We’ve spent decades learning to see pollution, in the water, in the air, in the soil.

Sound is different. You can’t photograph it or point to it on a map.

This week, Karen Fischer looks at what the animal kingdom — from anteaters to giraffes to woodpeckers — reveals about noise, limits, and what it means to build an AI data center next to wildlife refuge.

Let’s go.

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In 2014, Disney’s Animal Kingdom announced new renovations, but park employees weren’t sure how the noise from drills, saws, and workers would impact nearby animals.

So they ran a study: The animal care team developed metrics to measure how construction stimuli impacted Annie, a giant anteater. Data on her weight, fur, behavior, and day-to-day patterns were collected every day from November 2014 to July 2015.

But researchers found cause for concern relatively quickly. Within three months, Annie lost weight, and exhibited more negative behaviors.

By May, zookeepers moved her into a quieter area, and added extra sound barriers to dull the drone of construction. Before long, she regained the weight, and returned to her behavioral equilibrium.

Researchers concluded that the sound pollution was the key factor that caused negative physical impacts on Annie.

Karen is an independent writer and reporter. You can find some of her bylines at The Verge, Eater, and CQ Researcher. She also produces The Gumbo Pot, a weekly Substack of independent reportage on education, health, culture, infrastructure, food, and energy.

kfischerwrites.com

A few years later, a 2019 paper found that giraffes, elephants, and emus were all much more alert and active when there was construction noise in their zoo.

While they could, in theory, adjust to the noise over time, researchers raised concerns about the animals adopting ‘learned helplessness,’ which is when a creature has no way to get out of the situation they’re in, so they may not physically react, but they’re still suffering psychologically.

Animal welfare in zoos came up again this May in a paper published by Frontiers of Veterinary Science assessing 11 species across 16 South Korean zoos to see how aspects of their well-being changed depending on humidity, temperature, and sound.

The findings built on what Disney workers saw with Annie a decade-plus ago, and what zoo researchers learned in 2019: While the animals generally scored well on how they physically looked, they scored poorly on metrics related to their psychological welfare when stimuli were strong.

When it was louder, animals ate and drank much more than normal. When it was too bright or humid, animals did not eat, drink, or exercise enough. Three mammals tended to be the most impacted: black-tailed prairie dogs, meerkats, and European rabbits.

It’s hard not to think about noise and its impact on humans and animals alike today without thinking about data centers.

Researchers and reporters are working to understand their ramifications on human health even as more are built without great public support. People living in proximity to these complexes have reported health symptoms like anxiety, headaches, insomnia, and nausea from the constant noise from the facilities. 

Numerous operations within data centers reach 100 decibels – the equivalent of running a drill. Any sound above 85 decibels risks hearing loss, which residents living near these facilities didn’t sign up for.

Sound pollution doesn’t inherently seem dangerous, but case studies from the natural world show that they make a difference to behavior, health, and species survival.

Though humans escape to the wilderness for peace and quiet, for the creatures that live there, it’s a world of sound, and each noise is delicately calibrated.

“When animals are communicating with one another, their communication signals are honed over many, many, many years to transmit even if there’s a lot of low-frequency noise from insects, the wind, or other animals,” says Michael Dent, a psychology professor at the University of Buffalo who specializes in acoustic communication between animals.

Anthropogenic noise, or human-caused noise, has been a topic of research for a long time because such noise causes stress in animals and humans alike, increasing cortisol levels.

This alone can cause hearing loss and reproduction issues for wildlife because when animals are stressed, it’s harder for them to find a mate, or focus to find sufficient food. If they can’t find a mate and reproduce, the species at large can decline.

However, there are examples of people recognizing how their noise impacts animals, and changing their behaviors as a result.

Some of Dent’s earliest academic work was assisting on research that monitored the red-cockaded woodpecker, which landed on the endangered species list in 1970. In the 1990s, the bird’s situation became dire in the wilderness surrounding rural military bases in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida because the army’s training and drills were disrupting the woodpecker’s own ability to hear and communicate sufficiently, which has a cascade of negative effects for a species already on the endangered species list.

A coalition came together to figure out how military training could continue while supporting the livelihood of the woodpecker. Perhaps some drills were moved to areas further removed from the woodpecker, or elements of training were shifted to make less noise.

But either way, it’s an example of humans recognizing their own impact in the wild and voluntarily changing course, no matter how inconvenient.

To be fair, many animals can adjust to noise. Their calls can become longer, or louder.

“But some animals can’t,” Dent says. “We’re forcing them, but there are limits.”

So what does that say for the myriad of species impacted by the noise, vibrations, and activity from a data center? Without intervention, a host of creatures could inevitably start to decline, even if they try their very best not to.

At the human level, researchers know that noise pollution increases risk of cardiovascular disease and mental health issues, and can contribute to cognitive impairment.

But there is still more to learn for humans, and wildlife.

The field struggles for sufficient funding, Dent says, so a good deal is understudied, especially impacts on wildlife outside of the lab. Birds are generally well-understood because humans can hear their frequencies, and locate them. But other animals? Not so much. 

“I’ve been in the field almost 30 years, and progress is slow,” Dent says.

What ultimately propels more funding into acoustic and auditory research is making the case for sound processes in animals that can connect to human health.

For example, Dent has been involved in research trials with mice to understand how hearing loss correlates with Alzheimer's disease. There is some link between the two, but the intricacies of their connection are still unknown.

What this means is that in the United States, and potentially other countries, data centers are being built without enough information about how sound pollution will affect the larger environment.

It harks back to the observational studies in the zoos: People may very well continue living with noise from local data centers because they don’t have a choice. They may look perfectly fine, but inside, the stress could be taking a toll on their heart, or brain.

Dent thinks about this interconnectivity between nature, sound pollution, and data centers a lot.

It’s in her own backyard: She lives near the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, and visits often to glimpse sandhill cranes, owls, herons, and osprey. The area is a major hub for migrating birds. There are also breeding pairs of bald eagles that live there, so each year there are new eaglets in the nests.

Earlier this year, a data center was proposed near the refuge, which numerous parties staunchly objected to.

In turn, New York state passed a one-year moratorium on data center construction over the summer. Even though the news is heartening, Dent was discouraged that proponents for the data center didn’t seem concerned about all of the wildlife just a few miles away.

If the data center project does move forward after the moratorium, Dent is concerned that all of the auditory pollution may confuse birds, and they could bypass the region entirely.

“It’s not like these birds don’t move, or fly around,” Dent says. “The reserve is not a bubble.”

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