Hawaii whale problem - sonar suspected

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Whales' Plight Revives Sonar Theory 
Navy Denies Role In Near-Stranding 

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post 
July 11, 2004


Residents of Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai woke up last
weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a
small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were
swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing
clear signs of stress.

To keep the animals from beaching, the locals kept a vigil all day and
through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could
be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea. So far, only one young
whale has been found dead. 

But among increasingly worried whale advocates and researchers, the
event set off immediate alarm bells: Melon-headed whales are not known
to beach themselves, and nothing like this mass stranding close call has
occurred in Hawaii for 150 years.

Attention quickly focused on the Navy and its use of active sonar -- a
wall of sound sent out to find underwater objects that can reach the
decibel levels of a jet engine. Sonar has been implicated in several
recent mass whale strandings around the world, and the latest research
has strengthened the association and suggested that the number of
incidents may be far greater than anyone realized. The most recent study
found that over the past 40 years, mass strandings of the most
noise-sensitive whales off Japan occurred repeatedly in the waters near
a U.S.-run naval base, but were unknown in comparable areas elsewhere. 

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41385-2004Jul10.html

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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