-Caveat Lector-
Whale Researcher Says Navy's
New Sonar Can Kill
By Christopher Dunagan
The Sun of Bremerton, WA
© 2001 Scripps Howard News Service
3-9-1
Website to visit:
http://www.manyrooms.net/bahamas.html
BREMERTON, Washington - Oceans off the Bahamas
seem lonelier this winter as whale researchers scan the
water for the beaked whales they have been studying for
years, a scientist says.
At least some of the whales were caught in a Navy
exercise nearly a year ago, and now Ken Balcomb fears
many whales were killed by sonar.
Balcomb, who divides his time between Washington
state's San Juan Islands and the Bahamas, has spent
years identifying beaked whales. Now, the only ones he
sees are strangers - probably visitors from other areas.
Balcomb, of the Center for Whale Research, is normally
a reserved and cautious scientist. Recently, he sent a
strongly worded letter to the Navy warning that the
proposed deployment of a new low-frequency sonar
system could have devastating effects on whales
throughout the world.
The Navy has acknowledged that sonar may have
contributed to the deaths of seven whales in the
Bahamas. The whales beached themselves last March
15 during an exercise involving five ships.
A natural phenomenon, called a "surface duct," may have
transmitted greater volumes of sound to lower depths,
according to a report.
The National Marine Fisheries Service suggested that
the whales may have become disoriented by the sound
and died due to beaching.
Balcomb is calling for better analysis.
"Considering the observed damage to the whales that
stranded and died and the short time period between
stranding and death, the NMFS statement that the
whales died from stranding is patently absurd," Balcomb
said in his letter. "The whales that we observed
swimming toward shore and stranding were only the
temporary survivors of an acoustic holocaust that can be
likened to fishing with dynamite."
Balcomb contends the Navy has not adequately
considered how loud noise from sonar may resonate
within air chambers located in the whales' skulls.
"The killing is largely due to resonance phenomena in
the whales' cranial air spaces that are tearing apart
delicate tissues around the brain and ears," Balcomb
said in his letter. "This is an entirely separate issue from
auditory thresholds and traumas that the Navy has
fixated upon."
Balcomb's letter uses mathematical equations to describe
the relationship between the size of air spaces and the
resulting resonance.
He also questions whether the Navy has proposed
adequate precautions with its new low-frequency sonar,
which he says can create resonance frequencies.
"The Navy has consistently tried to de-link the
low-frequency active sonar with the normal sonar," he
said. "If you really investigate resonance, you will see
there is a common denominator."
Joe Johnson, who leads a team studying the
environmental impacts of low-frequency sonar, said
laboratory studies were done to measure resonance
effects on rats, mice and guinea pigs.
It takes a fairly steady tone to create resonance, he said.
Frequency change and sound levels used in the
low-frequency sonar system are not great enough to
cause injury in whales, although they may cause
behavioral changes.
"Based on everything we've seen," he said, "this is not
going to have an impact on the species."
If in doubt, Johnson said, consider that the large whales -
blue whales and humpback whales - generate the same
volumes and frequencies as the Navy's low-frequency
sonar.
Balcomb, a former Navy man himself, said he is
disappointed that the Navy has not provided adequate
answers to the Bahamas incident.
"We are not talking theory stuff here," Balcomb said in an
interview. "The Navy can throw up all kinds of theoretical
reasons why it didn't happen. But it happened. There has
to be something wrong with the theory. I'm trying to get
them to look at the resonance issue."
The Navy's new system, towed by a ship, uses a series
of speakers to produce low-frequency sounds that can
travel hundreds of miles. Reflected waves are used to
locate other ships.
The system would not be deployed close to shore, the
Navy says, and operational procedures reduce the
chance of a whale being nearby during transmission.
_____
Stop LFAS Worldwide! Insist that people be told the truth
about LFAS and other high intensity sonars.
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