Man-made noise a 'major pollutant'

PARIS - While it is well known that human hubbub can have a negative impact on some animals, a new study reports that the noise we make should be treated as a "major global pollutant".

"We found that noise affects many species of amphibians, arthropods, birds, fish, mammals, mollusks and reptilians," scientists at Queen's University Belfast said in a paper published on Wednesday in the Royal Society's Biology Letters.

Human noise pervades the environment, from vehicles and industry in dense urban centers, to planes overhead, to ocean-going vessels whose propellers may interfere with whales' sonar communications and even be implicated in mass beaching as the disorientated animals lose their sense of direction.