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Natural England publishes wind farm planning guidance

Natural England, a recently-established "statutory consultee" charged with advising the UK government on projects that may affect wildlife or the English countryside experience, has published a document that outlines its approach to providing guidance on wind farm siting. The guidance considers both established parks and other unprotected wild lands and ...

Listen to the Orchive: 20,000 hours of Spong orca lab tapes

Paul Spong and Helena Symonds are legends in the field of whale research; since the early 1970's they've dedicated themselves to studying orcas from their independent lab on an island between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Over those many years, they've accumulated 20,000 hours of tapes, which are now being ...

AEI annual report, Ocean Noise 2009 is now available

The Acoustic Ecology Institute has published Ocean Noise 2009, the fourth in its annual series of reports reviewing new research and regulatory developments in ocean noise. AEI’s annual recaps are widely anticipated and circulated among ocean noise scientists and regulators, as well as within NGO and journalist communities. The report can ...

NPS research shows human noise limits animal listening area, alerting distance

A key research paper from National Park Service and Colorado State scientists has been published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The paper, which got a lot of press when it was first made available online in the fall, introduces two key new metrics for measuring the effects of noise ...

New offshore wind turbine design: cheaper and easier to maintain

A radical new approach to offshore wind turbines is being developed by UK researchers could solve one of the major challenges of offshore wind development. The Novel Offshore Vertical Axis (NOVA) Demonstrator puts the moving parts at the bottom of the unit, greatly simplifying maintenance. (How they will deal with corrosive ...

Zion Nat’l Park begins soundscape planning process

Zion National Park is gearing up to begin incorporating soundscape planning into their management priorities. Park Superintendent Jock Whitworth has announced two open houses in March on the topic, and public comments are being accepted until April 9 as part of an initial information-gathering stage. This will inform the drafting ...

Hawaii humpback sanctuary management review beginning now: will noise be on the table?

The Hawaiian Islands Humback Whale National Marine Sanctuary is beginning a review of its management plan, and ocean noise activists are pushing for sanctuary managers to bring noise issues to the forefront. The Sanctuary was established in 1992 to help protect the humpback whale winter nursery grounds in shallow waters ...

UK: Noise complaints at 37 of 255 wind farms

Here's a bit of news that might be spun either way, depending on your predilection. Jane Davis, who was driven from her home by wind farm noise, has been compiling information on English wind farms and noise complaints; she has found that 37 wind farms have spurred some sort of ...

Cornell listening systems could reduce risk of bird deaths from wind farms

This one slipped past me when it happened last June, but it's well worth noting now. Complicating assessments of the risks of bird deaths at wind farms is the fact that two-thirds of migrating bird species migrate mainly at night; Cornell's Bioacoustics Research Program, which has already done groundbreaking work ...

New hospital noise guidelines will lead to quieter care

A topic that's been a recurring tangent for AEI over the years has been excessive noise in hospitals; it's always surprised us that places theoretically designed for healing and recuperation would be so full of noisy machines and reverberant hallways. Well, that is about to change: New design and construction ...