Imagine someone blasting an air horn next to your ear. Now imagine that sound thousands of times louder. That’s how experts describe the sound of seismic testing to whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and other marine life.
Seismic testing, or blasting compressed air through water using airguns, is done to find oil deposits under the ocean floor. These loud blasts can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss in nearby marine mammals, which rely on sound to find food, communicate and reproduce.
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