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Underwater human-made noise can affect sea lions and fur seals in three main ways: it can mask sounds they need to hear, temporarily reduce hearing sensitivity after exposure, and change behavior such as feeding, resting, nursing or moving away. The outcome depends on the received sound level, frequency, duration, repetition, background noise, how sound travels through the water, and what the animal is doing. A threshold used to assess hearing risk is not a universal boundary between harmless and harmful behavior.
Sea lions and fur seals are otariid pinnipeds, but that group label does not mean every species hears the same frequencies or reacts in the same way. Current evidence supports careful, species-aware assessment rather than a single “safe noise” number.
What underwater noise can do
Noise is a sound that interferes with an animal’s ability to detect or interpret biologically useful signals. For an otariid, those signals may include calls from a pup or mother, sounds associated with prey, the animal’s own orientation cues, or noises that indicate approaching danger. Human activities add sound to this environment in forms that differ in timing, frequency content and intensity.
Four endpoints should be kept separate when discussing effects:
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| Endpoint | Meaning | What an observer or assessor might look for |
|---|---|---|
| Masking | Noise makes another sound harder to detect or identify. | Reduced ability to hear calls or other signals while the noise is present. |
| Temporary threshold shift | Hearing sensitivity is reduced for a period after exposure, then may recover. | Higher sound levels required to detect a tone after exposure. |
| Auditory injury | Exposure causes physical damage or a lasting hearing deficit. | Evidence of permanent impairment, assessed with appropriate acoustic or veterinary methods. |
| Behavioral disturbance | The animal changes activity or location in response to sound. | Extra movement, avoidance, altered feeding, resting or nursing, or increased energy expenditure. |
These categories can overlap, but none is a substitute for another. An animal can move away without suffering measurable hearing injury, while masking can impair communication without an obvious flight response. NOAA’s hearing criteria are designed to assess auditory effects from acute exposure; they do not predict every behavioral response or a population-level outcome.
How well do sea lions and fur seals hear underwater?
NOAA Fisheries and the National Marine Fisheries Service give a generalized underwater hearing range of 60 Hz to 39 kHz for otariid pinnipeds, the group that includes sea lions and fur seals. The range comes from a 2023 summary document and is a composite guide, not a measured promise that every species hears across both endpoints. Individual species’ ranges are typically narrower than a group-combined range.
That qualification matters when evaluating a project. A sound below 60 Hz should not automatically be treated as inaudible to every otariid, and a sound below a group boundary can still matter through overlapping harmonics, vibration or other pathways. Conversely, the presence of energy inside a generalized hearing range does not by itself prove injury or disturbance. Exposure level, duration, repetition and context still determine the likely endpoint.
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A 2025 controlled study, “Low-frequency hearing and masking parameters in representative seals and sea lions,” tested two trained bearded seals and one California sea lion using behavioral methods in quiet and in controlled background noise. The tested animals detected sounds down to 40 Hz. Between 40 and 100 Hz, the bearded seals had thresholds up to 24 dB lower than the California sea lion, meaning the seals were more sensitive in that interval under the study conditions.
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This result makes low-frequency masking an important question, but it does not establish a universal fur-seal measurement. The experiment included no fur seal and only one sea lion species, with three subjects in total. Bearded seals are not fur seals, so their thresholds should not be transferred directly to every otariid. The study is best used to show why broad group ranges and species-specific measurements can differ.
Why masking can matter before hearing damage occurs
Masking occurs when a noise overlaps the frequency, timing or bandwidth of a signal the animal is trying to detect. The signal may still be physically present, yet the animal needs a stronger signal or a quieter moment to hear it. In practical terms, a pup’s call could become harder to locate, a social call could be missed, or a prey-related sound could be less distinct.
Masking is not determined by frequency alone. A nearby sound with a high received level can be more consequential than a distant sound with the same source type. Water depth, seabed conditions, distance, temperature layers and other propagation factors change what reaches an animal. Existing ambient noise also changes the contrast between a signal and its background.
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The 2025 study’s quiet-versus-background-noise design illustrates why controlled masking measurements are useful. A threshold measured in quiet cannot simply be treated as the threshold in a busy harbor or near repeated industrial activity. For a real assessment, analysts need the received spectrum over time, not just the name of the sound source.
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Temporary threshold shifts and auditory injury
Acute exposure to sufficiently intense anthropogenic sound can produce a temporary threshold shift, in which hearing sensitivity is reduced after exposure. If exposure is more intense or otherwise hazardous, auditory injury can occur. The transition is not represented by one universal number for all sea lions and fur seals: sensitivity varies with frequency, species, individual condition and exposure history.
NOAA’s current technical guidance is the 2024 update for predicting the onset of auditory injury and temporary threshold shifts from acute anthropogenic sound underwater and in air. It replaces the 2018 NMFS technical guidance. The criteria are assessment tools based on received exposure and hearing sensitivity; they are not a complete model of behavior, chronic effects or population consequences.
How to interpret a threshold correctly
- A threshold estimates the onset of a defined auditory endpoint under specified assumptions.
- It applies to a particular exposure type, duration, frequency weighting and species group or hearing category.
- Passing below the threshold does not guarantee no behavioral response.
- Exceeding a threshold does not prove that every exposed animal will be injured.
- Cumulative exposure and repeated events must be considered separately from a single brief sound.
For these reasons, a permit or impact assessment should state which endpoint it is evaluating and which version of the guidance it uses. Calling a value a “safe level” without those details can mislead readers and decision-makers.
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Behavioral responses are a separate question
NOAA identifies several possible behavioral effects of underwater noise: increased energy expenditure, avoidance of an action area, and disruption to feeding, resting or nursing. These responses are context dependent. A sea lion that leaves a haul-out area briefly, a mother that changes her nursing position, and an animal that repeatedly avoids a foraging area may all be responding behaviorally, but their biological consequences are not identical.
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Behavioral disturbance can occur without auditory injury, and an animal that remains in place is not necessarily unaffected. Masking may reduce the ability to communicate while the animal continues feeding. Conversely, movement away from a noisy area may reduce immediate exposure but increase travel costs or time spent searching for food. Whether a response matters at the population level depends on its frequency, duration, the availability of alternative habitat and the animals’ life-history stage.
Because the evidence does not establish one general population-wide effect estimate for sea lions and fur seals, claims such as “this noise displaces a fixed percentage of animals” should not be generalized across species, locations or projects.
How different noise scenarios should be compared
Shipping, seismic surveying, construction and sonar can differ substantially, but the available evidence does not support ranking one source as universally most harmful to all sea lions and fur seals. The useful comparison is based on the exposure that animals actually receive.
| Comparison axis | Questions to ask | Why it changes the assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Impulsive or continuous | Does the sound arrive as brief high-energy events, a sustained signal or repeated pulses? | Timing and peak energy affect auditory models and opportunities for recovery. |
| Frequency content | Which frequencies dominate, and do they overlap the hearing or communication signals of the species present? | Overlap influences masking and frequency-specific sensitivity. |
| Received level | What reaches the animal, rather than what the source produces at its origin? | Propagation and distance can substantially change exposure. |
| Duration and repetition | How long does each event last, and how often does it recur? | Repeated exposure can alter cumulative dose and recovery opportunities. |
| Ambient background | What other sounds are present at the same time? | Background noise can reduce signal contrast and change masking. |
| Animal context | Are animals feeding, resting, nursing, traveling or concentrated in a haul-out area? | The same disturbance may have different consequences in different activities or life stages. |
| Endpoint | Is the assessment about masking, temporary threshold shift, injury or behavior? | Each endpoint requires different evidence and should not be substituted for another. |
This framework explains why a source label alone is inadequate. Two projects using the same equipment can produce different risks if their operating schedules, locations, propagation conditions and nearby animal activities differ.
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A practical way to evaluate an underwater-noise exposure
Readers reviewing a monitoring report, environmental assessment or incident can use the following sequence:
- Identify the species and life stage. Confirm whether the animals are sea lions, fur seals or another pinniped, and note whether pups, nursing mothers or breeding groups are present.
- Describe the sound at the animal. Look for received levels, frequency spectrum, pulse shape, distance and propagation assumptions. Source power alone is not an exposure measurement.
- Establish timing. Record start and stop times, pulse rate, daily operating hours and the number of repeated events.
- Choose the endpoint. State whether the question concerns masking, temporary threshold shift, auditory injury, behavioral disturbance or a combination.
- Use the current auditory guidance. For acute hearing effects, identify the NOAA 2024 criteria and the hearing category applied. Do not present superseded 2018 criteria as current.
- Assess behavior independently. Document changes in feeding, resting, nursing, travel or area use rather than inferring behavior from an auditory threshold.
- State uncertainty explicitly. Explain where measurements come from, which species were studied and where extrapolation is required.
This process prevents a common error: treating a modeled threshold exceedance as proof of a particular behavioral outcome, or treating an observed movement response as proof of hearing injury.
Mitigation and monitoring: what can responsibly be said
Noise management should be designed around the species, location, activity and endpoint. The available evidence does not support one mitigation measure that can be recommended for every sea lion and fur-seal situation. A project may need a combination of scheduling, spatial planning, source control, acoustic monitoring and observation, but the appropriate combination depends on its exposure model and regulatory requirements.
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Elements of a defensible plan
- Use the 2024 NOAA hearing guidance for acute auditory-effect calculations.
- Keep acoustic injury and temporary-threshold-shift analysis separate from behavioral-disturbance analysis.
- Measure or model received sound over the relevant frequency range, including low frequencies when justified by the species and source.
- Define action areas and observation zones using propagation conditions rather than a generic radius.
- Track animal presence and activity so feeding, resting and nursing contexts are not collapsed into one count.
- Report uncertainty, including the absence of fur-seal measurements where applicable.
Monitoring results should identify what was actually measured. “No animals were seen leaving” is a behavioral observation, not evidence that no masking or temporary hearing change occurred. Likewise, a modeled auditory threshold result does not establish that animals abandoned an area.
What remains uncertain
Several limits shape how broadly these findings can be applied:
- The generalized 60 Hz–39 kHz range is a composite otariid estimate, not the measured range of every sea-lion or fur-seal species.
- The low-frequency experiment included two bearded seals and one California sea lion, but no fur seal; its 40 Hz result and 24 dB sensitivity difference cannot be assigned to all otariids.
- The available sources do not establish a universal ranking of shipping, sonar, seismic work or construction by harm.
- No verified population-wide percentage of sea lions or fur seals affected by underwater noise is established here.
- Behavioral consequences depend on setting and activity, so a result from one colony, season or project may not transfer elsewhere.
These are not reasons to dismiss noise effects. They are reasons to match the claim to the evidence: identify the species, characterize the received sound, name the endpoint and avoid turning a group average or small experiment into a universal rule.
Key takeaway for readers
Underwater noise can interfere with hearing, temporarily reduce sensitivity, injure auditory systems at sufficiently hazardous exposures and alter behavior. Sea lions and fur seals share the otariid group, yet their hearing and responses should not be assumed identical. The most defensible assessment combines the NOAA 2024 auditory guidance with separate, context-specific behavioral analysis and clearly states what is measured, what is modeled and what remains uncertain.
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