Military Sonar kills Whales and Dolphins

international | environment | news report

Friday October 17, 2003 09:55

by James McKenna

jimmymac61 at hotmail dot com

Gas bubble lesions in cetaceans

In a paper published in Nature magazine, scientists from a British Government-funded research programme show the first evidence of gas bubbles and associated tissue trauma in six dolphins, a porpoise and a beaked whale recovered from British waters.

In September 2002 an investigation conducted by the University of Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) into a mass stranding of beaked whales on the beaches of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands found similar evidence of gas bubbles in blood vessels and hemorrhaged vital organs The beaching occurred four hours after military mid-frequency active sonar activities commenced there on September 24, 2002 .
"We think the animals arrived at the coast after the beginning of the exercises in an injured state due to a disseminated microvascular hemorrhage in vital organs, associated with a systemic embolism," said Antonio Fernández, one of the Spanish researchers. "After beaching, their situation was worse due to the well-known stress stranding syndrome that did more severity to the lesions, resulting in cardiovascular collapse and death."
Roger Gentry, a scientist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Silver Spring, Maryland, who studies marine mammal strandings, said the connection between the beaked whale strandings and the military sonar exercises is clear.
The U.S. Navy and other militaries including the Irish Navy have deployed mid-frequency active sonar. Deployed as part of training to secure militarily strategic locations and coastline active sonar disrups and damages marine life and has increased incidences of marine mammal strandings.
Environmentalists are now actively opposing testing of a new technology, called low-frequency sonar (100 to 300 hertz). This August a U.S. District Court judge in California where whales have also beached during navy exercises ordered the U.S. Navy to negotiate with environmental groups on when, where, and how it tests the low-frequency sonar .
Low-frequency sound waves can rapidly compress and then expand microscopic bubbles of gas in the cetaceans tissue. Each sound wave causes the bubble to absorb more and more of the gas dissolved in the bloodstream, eventually making the bubbles big enough to rupture tissues.

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Comments (7 of 7)

a court report

by pat c

Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:56

Navy Agrees to Injunction Limiting Sonar Use
Hill Exemption Still Sought; Groups Say Whales Threatened
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003

The U.S. Navy will drastically limit the use of a controversial low-frequency sonar system, which environmental groups say disorients and kills endangered whales and other species, under a court agreement disclosed yesterday.
Even as it accepted a permanent injunction against most applications of the new sonar, however, the Navy said it will press for final action on pending modifications to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other laws to allow it to deploy the system more widely. The low-frequency sonar can detect modern, quiet submarines over long distances.

(more at link. pc)

More on threat of Sonar to Whales and Dolphins worldwide

by Terry

Fri Oct 17, 2003 13:03

Well done James for bringing up this issue. Thank you.

People might be interested to know that the National Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org) in the US have been campaigning about this issue for a few years. I am glad to see more and more people and organisations are getting involved.

And just a wee bit of background. In sea-water, the combination of falling temperature with depth but decreasing salinity (because colder water holds less salt) creates a sort of fiber-optic like effect for sound at a layer in the water a few hundred metters down. It is a sort of natural accoustic channel that can relay low-frequency sound quite easily throughout the world's oceans.

It was in the 70s, I think that this was discovered and this is when it was also discovered that some species of whale can communicate with each other over distances of hundreds of miles, by swimming at these depths and emitting low frequency calls.

The threatened use to deploy active navy sonar systems throughout the world's oceans, thereby threatens whales all over the world. If this goes ahead, we are possibly looking at extinction.

The problems with sonar are not limited to just this part of the water column or to these frequencies as there are multiple other effects too.

It is essential these systems are stopped. In the world oceans/seas, these large creatures form an important part of the food chain and the whole thing could unravel.

In the case of the pacific off northern USA and Alaska, the intensive hunting of whales in the 40s, 50s and 60s, meant their natural predators, killer whales could no longer find food, and turned to smaller animals like seals and otters. This sequence of events has taken 50 years or so to unfold and is thought to be a cause of major disruption to the whole web of sea-life in that part of the world.

