage we're going to be
done.
But with this metals company,they they're appealing to the
more prurient side of the Trumpadministration.
It's like, hey, we can turn itinto money, let's go.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (08:24):
And those companies are all like
greenwashing too.
Michael Stocker (08:28):
In addition to getting the support from this
administration, thisadministration and its allies
are really working overtime interms of creating alternative
narratives that aren'tsubstantiated by science,
experience or the real world.
I mean, an example is whenchristy gnome was basically
(08:49):
saying los angeles was on fire.
I had a friend who was going tola and her family.
Her mom said be careful downthere, it's dangerous, it's.
It's like a two block area.
The los angeles has got, youknow, 23 million people or
something that's living in itand, uh, and if you believe what
these narratives these guys arecreating, and it's the same
thing about the environment, youknow.
(09:09):
So, anyways, one of the issueswith this new seabed mining
thing and again, I don't knowhow much these guys are going to
pay attention to it, becausethey're still proposing in terms
of the offshore drilling therewas another proposal that came
up just last week about doingseismic surveys in our national
marine sanctuaries, and thechallenge that we all have is to
(09:30):
not tear our hair out.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (09:39):
So true, bill, the legislations that Joe
Biden just you know days beforehis presidency ended that I
thought that was supposed to bea very permanent type of
protection for this coast.
Michael Stocker (09:52):
Well, I mean, this current administration has
taken a whole different playbook.
Yeah, I have no idea whathappened to Congress, but the
Republicans absolutely have nospine at all and they're all the
power is being taken away fromthem and I can only assume that
it's not because they're worriedabout being primary.
(10:14):
I have a.
I have a feeling that they'reworried about being sued, having
thugs come in, knock theirchildren out, whatever.
I mean it's probably horriblestuff.
They're really fearful.
And then you have the Democrats, who also don't have any spine.
You know, when Joaquin Jeffries, after Trump was elected, he
says you know, presidents comeand go, but God will be sitting
(10:34):
on the throne.
I mean, it's like this is notwhat I want to hear from you.
And there's still.
I mean there's really, there'sgreat opportunities.
Everybody knows, knows like 80percent of the public is just
completely aghast at thisimmigration thing.
And what's Hakeem Jeffriessaying about it?
I didn't read it.
So there's a handful of them.
(10:55):
You know the handful ofrepresentatives.
The Democratic Party is notreading the tea leaves right now
.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (11:01):
They're not reading the tea leaves leaves.
Right now they're not readingthe tea leaves and I want to
also bring up the article thatyou wrote back on June 3rd that
you posted on your website, onthe Ocean Conservation Research
website, about the NationalAcademy of Sciences.
Michael Stocker (11:19):
It was a troubling report, oh yeah, oh
right, the boats that we use,you know, the research vessels
that we use.
The current administration hasbasically put a halt to all this
stuff and a lot of these boatsare 40 to sometimes 60 years old
and they're not suitable formodern science and we need to
build them.
(11:39):
And they take, you know, fourto six years to build some of
these things, sometimes evenlonger than that, and the
current administration hasdecided that it doesn't want to
hear about it, so they'vestopped all of the construction
and all funding for these ships.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (11:56):
And no one from the federal government
showed up to that meeting.
Normally doesn't you knowsomeone from NOAA or the
National Marine Fisheries?
Michael Stocker (12:07):
the EPA, the Marine, you recall at that time,
that's when Doge was going inand taking everybody's chair
away.
You know, people were freaked,they were fearful and they would
not get funding to attend ascientific meeting.
That's true.
I mean I have.
I have a real, real dear friendwho we did a project up in Cook
Inlet, manolo Casillate, and heis probably the foremost marine
(12:31):
mammalologist on belugasgenerally and then he was
studying a particular case up inthe Cook Inlet for I don't know
, 12 years.
Scott Mercer (12:39):
He had longitudinal studies on these
animals.
Michael Stocker (12:42):
And they're an interesting case because they
need ice to live year-round theones in the Arctic.
But when the ice retreatedafter the last ice age, these
belugas were left in the CookInlet and so they have certain
adaptations to that, both socialand physiological.
But he lost his job, they firedhim and he's working for
(13:07):
Microsoft now.
You know this.
This is a guy, then you knowjust the wealth stores of
information that he has aboutthis area, these animals, the
interactions.
You know his published papersare really brilliant and they
let him go, are really brilliantand they let them go.
And I have friends andcolleagues who are in NOAA
(13:30):
Fisheries, national MarineFisheries Service and you know
they're just keeping a real lowprofile right now.
Either that or they'rekowtowing, you know.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (13:40):
I too, we knew Maria Brown.
We've had her on before.
Scott Mercer (13:46):
And.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (13:46):
I ran into her down at the International
Ocean Film Festival at the pierthere in San Francisco and she'd
been moderating one of thepanels and I went up to her
afterwards and she said thatrecently they had just taken 20%
.
Said that recently they hadjust taken 20%.
They didn't ask whether or notthey were you know.
