Applying technical guidance from the USA for management of impacts of anthropogenic noise on wildlife in other countries: the Canadian context

Technical Guidance from the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service recommends Federal agencies use estimated thresholds for peak sound pressure levels and weighted cumulative sound exposure levels for the onset of permanent (and temporary) hearing threshold shifts in marine mammals. These dual metrics were developed to inform impact assessments within the U.S. legal landscape. Despite its merits, the Technical Guidance contains uncertainties due to a lack of data on marine mammal hearing and auditory response to noise, the underlying assumptions about the representative value of existing data create limitations in the applicability of the Technical Guidance. These limitations warrant consideration before it can be applied effectively in other jurisdictions with different legal standards. Using the Canadian legal framework as a working example, we found that Canadian species are under-represented in the in the dataset used for the Technical Guidance, which also does not address all relevant impact types to meet the precautionary requirements of many Canadian legal standards. Thus, the Technical Guidance alone cannot address all Canadian legal standards and, if the Guidance is incorporated, some adjustments to the criteria within may be needed.