Noise pollution bird blues

A BLUEBIRD didn’t realise what she was getting herself into when she chose her new home – near a factory.

It was only as the weeks wore on that the low whine of the machines started to take its toll.

It was harder to hear the sounds of approaching predators, or even the normal noises of the surrounding world.

She became stressed and her health suffered. She couldn’t resettle elsewhere because she had a nest full of hatchlings to tend.

Scientists couldn’t ask the bluebird what she was feeling, so they took a sample of the bird’s blood, as part of a study of 240 nesting sites near factories. They found she showed stress, just like a human being.

“Noise is causing birds to be in a situation where they’re chronically stressed… and that has really huge health consequences for birds and their offspring,” said Rob Guralnick, a scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

It would be a stretch to say noise hurts birds’ mental health – the animals have not been evaluated by an avian psychologist.

But Guralnick and his colleagues say there is a clear connection between noise pollution and levels of stress and lower survival rates.

This is the first time that a link has been established in a population of wild animals, they argue, and it should make us all think hard about what our ruckus is doing to the

Earth. – Washington Post.