(14:07):
Could she go in and reduce thepoor performing ones?
They took all the topscientists, she said, and
they're coming for another 20%.
Well, she ended up being partof that 20% and she dedicated
decades of her life to thatprogram and she was head of, she
(14:28):
was superintendent of, bothGreater Fairlawns and the
Cordell Bank.
Michael Stocker (14:33):
Yeah, no, she's a gem yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:36):
Yeah.
Michael Stocker (14:37):
She dedicated her life to this.
Yeah, these guys are not, youknow.
I mean, of course, we know thewaste front of beef thing.
There are a couple of peoplenow who have come out of Doge
and saying I don't know.
I was in the VA, you know, andwe were there for a while and we
didn't really see a lot.
In fact, we saw a prettyefficient running operation
(14:58):
there.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:59):
I heard that too, yeah.
Michael Stocker (15:00):
Yeah, those types.
So I mean this is really kindof a fallout from Ronald
Reagan's nine most terrifyingwords I'm with the government
and I'm here to help ball.
(15:20):
They don't want to level theplaying field, they basically
want to dominate by power, bruteforce.
And it's to the point now whereI mean I'm sure you've read all
the most speculative andinformed discussions about what
the technocracy and theChristian right theocracy and
(15:42):
where this is headed.
You know know that these guysdon't have a plan.
They have an objective andtheir objective is to destroy
the whole thing and once theydestroy it, the idea is that
they can reconstruct it towardtheir desires.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (15:59):
I was just talking about that today on the
show regarding a review of whathappened on no King's Day
protest turnout.
Yeah, yeah, and themanipulative narrative that they
use in gaslighting the public.
Right founder and director ofOcean Conservation Research in
(16:26):
Marin County, just prior to hisdeparture to Prague to attend
the 7th International Conferenceon the Effects of Noise on
Aquatic Life.
I'm Leanne Lindsay, host andproducer of Resilient Earth
Radio and Podcast, along with myco-host and co-producers, scott
and Tree Mercer, of theMendenoma Whale and Seal Study.
(16:47):
Now back to the show.
Michael Stocker (16:53):
I went to the Stand Up for Science rally in
San Francisco and the SanFrancisco Chronicle basically
had a helicopter out thereshooting the crowd, you know,
and the.
The pictures that they publishedwere shot probably at 11 in the
morning for a rally thatstarted at noon and their
headline was hundreds showed upto stand up for science and I I
(17:18):
mean, I did an informal count,which is easy enough to do I
stood up onto the, the back ofcity Hall, and kind of looked
over the crowds and there was atleast 5,000 people there at
least.
And this happened before, youknow, when we were objecting to
going into Iraq.
There was a rally down in SanFrancisco at that time as well,
(17:41):
but the people who were theorganizers knew that the press
was under reporting this stuffsignificantly, and so they had a
gateway that you had to gothrough and you grabbed a piece
of paper from somebody and thenyou stuck it in a bag and you
walked two steps and stuck it ina bag.
So you know you're essentiallyseparating those actions, and
the and the chronicle again saidyou know, hundreds of people
(18:03):
showed up to this rally.
Um, when they counted thepieces of paper is over 50 000
50 000 50 000 and this is thesame thing.
You know that I've seen numbersuh shrink and grow for this, uh
uh.
Most recent, no Kings Act stuff.
The number that the press seemshappy with is 5.5 million, but
(18:30):
I saw informal counts from 8 to12 million people Same.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (18:37):
And I only stuck with the conservative
number.
I may update that episode toinclude that data too.
Well, let's, let's.
Why don't we move towardsanother topic that I wanted to
make sure that we cover, becausewe want to talk about sounds in
the ocean, and you alsoattended a conference back in
(19:02):
May.
Was it in New Orleans?
Michael Stocker (19:05):
Yeah, that was a acoustic society conference
and yeah, that was a lot of fun.
It was a good conference andNew Orleans is, I mean it's
changed a lot.
I first time I went to.
New Orleans was in, I think, 98or 99.
And you know the hurricane thatbroke.
You know that destroyed the war.
It really changed a lot ofthings down there katrina yeah
(19:26):
yeah, katrina, right, I mean itjust changed a lot of attitudes.
Because it was really clear andit seemed to be a very
magnanimous place where blacksand whites got along really well
, and what have you.
And after katrina it was prettyclear at least the
infrastructure wanted to flushall the african-americans out of
there.
Some of them are still living intrailer camps outside of town,
(19:48):
so you know they mowed thehouses down and being messed so
and so that attitude is therenow and I saw, you know, of
course, anywhere in america alot more people destitute out on
the streets who are having ahard time.
Um, but it was a goodconference.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (20:08):
There was a lot of kids, uh conversations
going on and um, yeah, didn't itstart with music acoustics and
then go into animal bioacoustics?
Michael Stocker (20:19):
well the way that the acoustical society
works.
There's acoustics it's kind ofcost cuts everywhere.
There's everything from youknow, uh, medical acoustics.