What we have here is yet another example of the effects of militarisation (who needs it?) that are causing and the cause of major harm to the natural wealth of this planet that has taken hundreds of millions of years to evolve and because of the twists and random turns of evolution will unlikely ever appear again. All for the sake of these nut-cases -boys with their toys.

This story has come to international attention in the last week

by iosaf giggles. - james yes thank you!

Fri Oct 17, 2003 13:31

as famous Irish actor Pierce Brosnan who plays James Bond 007 has joined with Sting who played with the police to support Jean-Michael Cousteau (son of legendary undersea explorer, Jacques Cousteau)'s new campaign to limit underwater pollution.
Think about the discordian weirdness of that.
Two mega rich people who have made their fortunes exploiting people's reaction to the kernals: "British intelligence"/"Her Majesty's service"/"The Police" etc., have joined forces in real life to save the whales and dolphins from underwater acoustic pollution.

= noble are they.

They were all so noble that they jointly signed "Dolphins Book" for the Hollywood Dolphin Charity auction, it got $102.
http://www.hollywoodcharities.com/auction_items/past_items/2002/other/dolphins_book.html
well that was a year ago, and their campaign which James has brought to your attention has been bleeping along since.

************************************************
let us ask serious questions [you like them]

¿1.q.? who started the militarisation of dolphins and whales?
1.a. the Americans.
¿2.q.? when did they start the militarisation of dolphins and whales?
2.a. I can't tell you that, but research has been declassified going back to the 1940s.
¿3.q.? what was the fruit of over half a century's research and militarisation of dolphins, incidently a period of time equal to three dolphin generations?
3.a. oddles of classified stuff, the first qualitive research on cetaceans and their communication systems and intelligence, many sea world parks, and lest us forget one the _real_ reasons the IMO (International Maritime Organistion) _supported_ global ecologists in their campaign to illegalise micro net fishing = dolphin friendly tuna tins in your supermarket.
¿4.q.? have the USA and their allies stopped dolphin research?
4.a. if they tell the truth, yes. If they are slightly inreliable with the truth, no, dolphins are in the same O as if category as the "former Taliban"-"prisoners".
¿5.a? would the US military establishment support a ban on R&D on Sonar development by other powers as well as a ban on dolphin research?
5.a. does the Queen approve of James Bond?

[the last is a rhetorical question which for your reading delight relies on imaginary characters]

before anyone thinks I'm being rude/trollish check my sunday papers golden rules for problem solving: last line "if you notice a dolphin take it seriously".....(you don't know who it works for)

by .

Fri Oct 17, 2003 16:17

iosaph or what ever the hell your name is, you give me such a pain in the hole!

To "."

by Fan of iosaf

Fri Oct 17, 2003 16:54

'dot' said:
"iosaph or what ever the hell your name is, you give me such a pain in the hole!"

Good! I like o-as-if's contributions. If we could have more of him and less of the trolls we would be doing ok

To 'FAN?!' of iosaph

by . (aka * )

Fri Oct 17, 2003 17:05

it's fairly obvious to all and asunder that iosaph's biggest fan is himself.

oh dear . (aka * )

by biggest fan.

Fri Oct 17, 2003 17:14

I would have thought to read more information on dolphins, whales, and the higher mamalian phylum and instead I get diverted from contemplating this: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/10/278786.html to wondering why some people just don't get that I'm the usual blend of mal-adjusted/insecure /egotistical /sensitive /autofelating as any one else who's done years of yoga and getting vocal about it.
My name is my mask, "." and it somehow has become an effective almost magical one, but no-one I have ever had the privelage of speaking to who waxed slowly to the point of having to live with their mask indefinetly has ever really like either the mask or the face within.

If you notice a dolphin take it seriously.
=

where did Fungi go?
and why has no Irish eco-activist yet drawn the connection between Irish deep sea mapping and the fate of those cetaceans in our waters.

%-)
now "." we are in the territory of the daily cyber counseling assembly, look around all our names and masks converge around La LLuita or the Struggle or the masks and faces.
no worry it will be the same tomorrow...

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Military Sonar kills Whales and Dolphins

Comments (7 of 7)