Potentially harmful human-caused noise pollution affects nearly two-thirds of all protected areas in the United States, according to a report released Thursday.
Researchers found that 63 percent of all U.S. protected lands are exposed to man-made noise from cars and activities like mining that is at least as twice as loud as ambient sounds from natural sources like wind, according to Colorado State University and the U.S. National Park Service.
"What we found was that a lot of the protected areas in the U.S. are pretty noisy," said George Wittemyer, a professor at Colorado State University who oversaw the research. Wittemyer called the findings "concerning."
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.