Medical acoustics, yeah, peopleusing ultrasound, for example,
example, for both imaging andfor actually doing operations,
you know, using Ah right, right.
(20:41):
So there's medical acoustics.
There's acoustical oceanography, which I sometimes go into
depending upon what they'redoing.
Architectural acoustics,musical acoustics.
There is archaeologicalacoustics that's kind of an
interesting, interesting.
So there's all these differentsessions.
You know they're going on.
I am a member of of the animalbioacoustics community, so I go
(21:03):
to the AB sessions and they hadsome really good stuff there.
I think one of the I putanother piece out on on this
interesting imaging system.
It was both video and sound andthey had these kind of spheres
that had hydrophones on them andalso video cameras and they
were able to get like a 360degree uh or spherical view of
(21:26):
what was going on.
So you see these fish and ifyou drop a high single
hydrophone into a coral reef,you'll hear.
You know this.
You know sputtering andclarking and barking and hoots
and things like that.
But you don't know where that'scoming from because you know we
can't localize it that well.
That sound travels so fast andin water that you know it really
(21:47):
hits.
We can't make this timediscrimination to determine
where, where it is between ourears.
They uh, have, um, have theability to be able to pinpoint
where the sound comes from.
So they had these schools offish and instead of hearing this
, you know, click, click, click,you know, click, click, click,
click you would see where theclicks were coming from, and
(22:07):
these fish were clearly makingspace, communicating with each
other.
You know, and it's going toreally kind of in the way that
the drones have changed ourunderstanding of of how whales
and dolphins be, and thispicture behind me is, you know,
it was taken with a drone.
(22:28):
Well, these animals are playingwith each other.
They're just goofing off andhaving a heck of a time, and you
know.
So now we're starting tounderstand behavioral
interactions with these animals,taken from a perspective that
we have not had before, and it'sgiving us huge amounts of
information.
Well, I think that thisparticular 3D imaging will also
(22:52):
allow us to 3D sound imagingwill allow us to really
understand how animals in theocean interact with each other.
You know, for example, dodolphins, do they beam
information to each other?
Why would I say that.
Well, there's evidence, prettyclear evidence, that dolphins
(23:16):
can eavesdrop on each other.
So one dolphin will put somebiosonar clicks out and then
sonify a fish, and the otherdolphin will go and grab it.
So it's reading the reflectionof another dolphin's biosonar
(23:37):
and responding to it.
So that's an interestingphenomenon of itself.
But then this opens up thepossibility that these dolphins
could actually project images toeach other through sound.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (23:51):
That's amazing.
Michael Stocker (23:53):
Yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (23:53):
I mean really amazing how that can
happen.
And the more that we learnabout these things, the more
that hopefully people willunderstand also how sounds in
the ocean, their human generatedimpact, that kind of
communication.
Michael Stocker (24:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Most of the models we use interms of impacting animal
communication has to do withmasking, and we see that a bit.
I mean, I've got somerecordings of pilot whales and
dolphins, you know phonating.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (24:38):
And then a boat goes through and you can
hear they try to to keep up andat some point in time they just
stop here's a clip from arecording about which michael is
talking when it comes to thecommunication between pilot
whales and dolphins and themasking that occurs when a
vessel travels overhead anddisrupts that communication, and
(25:00):
then we'll get back into theconversation.
Thank, you.
Michael Stocker (25:53):
They have adapted morphologically to this.
They have in terms of theirstress responses.
I mean there's a lot of studieswith.
I mean in the late 90s theyintroduced a sonar technology
that maybe was using that wascalled C53, Charlie 53.
(26:14):
Very nasty sound.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (26:19):
Now prepare your ears for this sonar sound
that I'm about to play, becauseit is piercing, so you can just
imagine how it impacts marinemammals in this acoustic
environment.
Michael Stocker (26:41):
Initially what was happening.
These animals were gettingstartled.
So the first really apparentmass stranding that happened
that was caused by the sonar wasthey were doing a military
exercise down in the Bahamas and, coincident with that, some 17
(27:05):
beaked whales and one minkewhale washed ashore.
And when they did necropsies onthese animals they found that
their uh, the tissues in theirbody.
I mean they look likemilkshakes inside.
And why was that?
Well, these beaked whales, they, they dive really deep.
(27:26):
You know they go down 5 000feet.
You know we're talking about100 atmospheres and they have at
surface they have a 32 literlung capacity.
When they go down that deep itcompresses down to about two
liters um and it goes into the,you know, the tissues of their
body and what have you.
And just like human divers, whenthey come up they need to take
(27:50):
their time because otherwisethey get the bends, you get
nitrogen neis.
So they need to take their time.
But what had happened after all?
The smoke had settled becauseinitially the Navy was saying we
didn't do that.
That's like let's put two andtwo together here and find out
if there might be somecorrelation.
So it took a couple of yearsfor people to really realize
(28:13):
what had happened.
But these animals were divingdeep and then they heard this
deafening, nasty signal.
It was like ice picks in theirears and they freaked out and
they rose because they need tobreathe.
They came to the surface asfast as possible.
