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The US Navy no longer uses active sonar on biologics. They haven't for over 10 years.
testing in lab... not in ocean until final phases.... hmmmmmmmmmThe US Navy no longer uses active sonar on biologics. They haven't for over 10 years.
From Feb 2014,
U.S. Navy Killing Thousands of Whales Dolphins With Sonar Weapons Testing Collective-Evolution
And in case an obvious enviromentalist site doesn't seem like the site of record, from Fox News,
Navy to expand sonar testing despite resistance from environmentalists Fox News
A swarm of hundreds of earthquakes that has been striking a corner of the Nevada desert near the Oregon border for months has intensified in recent days, prompting new warnings from seismologists.
About 750 earthquakes, mostly magnitude 2.0 to 3.0, have struck the area about 50 miles southeast of Lakeview, Ore., since the swarm started in July, said Ian Madin, chief scientist for Oregon's Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.
Mass die-offs of the small, white-bellied gray birds known as Cassin's aucklets have been reported from British Columbia to San Luis Obispo, California. It's normal for some seabirds to die during harsh winter conditions, especially during big storms, but the scale of the current die-off is unusual. "To be this lengthy and geographically widespread, I think is kind of unprecedented," Phillip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, told the Salem Statesman Journal (Why is the beach covered in dead birds "It's an interesting and somewhat mysterious event."
In this Saturday, July 8, 2006, file photo, a Cassin's auklet chick is displayed at the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge, in San Francisco. Mass die-offs of the small, white-bellied gray birds have been reported from British Columbia to San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The birds appear to be starving to death, so experts don't believe a toxin is the culprit, said Julia Burco, a wildlife veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. But why the birds can't find food is a mystery. Researchers say it could be the result of a successful breeding season, leading to too many young birds competing for food. Unusually violent storms might be pushing the birds into areas they're not used to or preventing them from foraging. Or a warmer, more acidic ocean could be affecting the supply of tiny zooplankton, such as krill, that the birds eat.
The U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin is conducting additional necropsies on dead birds, researchers said. Robert Ollikainen of Tillamook, Oregon, found 132 dead birds on the beach there, including 126 Cassin's auklets on Dec. 26. "It was pretty dramatic," Ollikainen said.
Pacific Coast sea bird die-off puzzles scientists - SFGate
A centerpiece of the agreement signed by a federal judge in Honolulu includes limits or bans on mid-frequency active sonar and explosives in specified areas around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California, Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said. Sonar at a great distance can disrupt feeding and communication of marine mammals, and it can cause deafness or death at a closer distance, Henkin said. In some cases, training exercises can kill. Four dolphins died in 2011 in San Diego when they got too close to an explosives training exercise, he said. The Navy estimated it could inadvertently kill 155 whales and dolphins off Hawaii and Southern California, mostly from explosives. It estimated it could cause more than 11,000 serious injuries off the East Coast and 2,000 off Hawaii and Southern California.
Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman, said the settlement preserves key testing and training. "Recognizing our environmental responsibilities, the Navy has been, and will continue to be, good environmental stewards as we prepare for and conduct missions in support of our national security," Knight said. Under the agreement, the Navy cannot use sonar in Southern California habitat for beaked whales between Santa Catalina Island and San Nicolas Island. Sonar also is not allowed in blue whale feeding areas near San Diego, according to the environmental groups. In Hawaii, the deal prohibits sonar and explosives training on the eastern side of the Big Island and north of Molokai and Maui. The groups said that will protect Hawaiian monk seals and small populations of toothed whales, including the endangered false killer whale.
Dolphins swimming along the side of a boat off the coast of San Pedro, Calif.
The Navy also won't be able to exceed a set number of major training exercises in the channel between Maui and the Big Island and on the western side of the Big Island. "By establishing some safe havens ... the hope is to bring down those estimated numbers of injury and death," Henkin said. The agreement also says that if there are injuries or deaths, there will be a swift review by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which approved the Navy's plans, Henkin said. The settlement comes after Earthjustice and other environmental groups sued in 2013, challenging the fisheries service's decision to allow the training. Additional environmental groups later filed a similar lawsuit in San Francisco. The two cases were consolidated in Hawaii, and the deal resolves both.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, which was also part of the legal battle, said it will continue fighting sonar use in the Navy's other training areas, such as off the Pacific Northwest, in the Gulf of Alaska and off northern Florida. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled in March that the fisheries service violated environmental laws when it approved the Navy's plans. The military branch, she said, also failed to take a hard look at alternatives such as training in different areas or at different times to avoid potentially harming dolphins, whales and other species. After the ruling, the Navy "faced the real possibility that the court would stop critically important training and testing," said Knight, of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The ruling set the stage for settlement talks, Henkin said. But it didn't stop the Navy from continuing with training allowed by the service's five-year permit approved in 2013.
