What if this land is removed from the ALR and development (which could go on for years) starts? Factors that should be considered when planning departments look at development applications – the stress of said developments on humans and wildlife alike.
Noise is a stressor, and just like any other stressor it ramps up the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight or flight” response), complete with higher levels of adrenaline and the “stress hormone” cortisol.
That’s just fine when the loud noise is a one-time thing. If there really is a car crash in your immediate vicinity, you probably want to be keyed up about it and ready to run away very fast; and the stress response adrenaline dump will help make that happen. But when that stress response is always turned on because you’re chronically exposed to noise pollution, then the noise turns into a chronic stressor.
Chronically high cortisol means that you never get to relax; physically, your body is “turned on” all the time. If you’re not familiar with all the dangers of that, a partial list would include: gut dysfunction/Irritable Bowel Syndrome, weight gain/metabolic damage/insulin resistance, mood disorders, sleep disorders, immune weakness, and sugar cravings. Stress throws your normal hormone balance completely out of whack – it’s arguably even worse than a bad diet.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) defines noise pollution as “unwanted or disturbing sound,” explaining that “sound becomes unwanted when it either interferes with normal activities such as sleeping or conversation or disrupts or diminishes one’s quality of life. The annoyance can have major consequences, primarily to one’s overall health.”
Older adults are especially at risk simply because as human’s we often react with a “fight or flight” response. With prolonged or obtrusive noise, physiological changes actually are taking place in the nervous, hormonal and vascular systems, resulting in potentially long-lasting consequences.

Noise pollution causes chronic stress in birds, with health consequences for young.
In a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that adults and nestlings of three species showed multiple signs of chronic stress caused by noise pollution, including skewed stress hormone levels, possibly due to increased anxiety, distraction and hypervigilance.
The study is the first to test the relationships between noise, stress hormones and fitness in animals that breed in natural areas with unrelenting, human-made noise.
Constant noise could be acting as an "acoustic blanket," muffling the audio cues birds rely on to detect predators, competitors and their own species. Unable to discern whether their environment is safe, mother birds must choose between staying on guard at the nest and finding food for their young.
Nestlings in the noisiest environments had smaller body sizes and reduced feather development, potentially diminishing their odds of survival. Hatching rates in western bluebirds - the most noise-tolerant species studied - dropped in response to noise.
"These birds can't escape this noise. It's persistent, and it completely screws up their ability to get cues from the environment," Guralnick said. "They're perpetually stressed because they can't figure out what's going on. Just as constant stress tends to degrade many aspects of a person's health, this ultimately has a whole cascade of effects on their physiological health and fitness."
Researchers found that birds nesting in areas with noise pollution have symptoms similar to those in humans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The constant noise drastically skews their stress hormone levels.
"The study shows that noise pollution reduces animal habitat and directly influences their fitness and ultimately their numbers," Guralnick said. "By doing so, it makes it harder for animals to survive. Taken together, that's a pretty damning picture of what human-made noise can do to natural populations of animals."