All that nitrogen necrosishappened.
They, you know, just blew uptheir insides and they were just
(28:35):
as I said.
They would look like milkshakesinside because it was all a
mess and there were a number ofstrandings.
For a few years after that theywere associated with C53, sonar
and then some studies, I thinkBrandon Southall.
Southall EnvironmentalEnvironmental did some
(28:57):
behavioral exposure studies onthese animals and they're
finding that when you warn themahead of time that this horrible
noise is coming, they leave.
They leave the area.
Scott Mercer (29:10):
So they're now.
They've got the program.
Michael Stocker (29:12):
They say, okay, when you hear this stuff, just
get out of here.
So we haven't had thecatastrophic strandings, but we
have now a stress response inadonisetes.
That is not good for them.
It's not good for them.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (29:30):
I was just thinking about the impact on
these marine mammals and theyare already stressed enough.
Scott and Tria, they've gotupdates on some of the whale
activity along our coast rightnow that there's a lot that are
showing up that are dead orinjured, Did you guys want to
(29:51):
just talk on that just a moment?
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (29:58):
want to just talk on that just a moment.
Oh sure, the recent strandingsin the bay of the grays, an
unprecedented number.
We're even seen going into thebay, over 30.
And I think of the 30, 22 ofthem were dead, washed ashore
dead.
You know that's caused by otherreasons.
You know that's caused by otherreasons either starvation,
which led to ship strikes, mostof them, unfortunately, they
(30:22):
were either couldn't reach themto do a necropsy or too far
decomposed in order to do anecropsy.
But it's a pretty sad situationwith what's going on with the
gray whales that is.
But I'm interested, michael, inif they were to start drilling
again off the coast, they wouldhave to use the sonar or seismic
(30:50):
methods correct to find outwhere the spots are located.
Michael Stocker (30:55):
That's what the survey are located.
That's why I wrote that up.
The survey is really.
They have to know where thedeposits are Right.
Essentially, this large air gunexplosion or they usually have
a number of them, up to 20.
They time the explosion so theycan aim the impulse, in certain
(31:15):
ways what's favorable to whatthey're trying to pick up.
But it's a loud explosion.
I mean you can hear thesethings 2,000 miles away 2,000
miles, so the impact of thiswould be immense.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (31:32):
Enormous because of the way sound travels
.
Yeah.
Michael Stocker (31:37):
Yeah, they have been doing surveys in the Gulf
of Mexico for as long as they'vebeen drilling down there and
the noises are not deadly noises.
It's actually pretty.
It's an air gun bubble thatpulses out and it's noisy.
It's an explosion.
(31:58):
It doesn't kill the whales.
It does damage zooplanktonSeriously.
I want to do a study on thisand at some point in time I will
attempt to get funding andsomebody and a funder with
enough imagination, the bubblepulses out and that's what
(32:20):
creates the impulse, but at somepoint in time it retracts.
And what I think is happeningwith the zooplankton is that it
retracts.
And while zooplankton are builtto be able to deal with
pressure variations because they, you know, they dive deep and
they come up to the surface atnight and you know so they have
(32:42):
a pressure gradient they canhandle, what I think the problem
is is when the bubble retracts,you get essentially a negative
pressure gradient.
They're not good for that, soit's negative.
Barotrauma, as I think, iswhat's happening, how different
animals deal with it.
Dolphins don't really hear thatwell in that low frequency
(33:03):
range.
Trauma, as I think, is what'shappening, how different animals
deal with it.
You know dolphins don't reallyhear that well in that low
frequency range.
And you know one of the reasonswhy we had to go and update the
marine mammal exposureguidelines to incorporate the
various hearing ranges ofvarious animals to, you know,
low frequency myositis seats andhigh frequency adonis seats and
(33:26):
it's because they havedifferent hearing regimes that
they're working with.
That was again another thingthat Brandis Southall was able
to introduce, and we knew weneeded to do that, because when
you had dolphins that weresurfing on the bow waves of
seismic survey vessels,obviously they were being
exposed to noise that wasexceeded the regulatory
thresholds and they weren'tbeing bothered by it, but it was
(33:49):
all low frequency noise.
On the other hand, you know, uh,the larger whales, the maestas
seats, they phonate down inthose lower frequencies.
So they, um, you know, theyobviously hear it.
And how does it affect them?
There was an interesting paperthat was written by susan parks
(34:10):
and rosalind roland susan's gota lab up in the bay of fundy
area and, uh, and she's beenstudying the north atlantic
right whales up there, uhrecording them, and Rosalind.
Rowland was up there.
I don't know if she was outworking in the same lab, but
they were probably workingtogether.
What Dr Rowland was doing wasmeasuring the cortisol levels in
(34:33):
the feces of these whales, andcortisol is essentially a proxy
for stress.
Yes, and so she was measuringthis.
And then they were doing this.
2000, 2001, 2002, they had the9-11 disaster and they shut down
the shipping in the world forlike a week and the noise levels
(34:56):
went down and with that thestress levels went down in these
animals.
