The purpose of this Report is to provide an understanding of what is known and not known about the effects of human-generated (anthropogenic) sound on fish, with particular reference to mid and high-frequency sonars, other high frequency sources, and by explosives, as used by the U.S. Navy during its operations. Since there are few, if any, data on the impacts of these particular signals on fish, it is not possible to have specific answers about possible effects of specific sources of current interest. Indeed, it should be noted that the data on effects of sound on fish is still very limited, and this is particularly the case with regard to studies that have gone through scientific peer review. There are many more reports and documents, often referred to as “gray literature,” that discuss other experiments. However, these have generally not gone through the rigors of scientific peer review, and they only appear as reports and/or on the web. Because of the lack of scientific review, the information presented in gray literature is often open to question with regard to the validity and usefulness of the reported results and conclusions. In this Report, emphasis will be placed upon peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature. However, due to the dearth of such studies, a number of gray literature reports will be cited, but in each case, the author of this Report has done his own review of the literature and is reasonably comfortable with the analysis of the data presented.

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