Impacts of geophysical seismic surveying on fishing success

Abstract

Over many years acoustic sources of various types have been used in the search for oil and gas in the marine environment. These sources have included sub-marine explosions and airgun blasts, which in turn have been shown in the laboratory, in large scale enclosures, and in situ, to have lethal and sub-lethal effects upon marine mammals, birds and fishes (Richmond and Jones, 1973; Yelverton et al., 1973; Sakaguchi et al., 1976; Wright, 1982; Linton et al., 1985; Sverdrup et al., 1994; Goold, 1996). Although explosive charges were commonly used until the 1960s, by 1985, 97% of seismic surveys used airgun devices (Holliday et al., 1987), and we therefore concentrate on the latter in this review. Organisms may not only be immediately killed on exposure to airgun detonations (Turnpenny and Nedwell, 1994; McCauley, 1994), but their mortality may also be delayed as a result of direct physiological damage, or indirectly from increased predation. The effects of close range airgun discharge on short-term (i.e. minutes to days) mortality of eggs, juvenile and adult fish have been examined in some detail and reviewed in Turnpenny and Nedwell (1994), and impacts of airguns at close range are briefly considered herein for completeness. Our objective is to review effects on a larger spatial and temporal scale than is typical for close range studies, specifically for the first time bring together published information on fish catch success.