It was really rapid.
And when the noise startedcoming up, then the stress
levels went down in theseanimals.
It was really rapid, and whenthe noise started coming up,
then the stress levels startedcoming again so there's
obviously a direct correlationbetween ambient noise and stress
, uh, in these animals.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (35:11):
So and what can be done.
I mean as far as what are youdoing at ocean conservation,
research and what are othersdoing to raise the awareness
about what's happening and ifthere's some change that can be
made.
And then I'd like to talk aboutsome of the projects you've got
going on.
Michael Stocker (35:29):
Yeah, well, what can be done is, I mean,
raising awareness is the bigthing.
I mean, I first started workingon this ocean noise issue in
1992.
When I was telling people aboutnoise in the ocean, they didn't
have a clue.
Jacques Cousteau set mybusiness back 20 years when he
came out with the series MoldeSalon.
(35:50):
It was, you know, the silentworld of Jacques Cousteau.
People thought the ocean wassilent, because it's anything
but silent, you know.
I mean, sound works so well inthe ocean that all these animals
have all kinds of amazingadaptations to it in terms of
sensing, you know, pressure,gradient and particle motion and
being able to distinguishsounds in the time domain that
(36:11):
allow them to navigate theirsurroundings in both fine pitch
and large pitch ways that youknow.
Do we know if large whales uselow frequency phonations to like
biosonar, like the dolphins usehigh frequency?
I mean it could be that theyare making these noises across
(36:31):
large distances.
And Chris Clark, who was atCornell, the head of their
bioacoustic department up therefor a long time he's retired,
but he put out a paper back, oh,in early 2000 or something.
It wasn't really paper, youcan't because you can't really
prove or disprove it, but hefought, he tracked the um
migration of uh humpback whalesfrom the gulf of alaska down to
(36:55):
hawaii, because they breed downin hawaii and they feed up in
alaska.
And these animals don't justbeeline it.
You know they're not working ona magnetic compass, they're not
looking at the stars, they headtowards underwater features
like a seamount or a ridge lineor a trench.
So the speculation which againis something that would be hard
(37:17):
to prove because there's no nullhypothesis you couldn't take
the sound away and see if youknow whatever they're doing,
essentially echolocating withthese in long wavelengths, which
brings up another issue havingto do with noises that we're
making.
I've got a paper that's inreview right now.
(37:37):
Actually, I got it back from anew one.
I got to do the edits on thething right now actually it's, I
got it back from a new one.
I gotta do do the editsomething that looks at the
infrasonic, which is the lowfrequency noise that's generated
by wind farms, by wind turbinesgreat, and it's very noisy.
And the problem with that isthat, as I point out in the
paper, is that if it's true thatwhales use low frequency noise
(38:03):
or sounds that they make tonavigate around the world, and
it's either either through theirown signals or, you know, being
able to hear the pulses of thewaves on the beaches or other
types of micro baroms that arehappening with the swells on top
of the water.
what's going to happen if that'sall masked by the noise of wind
(38:23):
farms?
And then we have birds which weknow also use low-frequency
barometric pressure gradients tonavigate?
What's going to happen to themif they have, you know, 3,000
turbines along the AtlanticFlyway and these animals which
need to know, you know, is astorm front coming, Should we
(38:45):
get in front of it or should westick to the ground?
If it's fluctuating, if it'sunstable front, they'll hang out
until the kind of wind buffetsthrough the area and then, when
they have a real honest decreasein barometric pressure, they'll
get up in front of it becausethey can get tailwinds you can
get 200 mile an hour tailwindsand it helps them migrate.
But if the cues that they useto sense the barometric pressure
(39:09):
are being masked by you know,3000 thumping turbines, you know
what's going to happen.
They have this adaptivemanagement paradigm they talk
about.
They have this adaptivemanagement paradigm they talk
about, which is they're doingthings at a level that they
can't really determine what thedamage is until we start seeing
(39:29):
it, because there's no way totest.
You know how is it going tohappen, but you know by that
time it's going to be too lateOnce we start seeing that it's
interfering with bird migration.
You know how are you going toadapt to that.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (39:41):
There's just so much short-term thinking
versus long-term thinking.
Michael Stocker (39:45):
Yeah, yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (39:46):
We talked earlier about both hydrophone
and the Farallons, and I believethat's one of the projects
you've got going on right now.
Michael Stocker (39:56):
Yeah, we're actually working on a proof of
concept for this right now.
We're going to be puttinghydrophone arrays out next to
the shipping lanes and we'll beable to use those arrays to site
in on whales who might befeeding or frolicking in the
shipping lanes and be able towarn the ships that the whales
(40:20):
are there.
Well, they can kind of do that.
Right now there's a projectthat the Benioff Ocean Institute
is funding called Whale Safe.
They have a single hydrophoneand they can tell if there's
whale activity in the area andthen they have some really
excellent behavioral models sothey can determine, you know,
(40:40):
what type of behavior is goingon and where they most likely be
found.
The challenge that they have isthat they're using what's
called fast Fourier transform toidentify the animal.
We need to see the sound.
We can't distinguish asprecisely as they can the sounds
(41:00):
that they're making.
So in order to figure out whatkind of animal is doing what, we
need to know what they'recalled repertoires and then use
that to inform the behavioralmodels.
But FFT only gives you anapproximation.
You can kind of get aprobability map of where they
are.
That's because thatfast-forwarding transform is a
(41:24):
mathematical process where theydivide the signals up into these
little frequency bands and theydetermine the amplitude of the
sound coming out of each ofthose buckets and then they can
use that to visualize it, to putit up on a screen and visualize
it.
We're using a process calledwavelet analysis, and wavelet
analysis is a different way ofdiscriminating sounds.
(41:47):
Instead of sucking them up andputting them into filter bins,
we are going to be putting theminto a process where they have
these certain wavelet signalsthat interact with the signals
and the interaction patternlights up, and WaveletServe was
originally designed to processhuge amounts of data.
(42:08):
This type of process is beingused when you're doing a Zoom
meeting.
The picture behind me is notmoving, and so once it's
determined what it is, there'sno extra data that needs to be
processed there.
The only thing that needs to beprocessed right now in terms of
the Zoom meeting is my movinglips.
(42:29):
Everything else is pretty muchstatic.
So the way that wavelets workis when they see something that
is different in a data set, itlights it up, and things that
are not different, it doesn'tprocess it.
So it allows for you know youto have a screen with 20
different people on it alltalking away.
(42:49):
That's a huge amount of datathat is being processed, and
they can do it using this typeof technique.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (42:56):
And I know you collaborate with so many
other organizations.
I can imagine the Marine MammalCenter in Sausalito being
excited about this.
Michael Stocker (43:04):
Well, everybody's excited about it.
We just need to get the fundersexcited about it.
But yeah, no, I mean I thinkwe're pretty hot on the trail
now once we have a proof ofconcept, Because Benioff was
interested in it.
We introduced it to them anumber of years ago and they
were interested in it, but theyneeded to them a number of years
ago and they were interested init, but they needed to see
something that was moreambitious, because I was going
(43:25):
to basically be sending out thesignals and letting people deal
with it themselves, and thatwasn't sensible.
What we're going to do is we'regoing to basically put out the
signal into what they call anautomatic identification system,
AIS, which is used in theshipping industry to identify
boats.
So if you type in AIS systemsand maritime and look at what
(43:47):
you there's a number ofdifferent organizations that
process this and you can see allthe boats on the water that are
larger than 60 feet.
You know where they're from,what kind of vessel it is, what
their heading is, what theirspeed is.
I mean, all this stuff is onscreen in the wheelhouse of your
boat.
It's something that we can thenuse those AIS signals to
(44:12):
identify the whales that we'resighting in on and give them AIS
identification numbers.
Now we can watch them and theycan show up on the screen and in
the wheelhouses of these shipsand they can steer clear.
They can see them, they cansteer clear.
So the way that the whale savesystem informs skippers is when
there's a lot of whale activity,they can slow down voluntarily.
(44:33):
The challenge with that is ifthey have a tight schedule to
meet, it costs money and in thisparticular case, if they knew
where the whales are, they canactually steer clear of them,
they can avoid them and theywon't have to slow down.
I have a pal who's a skipper.
He's got an organization calledBayQuest.
They're doing scientificstudies in the Bay, but he's a
(44:56):
skipper and he's been working100-ton license and he said you
know, this thing is going tocompletely change the game for
whales in the ocean.
So that's what we're looking todo to try to save whales.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (45:08):
That's a definite positive thing, and,
scott and Tree, I'm sure you'vegot a lot that you want to ask
too, because, michael, you arejust filled with so much data
and knowledge that you sharewith us each time, and did you
guys have something that youwanted to add here?
Scott Mercer (45:26):
Kate Stafford was on a webinar last night talking
about her bowhead research someof it and she mentioned that
when the ice is out and aroundthe Bering area that the noise
will probably go up about 10times over what it is now.
But what I didn't understandwas if she meant when the ice is
(45:49):
out because that area would beice free or it would be because
of the ice not being there, orif the ice not being there
because of shipping traffic.
But I was wondering what youthought.
You thought it was probablyjust talking about the shipping
traffic.
That was going to go up 10times.
Michael Stocker (46:04):
Well, that's definitely going to happen if
the Arctic is ice-free.
People are going to go to thetop.
They're going to have to gothrough Panama Canal, so there's
going to be a lot more shippingup there.
Ice makes noise too.
When it cracks and breaks upit's not really quiet.
But this brings up anotherthing.
We're talking about thestarving gray whales.
(46:26):
Gray whales feed on amphipods.
They're mud feeders.
They take in mud and theyfilter out all the various
invertebrates in the mud and eatthat.
They used to call them mudwhales because of that, and the
amphipods and otherinvertebrates that are up in the
Arctic area where they feedrely on this constant rain of
(46:47):
phytoplankton that is comingdown from the ice.
