Loch Ness and the joining town of Fort Augusta are surprisingly open spaces; I was expecting tourism to dominate the environment more. Instead, mostly there’d be cyclists and kayakers, besides people on boats. All in all it is fairly quiet - until extremely loud jets roam over the lake, and a tourist speed boat shoots out onto it. From the perspective of aquatic life, I become increasingly aware of acoustic ecology in its environmental sense; how does the noise pollution impact different organisms, has it been studied?
This study suggests that marine mammals suffer from, besides changes in orientation, also direct tissue damage. The monster does not live under water, it always turns out to be the human practices that do not consider the bigger picture.
Nigel and I do a test run with the sonde on a little dinghy to the lake, also taking hydrophonic sound samples. We head onwards on the canal - the surrounding landscapes are beautiful. Spruce, pine and birch trees seem familiar from back home. Mountain ranges resemble Norway in their former volcanic shapes and worn surfaces.
Tags: marine ecology, residency, Sail