Navy Sonar Blamed For Death of Beaked Whales Found Washed Up In The Hebrides
Anti-submarine sonar may have killed a group of whales found dead in the Hebrides in one of Britain’s most unusual strandings, scientists believe.
Five Cuvier’s beaked whales, a species rarely seen in British waters, were discovered on beaches in the Western Isles on succeeding days in February. Another animal from a related species was discovered at the same time.
Experts consider such a multiple stranding to be highly abnormal. They calculate, from the state of the carcasses inspected that the whales died in the same incident out in the Atlantic to the south and west of Britain, and then drifted towards the Scottish coast over two or three weeks.
The main suspect in the case is sonar, as it is known that beaked whales are highly sensitive to the powerful sound waves used by all the world’s navies to locate underwater objects such as submarines.
Groups of beaked whales have been killed, with sonar suspected as the direct cause, several times in recent years; well-documented incidents include anti-submarine exercises in Greece in 1996, the Bahamas in 2000 and the Canary Islands in 2002. In 2003, an American judge banned the US Navy from testing a new sonar after a court case brought by environmentalists to protect marine life.
Britain’s Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has now submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Defence over the Hebridean strandings, with the aim of finding out if any Royal Navy activity coincided with the possible location and timing of the whales’ deaths. So far, the MoD has provided no answers, but it is possible that other navies might have been involved.
The 21 species of beaked whale include some of the world’s most rarely seen mammals; they are also the deepest-diving air-breathing animals. A Cuvier’s beaked whale set the record for a deep dive two years ago: 1,899 metres, or 6,230ft, beneath the surface, holding its breath for an astonishing 85 minutes.
The animals use these deep dives to forage, but when sonar gets involved, their remarkable habit may be their undoing. One theory is that the whales are so distressed by the intensely loud sound waves that they return too quickly to the surface, and in doing so, fatally suffer “the bends” - the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood which can kill human divers.
The Hebridean strandings began when a Cuvier’s beaked whale was found dead on the beach at Saligo Bay, Islay, on 2 February; three days later another washed up on nearby Machair beach. On 7 February a third was found further north, on the island of Tiree, and the following day a fourth carcass, probably a beaked whale but washed away before it was identified, was found on neighbouring Mull. On 12 February a fifth animal was found further north at Gobhaig on Lewis. A Sowerby’s beaked whale was also found, at Benbecula, to the south of Lewis, the day before.
One man deeply concerned at the deaths is Professor Ian Boyd, the director of Britain’s Sea Mammal Research Unit, based at the University of St Andrews. Professor Boyd is the chief scientist on an American project investigating beaked whales’ sensitivity to underwater sound.
“The beaked whales have a problem with military sonar, and these strandings on the west coast of Scotland are very suspicious,” he said. “The chances of them happening through natural causes are really quite small. It’s likely that the animals died together in a single event, and also, it’s quite likely that … they were not the only ones which died.” He added: “We don’t yet have the evidence to make a direct connection with anti-submarine exercises, but there are enough examples of events like this to make it likely.”
Professor Boyd asked the Proudman Oeceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool to model the whales’ possible drift to find the location of the initial incident.
Secretive creatures
*The beaked whales, so-called because of their “snout”, are the second-largest family of the cetaceans (whales and dolphins) but less is known about them than almost any other group of large mammals; some are known only from carcasses and have hardly ever been seen alive. They broke into the headlines in January 2006 when one of the 21 beaked whale species, a northern bottlenose whale, swam up the Thames into London. It died on the barge that was transporting it to possible freedom. The beaked whales are capable of deep vertical dives to 6,000ft and more to hunt for prey by echo-location.
© 2008 The Independent
Humans and their technology.
Fortunately that technology combined with human arrogance will surely be their undoing.
At least their is justice in that.
They’ll adapt.
We search for intelligent life on other worlds while destroying nonhuman intelligences on our own world–the saddest of all ironies.
I hope the gobs enjoy eating this rotten whale meat.
They might adapt, or, they might all die.
We (the humans) are killing the planet, and are having a damn good time in the process. Previous article with human success stories:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/862/
and go here for the stats:
http://www.iucnredlist.org/
The earth has a remarkable way of adapting itself and surviving. At some point it will isolate the parasite that is attacking it, and eventually destroy it. Then there will be a recovery period.