As the ice retracts, that algaesource of foods, the amphipods
is going away, and so we'reseeing a lot of starvation
because the ice pack isdisappearing.
It's a shame and it's not reallya lot we can do about it.
They've seen some opportunisticfeeding that these animals do
(47:10):
where they're trying to getanchovies or krill or whatever
out of the water column.
But unlike the rorquals thathave pleated gullets you know
those big pleated, you knowgullets, you know big pleated,
you know gullets that they canfill with lots and lots of water
and then squish the water outand the krill or anchovies or
whatever is left behind.
(47:32):
The gray whales don't have thepleated gullet, and so they may
be able to feed, but what youknow is the feeding effort going
to pay off.
Do they have enough?
Energy that they can get fromthat, that they can basically do
that kind of feeding.
And there are people studyingit right now, but it's not
(47:56):
promising.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (47:57):
The length of the gray whales.
They're becoming shorterbecause they're not getting the
caloric value for what they'refeeding on.
Now, with the decrease in theamphipods, they can adapt to
maybe a different source of food, but it's not providing them
with that same nutritional value, and they're considerably
(48:18):
shorter than generations thatcame before.
Michael Stocker (48:22):
Yeah, the feeding effort is is challenging
.
So, yeah, it's going to benoisy up there, unless you start
going through.
I mean, what is the solution tothis?
There is an interestingpropeller design.
There's a company calledSherrow S-H-A-R-R-O-W and they
(48:44):
have a propeller design thatdoes not cavitate and
consequently it's really quietand it's appealing not just in
terms of its noise, because I'msure they'll be a lot more
expensive than a standardpropeller, because it's an
elaborate casting, it's a lot ofenergy behind a cavitating
(49:05):
bubble and they have to replacepropellers on these large ships
every five to seven yearsbecause the trailing edge gets
all chewed up with thiscavitation and it's expensive to
change propeller.
It costs millions and millionsof dollars.
You've got to take a ship andput it in a dry dock.
You've got to pull this thingoff.
You've got to pull propeller.
It costs millions and millionsof dollars.
You've got to take a ship andput it in a dry dock.
You've got to pull this thingoff.
You've got to pull another one.
If they had thesenon-cavitating propellers large
(49:29):
enough to push these shipsaround, that would solve a huge
problem.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (49:33):
Wow, that's really interesting.
It'll be good to follow up withthat.
That Shero, you said yeah,shero, bottom tra.
Scott Mercer (49:39):
Sharrow, you said the company.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (49:41):
Yeah, Sharrow and bottom trawling and
the noise that that generatesand the impact that that has.
I wanted you to touch on that.
Anything else you'd like totalk about?
Michael Stocker (49:50):
Yeah Well, I mean bottom trawling.
The noise is whether it'scolumn trawling or bottom
trawling.
The boat's the big noise there,but the devastation to the
habitat is unbelievable there.
But the but the devastation tothe habitat is unbelievable.
I mean when I was a kid I usedto fish with my family off
between catalina island and losangeles.
There was a area called thehorseshoe kelp and it was a kelp
(50:13):
bed that had been around sincethe ocean was a lot shallower
when, during the ice age, youknow, it was 100 meters
shallower out there, the kelpstarted and it was like 600 feet
deep.
Currently it's 600 feet deepthere.
Every weekend we'd go out there.
There'd be like 300 boats,people the recreational fishers
(50:35):
you know enjoying it, catchingbonita and yellowtail and rock
cod and all kinds of crittersthat they were pulling up, and
some jerk organization wentthrough there and they drag
trawled the entire horseshoekelp oh, that hurts destroyed it
, destroyed it completely.
(50:57):
And because it was 600 feet deep, the kelp, it doesn't get any
light down, they can, can't grow.
You know it had.
You know when it started, orwas there during the ice age,
there was enough light and thenthe kelp just grew up larger and
larger, up towards the sun andthey were able to
photosynthesize.
They were able to stay alive.
That way, whole thing, anddestroyed, destroyed an asset
(51:21):
that thousands and thousands ofpeople fed their family and
enjoyed the holidays, enjoyedthe weekends and whatever, and
and and this guy was maybegetting 35 cents a pound for the
fish he was pulling in and hewas only, you know, processing
the ones that he could sell.
You know the stuff he didn'tsell I, he just threw it
overboard.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (51:42):
It's like comparison of the value of a
whale that gets harvested fromthe ocean instead of thinking
about the value of theirservices over their lifetime and
how much more valuable that isthan a dead whale.
Michael Stocker (51:59):
In the end, all they were doing with the whale
is just a blubber.
The Japanese and the Norwegiansand the Icelandics they eat the
meat.
But now the meat is so becauseof tropic concentration of heavy
metals, it's toxic.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:15):
I've been hearing about that too.
Michael Stocker (52:16):
Yeah.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:17):
And Iceland.
By the way, I hear whaling hasstopped.
Michael Stocker (52:21):
They've stopped .
Yeah, it's not cost effective.
They were sending a lot oftheir whale meat to Japan and
the Japanese were trying to.
The whalers were trying to getthe schools to put it in their
venues so the kids would gethabituated to it.
But when the moms found outabout the heavy metal stuff,
(52:43):
they said, oh great, anothermini Mata.
Thank you, you know, we reallyappreciate your taking care of
our kids here, so they weren'table to get that school thing
going.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (52:53):
So in these last couple of minutes, michael,
what exactly would you like toconvey to our audience again
that we I know there's so muchto cover, but what's really
important on the top of yourmind right now?
Michael Stocker (53:06):
Well, in terms of what we individually can do,
there are two things.
I tell people don't buy crapfrom China.
The shipping I mean there are106,000 boats that are insured
by Lloyds of London and thoseboats are carrying I think 20 or
30% of it is fossil fuel andthe rest of it is stuff that we
(53:29):
buy that manufactured elsewhere.
And if you saw the story ofStuff, it's an interesting
animation movie that talks aboutwhat happens.
How long does the stuff stickaround?
That stuff lasts about 18 daysbefore you buy it in the store
and in 18 days it's mostlythrown away.
(53:51):
Most stuff is like that.
So stop buying crap from China.
We sell some swag, somet-shirts and things like that,
but our stuff is manufactured onthis continent, so we don't do
the trans-oceanic shipping.
That's the noise thing, and theother is use less energy.
(54:13):
I'm headed off to Prague in afew hours.
Actually, I'm taking off thisafternoon.
When I go to the airport there,I just go downstairs and grab a
train.
You know it's that easy.
I was in Washington DC lastApril.
I wanted to take a train fromWashington DC to Pittsburgh and
it's like a five and a half hourcar drive and they were 11 and
(54:35):
a half hour train rides.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (54:38):
I remember you telling us about this.
Michael Stocker (54:41):
And they screwed up, and 36 hours after I
took off from Washington DC, Iwas in Pittsburgh.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (54:48):
No comparison.
Michael Stocker (54:49):
Yeah, Hopeless.
We have a train here you cantake from Larkspur Landing,
where the ferry comes in fromSan Francisco, all the way up to
the Santa Rosa airport andthey're going to take it up
(55:10):
further, I think, eventually.
But people have been grousingabout, you know, the fact that
the ticket sales are not evencovering 10% of what the cost of
running the thing is.
And somebody had done a chatGPT search on all the reasons
why this was such a failure andthe question he didn't ask was
(55:30):
how can you justify running atrain line and at the same time
putting billions of dollars intowidening the Petaluma Narrows
for cars?
People are going to take carsbecause it's easy.
That's right, and they'respending billions and billions
of dollars on that and nobody'sgrousing about that.
If they decided to keep thePetaluma Narrows narrow, that
(55:55):
train would be jam-packed.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (55:58):
Right, that's right.
Well, michael, thank you forbringing us up to speed on so
many different topics.
You guys cover so much, and weappreciate having you today here
to talk with us well.
Michael Stocker (56:13):
Thanks, it's been an honor.
I really enjoy you guys companyand ocean conservation research
.
Our website is ocrorg, and thenwe have a blog site which is
ocean-noisecom oh, okay, that'sright.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:29):
Great example of noises that are
natural versus human generatedyeah, that's on the.
Michael Stocker (56:36):
That's on the ocrorg.
There's a sound library on that.
That's a lot of fun.
There's a lot of otheractivities on that.
And then the ocean noise is thewebsite of the blog site is.
I have some like 650 short, 500word essays on there.
That's talks about this issue.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:52):
Really.
And you also have youreducational series, the video
series.
Michael Stocker (56:56):
Yeah, that is on on YouTube and I think Vimeo
too.
That's Daniela's department.
It's on your website.
Yeah, vimeo too, that'sDaniella's department.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:03):
It's on your website.
They're YouTube videos, butthey are linked there in one of
the pages.
Michael Stocker (57:11):
You can find it there.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:12):
So much information on your website.
Michael Stocker (57:15):
Yeah, I'm an information junkie.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (57:19):
Yeah, yep , you are.
Michael Stocker (57:25):
It's wonderful.
Safe travels, travels.
Have a good trip, take care.
Theresa (Tree) Mercer (57:27):
Bye.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (57:37):
Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth
podcast, where we talk aboutcritical issues and positive
actions for our planet.
Resilient Earth is produced byPlanet Centric Media, a 501c3
nonprofit, and Seastorm StudiosInc, located on the rugged North
(57:58):
Sonoma coast of NorthernCalifornia.
On the rugged North Sonomacoast of Northern California,
I'm Leanne Lindsey, producer andhost, along with co-hosts and
co-producers Scott and TreeMercer of Mindenoma, whale and
Seal Study, located on the SouthMendocino and North Sonoma
coasts.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Alleman, an
(58:22):
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
Discover more of his musicanimations, ballet, stage and
(58:42):
Amazon Podcasts, iheartradio,youtube, soundcloud and wherever
you find your podcasts.
Please support us bysubscribing or donating to our
cause.
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