Meetings of ACS Monterey Bay

The Monterey Bay Chapter of the American Cetacean Society normally meets at 7:30 pm on the last Thursday of the month at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California (across from the American Tin Cannery Outlet Stores). Meeting date is changed when the last Thursday conflicts with a holiday. These meetings are free and open to the public. ACS meetings and activities feature cetacea and various aspects of the marine environment.

ACS Monterey Bay Program for February 2012

Marine Bio-Acoustics and Scientific Solutions to the
Impacts of Human Generated Noise on the Marine Habitat

  • Thursday, February 23, 2012
  • 7 p.m. Refreshments, 7:30 p.m. Program
  • Lecture Hall, Monterey Boatworks, Hopkins Marine Station,
    Pacific Grove     (Across from American Tin Cannery Outlet Stores)
  • Speaker: Michael Stocker, Ph. D, Director of Ocean Conservation Research

Humans use hearing as well as vision and smell to navigate our environment, and because light transmits so efficiently through air many of us depend heavily on our visual sense. Water on the other hand transmits light poorly so animals submerged more than a few hundred feet are always in a dark world - illuminated only by bioluminescence. Fortunately sound transmits very efficiently through water, so most marine life has adapted to their acoustic environment with an amazing array of sound-perceptual mechanisms. The cetaceans, whales, dolphins, and porpoises have evolved complex bio-sonars that the odontocetes (toothed whales) use to perceive very fine details of their surroundings, and the mysticetes may use to navigate across ocean basins. Because sound is so important to these animals, marine noise pollution from shipping, seismic surveys (for oil and gas), and a growing array of sonars and acoustical communication systems is seriously compromising their bio-acoustic habitat.

Our speaker is a bio-acoustician and Director of Ocean Conservation Research - a research and policy development organization focused on understanding and finding solutions to the impacts of human generated noise on marine animals and their habitats. He will share with us his work and present some of the latest thinking on the bio-acoustic modalities of baleen and toothed whales.

Please join us to learn more about this ever growing problem of noise pollution in the bio-acoustically complex marine environment.

Related web page:

bio-acoustics

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American Cetacean Society Last updated January 31, 2012