Noise as a threat to critical habitat for species at risk
The Canadian federal government has taken some action, and is obliged to satisfy legal standards or procedures that may result in action, to protect particular species or habitat from anthropogenic noise on a programmatic basis (e.g., all seismic surveys being conducted by all companies operating within a wide region over an entire year). To date, the most significant of these actions has been DFO’s establishment, in 2004, of a Marine Protected Area in the Gully, a submarine canyon east of Sable Island off Nova Scotia, pursuant to the agency’s national MPA Program. The area was designated to protect a small, genetically discrete population of northern bottlenose whales, whose larger taxonomic group, beaked whales, are considered particularly sensitive to disturbance and vulnerable to stranding, gas-fat embolism, foraging disruption, and other adverse effects. At present, the Gully MPA is divided into three management zones, in which oil and gas exploration and other noise-producing activities are variably restricted.