-
-
- FREEPORT, Bahamas - Eight
whales beached and died soon after the U.S. Navy conducted anti-submarine
exercises off the northern Bahamas, prompting an investigation and calls
for an end to the exercises.
-
- The Navy said Tuesday that there was no evidence to link
the whale deaths to last week's exercise testing sonar detection of submarines.
-
- Navy Cmdr. Greg Smith said the tests took place from
about 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. March 15 off Abaco Island _ part of a series of
exercises testing "sonar buoys" that were to continue through
March 22.
-
- Marine biologist Ken Balcomb of the Earthwatch environmental
group said beachings began that same day, and within two days at least
14 whales had grounded themselves on Abaco, Grand Bahama to the north,
and Eleuthera to the south. Eight died, prompting investigations by Bahamian
and U.S. scientists and authorities.
-
- "A whale beaching in the Bahamas is a once-in-a-decade
occurrence," said Balcomb, an American who has been studying whales
around Abaco island for nine years.
-
- "We will be making recommendations to the Bahamian
government that these sort of exercises be terminated," he said. "The
fact that it coincides with the military exercises cannot be just coincidental."
-
- But the Navy spokesman said there was no evidence linking
the two events. "My understanding of the actual locations would put
the island between the operations where the `sonobuoys' were located and
where the whales eventually beached themselves," said Smith.
-
- Naomi Rose of the Washington-based Humane Society of
the United States, maintained the signals could still do damage.
-
- "These signals, depending on frequency, could travel
quite a distance and could even wrap around the island," said Rose,
a marine mammal scientist. "One could argue that they fled the area
where the sonar was being transmitted."
-
- Another U.S. marine biologist here to investigate, Charles
Potter of the Smithsonian Institute, said the number of whales beached
is "extremely unusual. But he said the postmortems showed the whales
had suffered no physical damage, such as broken ear drums.
-
- Balcomb said the mammals included several deep-water
beaked whales, goose beaked whales measuring 16-19 feet, dense beaked whales
measuring 10-13 feet, baleen whales measuring up to 27 feet and some small
minke whales.
-
- Michael Breynan, director of the Bahamian Fisheries Department,
said he was working with U.S. scientists to try to determine the cause.
Breynan said his department kept no records of beached whales but added:
"I am not aware of any similar incident (having occurred) in the Bahamas."
-
- He said further tests on the dead whales would be carried
out in the United States, a process that could take months.
-
- Smith said the exercise was testing for upgrades of what
the Navy calls the Directional Command Activated Sonobuoy System.
-
- The exercise involved a Navy P-3 aircraft dropping two
buoys north of Abaco, one as close as 35 miles to the island, the other
70 to 75 miles from the island. One buoy emitted a sonar signal which was
received by the other, and a submarine was moving between the two buoys.
-
- He said the exercise had nothing to do with low frequency
active sonar, a new and controversial system that transmits sonar pulses
so loud they can match the roar of a rocket launch.
-
- The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, responsible
for overseeing all U.S. actions that could affect the environment at home
or abroad, said it approved the Navy's environmental assessment for its
exercise.
-
- Roger Gentry, coordinator of the service's acoustics
team, said the exercises shouldn't have affected the whales. "Yet
we have beached whales."
-
-
- The service has also sent veterinarians and acoustic
experts to investigate.
-
- Marine scientists have been expressing growing concern
in recent years about the possible effects of man-made noises on marine
mammals who rely on their hearing perhaps more than their sight.
-
- "We already know from preliminary research that's
been done that there are some problems with man-made noise in the marine
environment," said Rose of the Humane Society.
-
- However, other experts have been quick to point out that
none of the research has been able to conclusively blame man-made noise
for events such as the whale beachings in the Bahamas.
-
- http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20000321_1467.html
-
-
- US Navy Denies Sonar Tests Linked To Whale
Deaths
-
-
- http://www.the-journal.co.uk/cfm/news_story.cfm?storyId=173729
3-24-00
-
-
- BAHAMAS - Eight whales beached and died soon after the
US Navy conducted anti-submarine exercises off the northern Bahamas, prompting
an investigation and calls for an end to the exercises.
-
- The Navy said there was no evidence to link the whale
deaths to last week's exercise testing sonar detection of submarines.
-
- Commander Greg Smith said the tests took place over four
hours on one day, March 15, off Abaco Island, part of a series of exercises
testing sonar buoys that were to continue until yesterday.
-
- Marine biologist Ken Balcomb of the Earthwatch environmental
group said beachings began that same day, and within two days at least
14 whales had grounded themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama
and Eleuthera.
-
- Eight died, prompting investigations by Bahamian and
US scientists and authorities.
-
- "A whale beaching in the Bahamas is a once-in-a-decade
occurrence," said Balcomb, who has been studying whales around Abaco
island for nine years.
-
- "We will be making recommendations to the Bahamian
government that these sort of exercises be terminated," he said. "The
fact that it coincides with the military exercises cannot be just coincidental."
-
- But the Navy spokesman said there was no evidence linking
the two events and the Navy planned to continue such tests.
-
- "These buoys operate at a frequency range that to
my understanding has absolutely no impact on marine life ... there's no
suggestion we have, and no scientific data, the testing we are doing was
in any way linked to the current, unfortunate demise of great mammals,"
Smith said.
-
- Naomi Rose of the Washington-based Humane Society of
the United States, said the signals could still do damage.
-
- SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|