Soundscape Management Plan in Wildlife Reserves

Couple of month’s back I had posted an item titled Symphony and cacophony of sound and their role in wildlife management. This post highlighted the importance of managing the soundscape in wildlife reserves. I was delighted to hear from my friend Janine that this is actually being done by a Park in US
Zion National Park has a well planned Soundscape Management Plan which is purported to be the first of its kind in a major national park.  Monitoring stations record the sound in the park which is mapped. All possible efforts are made to reduce human induced noises in the park
Human induced sounds affect wildlife. A change of only three decibels can have a deleterious effect on whether predators can detect prey. Wildlife biologists say masking has serious repercussions. Masking is the inability to hear important environmental cues and animal signals due to extraneous noise.
Highrage Tidings exhort parks in India to follow the example set by Zion National Park. Many of our parks have an excess of human induced cacophony. In many parks we have been pushing ecotourism unmindful of long term effects of our inroads in to the pristine habitat of the denizens of the wild. The symphony of natural sounds in our wildlife reserves is an important natural resource that is very critical to the ecological communities.