Forget quiet protection in Canada. We have transcontinenata highways
(huge trucks with retarder brakes) and train lines through our Mountain
National Parks as well as planes and helicopters. . I have an owl
recording which I just let run which has the train pulling out of the
Hinton station. 45 minutes later at the end of the tape you can still
hear the train, its sound echoing along the canyons. Jasper and Banff
are horribly polluted with sound. Helicopter "climbing" and skiing -
so mountain trails are polluted by this noise. In the age of instant
gratification do not need to hike up a mountain when a helicopter can
deposit you in the alpine region where the hiking is easy. Sir Winston
Churchill National Park and the nearby Lakelands Provincial Park seems
to be a favorite place for dogfights from the Cold Lake Air base and
supersonic runs with these planes as well as the lake is nice and
convenient for people learning to fly water drop air bombers to practice
all day. A few of our provincial parks (Beta Lake and Freeman Lake that
I know of are located right NEXT to compressor plants. If you think
airplanes are noisy try these things. I do a Breeding bird survey route
near Beta Lake. Two miles away the noise is starting to bother my
hearing the birds. a quarter mile away (adjacent to the Beta Lake
Park) I can hear nothing!!. Our enlightened government has set aside
some natural areas for "protection" but the red neck quad and bike and
off road 4x4 people "need" recreation places so they are ALLOWED in
these areas. We are watching the Opal Dunes and the Redwater Dunes be
completely trashed. The Reindeer lichen and vegetation natural to the
areas is being completely destroyed and we are getting actual blowing
sand dunes there. Nobody in our enlightened government seems to care
that the ecosystem that is being protected is being destroyed. These
guys like to play in the sand and mud so even the wetlands which are
protected are criss crossed (all standing vegetation flattened) by ATV
tracks.
Most do not visit our parks for quiet or to be in natural settings. Go
to our parks like Jasper and Banff. The trails are relatively empty but
the townsites are packed - impossible to get a parking space. They get
their wonderful wilderness thrill by letting a deer eat a sandwich off
their plate at lunch time.
Now to California. I think the limit I heard there a few years ago was
at Henry Cal (Cowl??) Redwoods Park - South of Frisco.. There was a
concession there that BLARED canned Music through the park. Nice way to
enjoy the redwoods accompanied by the Ballad of Casey Jones and you
could not even hear some of the birds let alone record them. The
concession probably did not matter anyway because almost everywhere we
went there were idiots with their huge car sound machines blaring at
levels which should cause deafness rapidly. Sequoia NP with a
combination of aircraft and cars that blared was probably the absolute
worst. How Bernie managed to record anything in that place is beyond me
- unless things have changed drastically in the last few years.
Most do not care about the sound pollution and most do not care about
wild sounds. They hike the trails with their earphones on listening to
their favorite "music".
Anyway we have no worries about wildlife - current "scientific thinking"
from the US apparently is saying that God allows species to go extinct
because he can always put new ones on the earth. The fact that he puts
new ones on the earth is prove by the fact that scientists are
discovering new species all the time. Nuff said - I am getting bitter
and I am in the middle of Christmas baking.
Barb Beck
Vicki Powys wrote:
>In Australia there are no clear cut regulations for control of joy flight
>operators who fly over our national parks. There have even been joy fligh=
ts
>using superseded military jet aircraft, where paying customers are zoomed
>along at supersonic speed to within 150 metres of the ground, with mock
>attacks on 'targets' such as unsuspecting park visitors who are camped on
>lonely mountain tops of the Blue Mountains National Park, west of Sydney,
>NSW.=20
>
>And there is the all-pervading sound of helicopters on joy flights, with
>only a voluntary 'Fly Neighbourly Agreement' to keep the choppers above 30=
0
>metres. Capertee Valley where I live, adjoins the Blue Mountains National
>Park, and we are now looking at ways to stop a new helicopter joy flight
>operator from starting up in our own scenic area. Currently there is NIL
>background ambience in this valley for a large percentage of the time,
>which makes it heaven for the wildlife sound recordist of course.
>
>So I am wondering if any readers from countries that might have a more
>enlightened legislation as regards aircraft noise, could let me know just
>what their country's policy is? I would like to start lobbying our
>politicions on noise issues such as these joy flights, and I'm looking for
>good angles.
>
>Any ideas anyone? Many thanks,
>
>Vicki Powys
>Capertee Valley
>New South Wales
>Australia=20
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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>=20
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