Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Sunday, June 15, 2008
It is still a mystery why the dolphins stranded in southwestern England near Cornwall on Monday. Some scientists say the deaths look like a “mass suicide”.
Those examining some of the dead dolphins found they had swallowed and inhaled big chunks of mud from the estuary. Vic Simpson, founder of the Wildlife Veterinary Investigation Centre in Truro says, “Their lungs and stomachs were full of it. That is very bizarre indeed.”
Sometimes dolphins will chase a shoal and become stranded when the tide goes out. That theory has been eliminated in this case because their stomachs weren’t filled with fish.
Don’t blame the Royal Navy although they have admitted to using sonar in the area just 14 miles from where the dolphins stranded themselves. The Royal Navy said in a statement it was considered “extremely unlikely”that the operation had affected the mammals. 14 miles from where the dolphins came ashore is not very far considering the common dolphin has been clocked at 23.6 mph at an underwater speed.
In 1996 twelve Cuvier’s beaked whales stranded themselves along the coast of Greece. NATO was testing active sonar in the area. In 2002 acute gas-bubble lesions, indicating decompression sickness, was found in whales that beached after the start of military exercises off the Canary Islands. 17 whales beached as a result of a sonar trial by the U.S. Navy near the Bahamas in 2000, the dead whales were found to have acoustically-induced hemorrhages and bleeding in their ears and eyes. These are only a few examples.
Last year 152 dolphins washed up on the coast of Iran. Of course there were no navy vessels from any nation in the waters off Iran…none that would admit to it anyway. Iran blamed the U.S. for the deaths of the dolphins. Maybe these dolphins were caught trying to defect from the Iranian navy. Check out this interesting story about Russian trained killer dolphins being sold to Iran.
In any case it is highly unlikely the use of sonar in the area did not cause these dolphins to strand. More than 40 of them came ashore in 4 separate locations at about the same time in the morning. Some swam up the Percuil River.
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Madagascar has found themselves with at least 55 dead dolphins washing ashore and more than 100 stranding, around the same time as the ones in the U.K.
In several reports Herilala Randriamahazo, from the Wildlife Conservation Society has said,”This is the first time that Madagascar has seen such sea animals.” Someone from the environment ministry said the dolphins had created a stir.
Foko-madagascar.org’s Harinjaka says, “the Malagasy population have a special bond with Dolphins.” “We don’t hunt or eat dolphins because our traditions tell stories of dolphins saving fishermen from drowning at seas.”
The dead melon-headed whales, a species of dolphins were first spotted at sea last month. Then, for some reason they beached last week.
An Exxon-Mobil ship is said to have been conducting seismic surveys in the area, and left Antsohihy port on June, 2nd on June 4th as many as 40 dead dolphins were seen stranded in the mangroves about 600 km from the capital. 100 or more dolphins have been stranded in the Northwest region of Madagascar last week.
Photograph: BarryBatchelor/PA
Photograph #2: Harinjaka
Labels: Dolphin, England, ExxonMobil, Killer dolphins, Madagascar, Royal Navy, Sonar, U.K., stranded
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
26 Dead Dolphins; More Than 40 Stranded In U.K. 55 More Dead Dolphins In Madagascar.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Christian Science Monitor has reported the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, and her accompanying ships began exercises Wednesday in the waters off San Diego.
U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper highlighted in her preliminary injunction against the use of sonar the Navy’s own estimate that these exercises would temporarily disrupt or harm 170,000 marine mammals and permanently injure more than 400.
Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice says, he doesn’t understand “why the sonar has become such a big deal.” Whales and other marine mammals are killed by ship strikes, fishing nets and loud sounds from oil and gas exploration. Rear Adm. Rice is the Navy’s director for environmental readiness. With friends like Rice the marine mammals might be asking themselves; who needs enemies?
The ocean is a mighty big place. It’s could be conceivable there is more than enough room for the Navy and marine mammals to stay out of each other’s way. The days of Navy training exercises being carried out far far away from coastlines vanished with the ‘war on terror’. The U.S. now feels attacks on ports by enemies using ’silent’ subs is a likely potential. This is what has prompted the Navy to move some exercises closer to shore.
Logic could dictate that detecting an enemy’s ’silent’ sub before it came close to port would be the prudent thing to practice.
Navy officials say more than 40 countries are using sophisticated diesel-electric submarines which are less expensive and more stealth. These cheaper stealthier submarines could be accessed by potential U.S. enemies. Navy officials also contend the coast simulates smaller waterways like those found in the Middle East.
Richard Kendall, National Resources Defense Council attorney, believes Bush used an agency within his own executive branch to overturn a federal court ruling which limited the use of sonar during these exercises. “The president’s effort to use a White House agency to override a court order is very dangerous in our legal system, highly illegal, and completely unjustified.”
Read the “Presidential Exemption from the Coastal Zone Management Act”
Council on Environmental Quality Letter to Navy (Don’t miss page 150) of 151 pages pdf format
Photo Thanks: PH3 Kittie VandenBosch, USN.
Labels: California, Sonar, US Navy, marine mammals
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Marine Mammals Paying The Price For The War On Terror. U.S. Navy resumes training with sonar.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Adm. Robert F. Willard, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander appears to be in lock-step with with an administration that prefers to operate with the wool pulled over his eyes, or worse an administration that believes it can operate freely by pulling the wool over the eyes of its citizens.
In just one more example, that points to the fact George Orwell was a card-carrying-visionary, we are being asked to swallow ‘revisionist history’.
Willard has stated there is no scientific basis to believe navy sonar is having any affect on sea mammals! The U.S. navy is funding a portion of a $3 million dollar study to determine what if any affect their sonar has on the Beaked Whales, formerly around the Big Island of Hawaii. Formerly? Beaked whales were only spotted 2 times in 17 days off the Kona coast.
$3 million dollars is approximately the cost of 15 minutes…yes, 15 minutes of war in Iraq. Remarkably we are being asked to applaud a 3 million dollar study!
I challenge the twice-speak being dished out by Willard “The frustration and challenge is that we are being asked to put mitigating procedures into place, or to not operate and restrict our freedom of operations, without any foundation whatsoever,” There is a foundation, there is scientific evidence, there is solid and historic data proving military and commercial sonar does have a deleterious affect on sea mammals.
Any 5 year old, would be able to tell you he, wouldn’t make it through his preschool class wearing a blindfold.
It has long been known that whales navigate their terrain using a complicated system of sonar. Sounds are analyzed by a structure in their heads called the ‘melon’. We know for a fact that the sounds produced by whales are used to communicate as well as navigate. The water amplifies the sounds emitted by the whales and these sounds can carry for many hundreds of miles.
In 2005, after listening to the ’songs’ of the whale for 9 long years, Dr. Christopher Clark, Cornell University said, “We now have evidence that they (whales) are communicating with each other over THOUSANDS of miles of ocean….”
The whales use a ‘mental’ map of the sea beds they have charted by sonar, just in the same way ships map the unseen terrain of the sea.
The notion that navy and commercial sonar is adversely affecting all sorts of sea creatures in not a new one and in fact dates back several decades. For us to be asked to again swallow that this concept is one in its infancy is another insult.
If they say it, it must be so? Give us a collective break!
7 years ago several beaked whales washed ashore in the Bahamas. These whales were hemorrhaging blood into their skulls; they beached themselves and died. Why? Another unsolved mystery? The U.S navy was conducting exercises, at that time, in that area, using high intensity sonar!
Did the use of ‘high intensity sonar have anything to do with the injuries and deaths of those whales?
Ask a 5th grader, and save $3 million dollars.
Photo: © Frank Cippriano
Labels: Beaked Whale, Ocean Mammals, Sea, Sea Mammals, Sonar, US Navy, Whales
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Beaked Whales Being ‘Blinded’ by Sonar
