Animal response to sonic booms.

Abstract

This paper reviews reports and studies of animal response to sonic booms. Individual domestic or pet animals may react to a boom, a simple startle response being the most common reaction. However, specific reactions differ according to the species involved, whether the animal is alone, and perhaps whether there has been previous exposure. Occasional trampling, moving, raising head, stampeding, jumping, and running are among the reactions reported. Avian species occasionally run, fly, or crowd. Reactions vary from boom to boom and are not predictable. Animal reactions to booms are similar to their reactions to low-level subsonic airplane flights, helicopters, barking dogs, blown paper, and sudden noises. Conclusive data on effects of booms on production are not available, but no change in milk production by one dairy herd was noted. The reactions of mink to sonic booms have been studied in considerable detail. Female mink with kits may be alerted, pause in activity, and look for source of sound. Sleeping females may awaken and mating pairs may show momentary alertness, but the mating ritual is not disturbed. No wounding, killing, carrying, or burying of kits in nest by females have been observed in the studies. In one series of observations the reactions of the mink to barking dogs, truck noises, and mine blasting were similar to their reactions to booms. The effect of booms on eggs being hatched under commercial conditions was examined in detail, and no effects on hatchability were found. However, a mass hatching failure of the Dry Tortugas Sooty Tern occurred in 1969, and the circumstantial evidence suggests that physical damage to the eggs by severe sonic booms caused by low-level supersonic flights was responsible. Observations on wild and zoo animals are quite limited, but those made on deer, reindeer, and some zoo animals revealed no reaction or only minimal and momentary reaction, such as raising the head, pricking the ears, and scenting the air.