Navy active sonar harming ocean life

Although whales continue washing ashore injured, dead or dying, following naval exercises, the Bush administration is opposing international efforts to regulate use of the high-intensity active sonars which are causing this death and destruction. In recent months, four international bodies have raised the issue of these sonars and their impacts on whales, dolphins and other marine life.

A report released last July by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission stated, “The weight of accumulated evidence now associates mid-frequency, military sonar with atypical beaked whale mass strandings. This evidence is very convincing and appears overwhelming.”

It draws attention to the fact that the number of whales impacted by these sonars may have been seriously underestimated: “Assessments of stranding events do not account for animals that are seriously affected or died, but did not strand.” The report goes on to state that there is “compelling evidence” that entire populations of marine mammals are potentially threatened.

In October, the 25 member states of the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution recognizing that military sonars pose “a significant threat to marine mammals, fish and other ocean wildlife,” and calling on member nations to “immediately restrict the use of high-intensity active naval sonars in waters falling under their jurisdiction.” It also calls for a multinational task force for developing international agreements on sonar and other sources of intense human-made ocean noise, such as oil and gas exploration and commercial shipping.

In November, the 16 member states of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS) approved a resolution calling for “extreme caution” in conducting activities that produce intense underwater noise, including naval sonars. Several weeks later, the IUCN-World Conservation Union, a prestigious group of 70 nations and 400 nongovernmental organizations, also overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for urgent action by governments to limit the use of high-intensity naval sonars and other sources of loud ocean noise.

These international agreements are encouraging and show clearly an emerging recognition globally that loud human-made ocean noise, including high-intensity active sonars, seriously threaten whales and other marine life. Unfortunately, these agreements are not binding or enforceable. In fact, the United States and other navies still make continuous use of these sonars in wars and exercises around the world.

The Bush administration has stated that it strongly opposes any international efforts that would restrict its use of active sonar anywhere in the world. Certainly, it appears it is doing very little to self-regulate that use. One need only look back to the January stranding of 37 whales of three different species on the coast of North Carolina, in which at least 34 whales died.

Navy sonar exercises taking place offshore are suspected as having caused this mass mortality. The waters along this coast are frequented by many different species of whales and dolphins, including the critically endangered northern right whale. Yet despite these facts, the Navy intends to create a sonar-training range off this coast which will regularly fill these waters with dangerously loud noise. Might sonar cause the northern right whale to go the way of the dinosaurs? If Navy plans are realized, quite possibly.

The Bush administration and Navy seem determined to continue doing as they please, no matter what the consequences may be. No matter to the luckier ocean dwellers who are enough miles from the sonar source that their lives are merely disrupted by the all-surrounding sound. No matter to the less lucky ones who suffer short- or long-term hearing loss and other injuries.

For many ocean species, the sense of hearing is vitally important. Less hearing ability means less chance of survival. No matter to the terror that is inflicted upon whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, those highly evolved and socially complex creatures, when their ocean home is flooded with intensely loud, painful noise that they cannot escape from. No matter to the death of entire communities of these animals. Apparently, no matter to the extinction of entire species.

Those who attempt to justify the Navy’s use of high-intensity active sonars claim they are needed to detect quiet submarines, for national security. But Navy admirals have testified before Congress that they have, already existing, more benign, passive sonar systems and other technologies which can satisfy much of this need. Unlike active sonars, passive sonars do not broadcast intense, killing noise. In addition, it is extremely questionable how much security these active sonars are offering us when they are bringing such destruction upon the oceans. We cannot have genuine security if we don’t have living oceans.

We must insist that the Navy’s active sonars are replaced wherever possible by passive systems, and that they make any other changes necessary to end the devastation now resulting from the use of their high-intensity active sonars. Until that time, there must be a moratorium placed upon these weapons of mass destruction.

Russell Wray, of Hancock, works with Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST).