[CPEO-MEF] Whale death sparks charges against Navy

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Whale death sparks charges against Navy
Naval officials say Humane Society bombing accusations are groundless.

By EMILY C. DOOLEY
STAFF WRITER
Debate over the death of a North Atlantic right whale has pitted the 
Humane Society officials against the U.S. Navy.

A war of words began after a National Marine Fisheries Service aerial 
survey crew spotted the headless carcass of a right whale calf about 95 
miles east of Provincetown on June 10.

The Humane Society yesterday sent letters to NMFS and the Navy, 
attempting to link the death of the whale to Naval bombing practices in 
the Gulf of Maine near Sharrer Ridge, about 60 miles northeast of Cape 
Cod.

"I think the Navy should find another place," said Sharon Young, marine 
issues field director for the Humane Society. "Surely there is a better 
place than right in the middle of a whale feeding habitat."

But John W. James, spokesman director for the Brunswick, Maine, Naval 
Air Station said the whale's death could not be attributed to area 
bombing - because there isn't any.

"We don't conduct bombing missions," James said. "We don't have bombers 
or fighters."

The Brunswick station is the last active-duty Defense Department 
airfield in the northeast and maintains only P-3 Orion long-range 
maritime patrol aircraft.

This article can be viewed in its entirety at:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/whaledeath28.htm

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