05:47 PM ET 06/14/00
Navy Sonar May Have Killed Whales
By MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) _ Autopsies of whales that
beached in the Bahamas suggest a possible link between Navy sonar
tests and ear hemorrhages that disoriented the animals, a
biologist hired by the National Marine Fisheries Service said
Wednesday.
Darlene Ketten, an expert on whale acoustics, said ``the
coincidence of the timing and the pattern of the stranding with
the presence of Navy sonars ... raises a red flag and I think
that there's reason for concern.''
But she warned: ``I'm still not ready to say the Navy did
that.''
Ketten, a marine biologist at Harvard Medical School and
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, spoke
in a telephone news conference in which the Fisheries Service
released initial findings.
Having previously questioned alleged links between whale
deaths and anti-submarine sonar tests, the Navy said Wednesday
there was ``a priority need'' to examine the issue. It said it
had created a group of experts to help.
At least 16 whales of four different species beached
themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahamas and North
Eleuthera on March 15 and 16. Seven died, including four Cuvier
beaked whales and a Blainville's dense beaked whale. The others
were pushed back into the sea.
``We hope to build upon what we will learn ... to ensure
that it does not happen again anywhere in the world,'' Cmdr. Greg
Smith, a Navy spokesman from the Pentagon, told The Associated
Press.
Scientists' efforts to link whale beachings to sonar have
been frustrated because corpses were too decomposed to provide
conclusive evidence. They included the 1996 beachings of 12
Cuvier beaked whales in the Ionian Sea during NATO anti-submarine
exercises.
But in March, some of the 16 whales beached in front of
the Abaco home of marine biologist Ken Balcomb, research director
of the Washington-based Center for Whale Research. Balcomb's
swift action preserved the corpses.
The whales suffered minor to severe hemorrhages in or
around the ears, possibly caused by ``a distant explosion or an
intense acoustic event,'' said the Fisheries Service, a Commerce
Department agency concerned with the conservation and management
of living marine resources.
Roger Gentry, coordinator of the service's acoustics team,
said investigators hadn't ruled out underwater landslides that
could emit up to 230 decibels of sound.
Ketten said she might have more conclusive evidence once
the Navy provides a detailed map of its activities, expected in
July, and she completes the autopsy studies, which could take 10
months.
Smith said the U.S. ships were transmitting signals from
hull-mounted sonars that reached around 235 decibels.
``This is the same sonar we have used for decades, on some
U.S. Navy ships and many navies' warships are transmitting
somewhere in the world every day,'' he said.
The Navy promised to devote more money to researching
beaked whales, mysterious mammals that dwell in deep waters. The
Cuvier species is believed to be the deepest-diving mammal,
reaching depths of 6,000 feet.
Critics want to stop Navy development of a new sonar,
called Low Frequency Active sonar, that transmits pulses so loud
they can match the roar of a rocket launch.
The Navy says it needs the system to detect ``quiet,
diesel-electric submarines operated by unfriendly nations and
competitors.''
____
On the Net:
Fisheries service: http://www.nmfs.gov/
U.S. Navy:http://www.navy.mil
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: http://www.whoi.edu/home/
Environmental article:
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/sum2000/eia_sum2000immp7.html
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