Mapped: The Loudest and Quietest Places in the US

Map: The National Park Service’s (NPS) Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division

If you’re looking for a racket, yellow is where you want to go. If you’re wanting silence, deep blue is for you.

After analyzing the data collected, the concerns of the NPS are not for humans (after all, we created this mess), but for the wildlife which gets affected by man-made noise. As an example of the consequences of noise pollution on wildlife, Science explains that “[…] bats and owls, whose ears are up to 20 decibels more sensitive than human ears, are affected by human-made noise because it drowns out the faint rustles of insects and rodents they need to hunt.”

H/T: Science