Unfortunately for us, the parasite is human life…
Life is neither stochastic nor a dominance paradigm. “That which you do to the least of these…”
We better spend some money on the military. Now we have terrorist whales. We know this because we don’t kill innocents or torture either, honest George Bush said so.
This is so sickening. There are really no words that express the sad reality of this despicable technology. I think the only possible solution is to demand, really demand, that the people who think this is a good idea to get in the water and we’ll test it out on them. If they live, they can make the argument why it’s safe. If not, then they really were witches/sorcerers.
It’s time to consider noise and particularly sonar as a weapon of mass destruction.
old goat—so right you are, but it my belief system whales are a highly intelligent life form on the planet—have been here longer than we have and may very well be holding a great energy pattern necessary for survival of all of us. We kill them at our own risk. Too bad humans haven’t yet evolved to the point of knowing just how un-intelligent we are.
They are not adapting….
AngstOfThePeople you’re amazing. Autopsies showed that whales exposed to sonar had massive brain hemorrhages and surely died in excruciating pain. Adapt how? By developing cast iron capillaries in their brains? Their brains are structured for echolocation and sonar is like being hit with a sledgehammer.
Your posts express a rigid and simplistic view of complex problems, similar to those of Ronald Reagan. Any relation?
kathyodat
And what’s really stupid is that the so-called “high power sonar” is not only useless — it can’t penetrate a cold-water layer, for example, or tell a school of fish from a whale — it’s self-defeating. Hunting submarines is a LISTENING game. Pulsing out a high-power sonar is guaranteed to earn you a torpedo, and probably from your own side — COSL and COSP don’t even know where our own subs at any given hour. We need better SOSUS, not higher-power sonar. Oh, but that requires research and education and training, and Halliburton doesn’t have a subsidiary involved in it.
I worked in the devolpment of sonar for many years mostly related to the North Sea oil industry. It disorients many species of sea life, a bit like a human sitting in a small room with a hundred blasters going full volume. Like all military operations it does nothing constructive, the sooner all military throughout the world is disbanded the better the world will be.
DIEHARD, Sonar can penetrate a cold water layer but the speed and direction change slightly. The real solution is is to transmit freqencies above audio, this reduces the distance per watt of ouput power but it wouldn’t harm the sea life.
Cheers for the judge in California that ruled the US Navy couldn’t use sonar off it’s coast. At least, it’s a start in the right direction.
Funny in a time when subs can launch a missle anywhere in a few seconds The Navy needs this super sonar.
Al that sonar can do is find a sub big deal!
an by the way whose subs? I mean china is our buddy So is Russia? Are Great Britian and France now considered enemies?
And the whales are suffering enough with the Japanese hunting them and next year other countries.
So why this super Sonar? Because someome is getting rich from it. Plain and simple!
The same with those anti missles.
If we would act more like we belong to this planet like most other species. we would not need this war junk.
Hey Folks Soylent Green is Tuesday Better Start getting in line
“The beaked whales are capable of deep vertical dives to 6,000ft and more to hunt for prey by echo-location.”
HMMM, ‘echo-location’ for [hunting]. Uhmmm…. Sounds good alright, but how do we apply that “technique” for justifiable preys; like … the ruling elites, who, you know, …. … Hey, I’m not discrimantory; I will gladly not sideline the rich from their crimes.
“Echo-location” sure does sound interesting; and I have ‘hunt’ instinct, enough anyway, even if little. ‘Enough’ is all we need, and you really don’t want more, for more than enough often means … nutcases, say. Instead, you want [cautious] “hunters”, so ELCH, say (”echo-loc.”-cautious-hunters).
“Echo-location”. Hmmm. Our ocean fellow species tell us something.
USN will use the knowledge before humanity makes any good use of it! Humanity’s still thousands of years behind govt elites; having MOST people so fooled that they’re no better than rodent lemmings.
High powered mid-frequency active sonar has been part of the world’s navies since the late 1950’s. It seem logical that these strandings have been occurring for all of this time, but they have only been detected in recent decades because heightened awareness (stranding networks and media coverage).
Modern sonar was developed because the allies came very close to losing WWII because of the massive destruction caused by German submarines. Submarines are the weapon of choice for almost a hundred nations, including many that are openly hostile to the Western world.
It isn’t really an option to simply turn the SONAR’s off. Passive listening doesn’t alway work.
I’m not suggesting that you suspend all your emotion for whales. But training is absolutely vital for any navy in the world. Anti Submarine Warfare is very difficult. You can’t wait until hostilities begin to turn these systems on for the first time.