---- forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 16:25:50 -0600
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Navy Sonar Affecting Whales
Navy Sonar Affecting Whales
By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2003; 6:11 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63215-2003Oct8.html
High-powered sonar from Navy ships appears to be giving whales and other marine
mammals a version of the bends, causing them to develop dangerous gas bubbles in
some vital organs and blood vessels, to beach themselves and die, according to a
study published today in the journal Nature.
Reporting on beaked whales that were stranded in the Canary Islands soon after
an international naval exercise last year, researchers for the first time found
a condition similar to decompression sickness in 10 of 14 dead animals.
The new data begins to explain how and why high decibel mid-frequency sonar used
by the U.S. Navy and other military fleets appears to cause some deep-diving
marine mammals to die. Although the bends was previously unheard of in whales,
dolphins and porpoises, the British and Spanish researchers concluded that a
marine mammal version of decompression sickness was "the most likely cause" of
the Canary Island strandings.
"This is the best data we've ever seen from a sonar-related stranding," said
Roger Gentry, coordinator of the government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration Fisheries Acoustics Team. He said that NOAA will hold a workshop
with the authors and others in the field later this year to assess the new
information and try to reach some scientific conclusions.
The new research from the Canary Islands suggests two possible ways for the
whales to be harmed by the gas bubbles. One is similar to how humans get the
bends: that the whales panic at the sound of the loud sonar noises and rise too
quickly from deep water. As they rise, nitrogen bubbles can be formed from the
rapid change in pressure and cause the bends. The other hypothesis involves
bubble formation caused directly by the sonar on gas nuclei, or bubble
"precursors," in whale tissues already highly saturated with nitrogen.
Gentry said that the scientific community, at this point, remains skeptical that
rapid ascents are causing the bubble-formation. "From an evolutionary point of
view, it does not seem likely," he said. "Whales have been diving like this
forever, and should have evolved mechanisms so they wouldn't succumb to
decompression."
The Canary Island strandings and research involve mid-frequency (or pitch) sonar
coming from Spanish-led, international naval maneuver. But they could have
impact on a contentious debate now going on over the U.S. Navy's desire to
deploy very loud low-frequency sonar around the world to detect "quiet"
submarines. That effort was stopped by a federal magistrate in California in
August, who said the government had violated several environmental laws in
giving the Navy permission to deploy the new sonar globally.
"We know there is a connection between military sonar and strandings, and now
we're making progress on the physical mechanism causing them," said Joel
Reynolds, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, which sued
the government over the low-frequency sonar. "This is very compelling scientific
evidence."
Navy spokesman Lt. Commander Cappy Surette said that officials are still
studying the Nature article. But he said the Navy already takes many steps to
avoid harming sea creatures and that the new sonar technology is necessary.
"Submarines are becoming an increasingly serious threat to the U.S. Navy," he
said. "Diesel submarines have become increasingly difficult to detect and are
proliferating around the world."
He also said "there is no evidence of any negative impact on marine mammals" in
areas where the new low-frequency sonar has been tested.
The legal problems faced by the new Navy sonar system, called the Surveillance
Towed Array Sensor System--Low Frequency Active (SURTASS-LFA), have upset some
in Congress and helped spur successful efforts to pass legislation to limit the
reach of various environmental laws that affect the Defense Department. That
legislation, which is part of the Defense Department appropriations bill, is now
in conference. The House language broadly exempts the Defense Department from
provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
while the Senate language is considerably less limiting.
There have been several mass beachings of whales and dolphins tied to
high-decibel sonar since the phenomenon was first identified in 1996, and Navy
researchers are now going back to see if other strandings can be connected with
nearby Navy sonar use.
Whales and other marine mammals are highly sensitive to sound and use it to
communicate. Different species hear at different frequencies, and so are
affected by different kinds of sonar. The low-frequency sonar that the Navy now
wants to use around the globe operates at the sound level used by the largest,
and some of the most endangered, whales.
The whales stranded in the Canary Islands are beaked whales, the same kind as
those killed in a similar stranding in the Bahamas in 2000. Beaked whales are
relatively small whales that dive deeper than most to feed on squid.
The Navy initially said that its sonar had no connection with the 2000
stranding, but a later inquiry ruled out all other possibilities and concluded
the sonar most likely caused the animals to die.
Several of the Bahamas whales were also studied by scientists, who found large
internal hemorrhages around the animal's ears. The gas bubbles found in the
Canaries whales were not detected in the Bahamas whales, but Gentry of NOAA said
that is most likely because it took longer there to get the dead animals frozen
to stop decomposition.
The research published today in Nature was conducted by scientists at the
Zoological Society of London and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in
Spain. The British researchers also reported that six dolphins and one beaked
whale that had stranded along British shores between 1992 and 2003 were also
found to have gas bubbles in their blood vessels.
The Canary Island strandings occurred four hours after mid-frequency sonar was
used in naval maneuvers led by the Spanish, and involving 10 other navies
including the United States.
? 2003 The Washington Post Company
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