| Summary/Abstract |
The maritime piracy issue drew significant global attention post-2012. The response from the major nations, even those geographically distant from the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), has been highly pro-active. Two important changes that are relevant to this paper are the increased deployment of multi-national naval forces for anti-piracy operations and also re-routing of the shipping lanes closer to the shores. The acoustic impact of these actions was completely ignored but their impact on the marine ecosystem needs to be reviewed. A rare stranding of a blue whale in June 2015 and a Bryde's whale in January 2016, off the west coast of India, are a possible manifestation of the degraded acoustic habitat due to high levels of low-frequency ambient noise in the region. The paper presents an investigative analysis of the two reported events and their correlation with acoustic habitat degradation which may be attributable to increased shipping in the region.
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