Sound is a signature of our environment, a narration of the scenery around us. The familiar clamor of vehicles, sirens, leaf blowers, and dinging phones is characteristic of living in populated areas. While the city soundscape can become mundane and unnoticeable, it can be a deafening annoyance to others.
Part of the wilderness experience is to escape this cacophony of man-made sound and serenaded by wind and wildlife.
The streetscape noise fades away once in the wilderness, but the skies overhead have become less quiet. The echo of aircraft propellers from cargo jets, military jets, commercial airliners, private recreational planes, and helicopters frequent the airspace day and night. Heli-hiking trips, where tour companies transport hikers from their hotel to remote wilderness areas for a day hike, are popular in national parks and wilderness areas.
Humans have invaded all open space. The racket from the crowds of visitors showing up in everything from overloaded tour buses to the whirling blade of a helicopter tour means protected wildlife inhabiting many U.S. National Parks are exposed to near-constant noise. Human sounds not only scare wildlife but also diminish their health. While we can find relief with earplugs, animals can’t evade our noise.
Quiet is not only good for birds and animals but necessary as it helps in communicating with one another for attracting mates and assessing danger. Studies show that man-made noise interferes with the way animals communicate and prey on one another, which can impact long-term survival and health. Each species has a typical hearing range for loudness (amplitude) and pitch (frequency). Animals rely on this combination to communicate and reproduce. We don’t understand the extent of the impact, but we know that certain raptors, such as owls, that rely on their hearing to locate prey are affected.
Sound is measured in decibels (dB). Audible sound starts at 0 dB (near silence). A sound 10 times more powerful is 10 dB. Subjected to 45 decibels of noise, the average person cannot sleep. To put 45 dB in perspective, that is equivalent to the sound of a refrigerator running. We no longer consider that to be loud.
At a distance of 2,000 ft (600 m), the noise of a jet takeoff reaches about 110 decibels—approximately the same as an automobile horn only 3 ft (1 m) away. Overhead military jets traveling 500 ft above your head are at least 120 dB. Considering decibels are logarithmic, and each 10 dB represents a doubling of sound, 120 dB is loud. Anything above 85 dB is enough to damage your hearing. [1]
Everything we experience about the world comes from our five external senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Undoubtedly, our senses provide us with much information about the world. We tend to forget how much we rely on our senses until we become sick or lose one. Likewise, when we meet other people with a deficit in one of those senses, we are reminded of how precious our senses are. For instance, the extraordinary blind hiker, Mike Hanson, walked 1,700 miles of the AT in 2008. He programmed his GPS to provide precise voice navigation along the trail. When one sense goes awry, it’s impressive to see how some people can design methods to rely on their remaining senses to pick up the deficit.
The U.S. federal government owns 650 million acres, or 30% of the land in this country. Much of that land is set aside for public recreation so we can swim, hike, fish, and hunt; The land also has other purposes. Large tracts of land are often divided up to provide multiple uses for other government agencies – such as the military. This is why you see so many wilderness areas near military bases. I suppose that is just a small price we pay for the freedom to roam.
This article was inspired after Outdoor Herbivore took a hike on the Neusiok Trail, a portion of the Mountains-To-Sea trail in the Croatan Forest near the North Carolina coast. The white sandy beaches, the waves crashing on your toes, the swamps and small lakes, the wooden bridges, and the occasional snake slivering past your feet are not to be missed. But, expect noise! From 7:30 AM to 9:30 PM, there is low traveling military air traffic practicing runs from the nearby Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station every few minutes. This would not be a problem if the runway were further away from the trail, so the planes traveled at a higher elevation. However, they fly low in the sky – approximately 500 feet to 2,000 feet above the ground. We didn’t expect to watch planes instead of wildlife, but that is what we got. So we just enjoyed the show.
Once nightfall settled in, the only escape from the planes roaring in the sky was earplugs.
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[1] From noise pollution
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This is so true, and so sad... I use earplugs all the time, and I can't sleep without them anymore. Right now, it's the loud screams of my spoiled nephew, that goes literally from morning to late at night. And in the wild, not even in the late evening there's that amazing peace anymore: humans are everywhere, no matter how far you go to stay away from them.