Navy Sonar May Have Killed Whales
By MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) JUNE 14, 2000 — Autopsies of whales that beached in the Bahamas suggest a possible link between Navy sonar tests and ear hemorrhages that disoriented the animals, a biologist hired by the National Marine Fisheries Service said Wednesday.
Darlene Ketten, an expert on whale acoustics, said "the coincidence of the timing and the pattern of the stranding with the presence of Navy sonars ... raises a red flag and I think that there's reason for concern.''
But she warned: "I'm still not ready to say the Navy did that.''
Ketten, a marine biologist at Harvard Medical School and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, spoke in a telephone news conference in which the Fisheries Service released initial findings.
Having previously questioned alleged links between whale deaths and anti-submarine sonar tests, the Navy said Wednesday there was "a priority need'' to examine the issue. It said it had created a group of experts to help.
At least 16 whales of four different species beached themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahamas and North Eleuthera on March 15 and 16. Seven died, including four Cuvier beaked whales and a Blainville's dense beaked whale. The others were pushed back into the sea.
"We hope to build upon what we will learn ... to ensure that it does not happen again anywhere in the world,'' Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman from the Pentagon, told The Associated Press.
Scientists' efforts to link whale beachings to sonar have been frustrated because corpses were too decomposed to provide conclusive evidence. They included the 1996 beachings of 12 Cuvier beaked whales in the Ionian Sea during NATO anti-submarine exercises.
But in March, some of the 16 whales beached in front of the Abaco home of marine biologist Ken Balcomb, research director of the Washington-based Center for Whale Research. Balcomb's swift action preserved the corpses.
The whales suffered minor to severe hemorrhages in or around the ears, possibly caused by "a distant explosion or an intense acoustic event,'' said the Fisheries Service, a Commerce Department agency concerned with the conservation and management of living marine resources.
Roger Gentry, coordinator of the service's acoustics team, said investigators hadn't ruled out underwater landslides that could emit up to 230 decibels of sound.
Ketten said she might have more conclusive evidence once the Navy provides a detailed map of its activities, expected in July, and she completes the autopsy studies, which could take 10 months.
Smith said the U.S. ships were transmitting signals from hull-mounted sonars that reached around 235 decibels.
"This is the same sonar we have used for decades, on some U.S. Navy ships and many navies' warships are transmitting somewhere in the world every day,'' he said.
The Navy promised to devote more money to researching beaked whales, mysterious mammals that dwell in deep waters. The Cuvier species is believed to be the deepest-diving mammal, reaching depths of 6,000 feet.
Critics want to stop Navy development of a new sonar, called Low Frequency Active sonar, that transmits pulses so loud they can match the roar of a rocket launch.
The Navy says it needs the system to detect "quiet, diesel-electric submarines operated by unfriendly nations and competitors.''
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On the Net:
Fisheries service: http://www.nmfs.gov/
U.S. Navy: http://www.navy.mil
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: http://www.whoi.edu/home/
Environmental article: http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/sum2000/eia—sum2000immp7.html