Navy to Limit Some Training that Harms Whales in Pacific | Military.com
LOS ANGELES — Sardines and other small fish in the hundreds of thousands washed up dead overnight in the harbor area of Redondo Beach, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, puzzling authorities and triggering a cleanup effort.
..Local television news footage showed the mass of dead fish, said by a police spokesman to be about a foot deep on the surface, choking the waters in and around dozens of private boat slips in the King Harbor Marina.
Biologists have tentatively concluded that the fish died from oxygen deprivation after being driven by a storm into a closed-off pier area, California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan told Reuters.
Million dead fish overwhelm marina - U.S. news - Environment - msnbc.com
Big ol' fish tale...
Decline of Big Fish Upsets Ocean Balance
March 04, 2011 - More prey and fewer predators could throw the ecosystem out of balance
By 2050, small fish could dominate the oceans because of the rapid decline of larger, predator fish. In a new report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization finds that one-third of the worlds fisheries are overexploited, depleted or recovering and in urgent need of rebuilding. At a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, University of British Columbia fisheries expert Villy Christensen predicted the eventual preponderance of small fish.
Twenty years ago, Christensen designed a computer tool called Ecopath to study complex marine ecosystems. Now Ecopath has 6,000 users in 155 countries. Christensen used 200 marine models from the Ecopath database for the analysis released at the Washington meeting. "We are estimating that the predatory fish, the large fish that eat other fish, have declined by two-thirds in the 100 years and the decrease is accelerating. In the last 40 years alone, 54 percent of that decline occurred."
Over the same 100-year period, Christensen says, prey fish like anchovies, herring and sardines have more than doubled. "Weve never had numbers like that before. We expected it might be the case, now we have numbers documenting it. What has happened here really is that weve changed the wild ocean. Weve removed the big fish."
More prey and fewer predators could throw the ecosystem out of balance, Christensen says. That could promote the growth of alga blooms which deplete oxygen in the water column. Christensen fears that marine animals and plants would then begin dying off in huge numbers. "If we look ahead we are going to see less stable ecosystems in the oceans. There would be forage fish and very few of the organisms that control our ecosystem. We need the predators to keep the populations healthy of all the prey fish. That will continue unless we change the way we manage the oceans."
Whats driving these trends? Jacqueline Alder, coordinator of the Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Branch of the United Nations Environment Program, believes it is overfishing and pollution, complicated by global climate change. She says the future health of the ocean depends on fishing less, reducing wasteful by-catch, and taking action on multiple threats to marine ecosystems. "We need to think about expanding our marine protected area systems and also better management of those systems, reducing pollution, reducing the amount of nutrients coming in, including things like agricultural runoff." Alder adds that managers must consider restoring mangroves and coral reefs, "making it so those nursery ecosystems have fish that will grow up into adults that will be available for the fishing community in 2050."
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The move comes as the Southeast Asian country struggles to identify exactly who or what left millions of fish dead and many livelihoods impacted. On the White House-run "We the People" website, an unidentified petitioner claiming to be from Ha Tinh, one of the hard-hit areas, called on the U.S. to "provide independent assessment of a steel plant" at the heart of the controversy.
Vietnamese protesters hold banners reading "Formosa destroys the environment, which is a crime" and "I love the sea, shrimp and fish" during a rally denouncing recent mass fish deaths in Vietnam's central province, in Hanoi, Vietnam
Formosa Plastics is cited in the petition, although a probe called by Hanoi officials has yet to link the massive fish kill to a $10.6 billion steel plant run by the Taiwanese-based conglomerate in Ha Tinh. Formosa representatives did not respond to VOA requests seeking comments about criticism targeting their company before publication. A preliminary investigation of the mysterious marine-life catastrophe, announced by Vietnam's environmental watchdog, blamed red tide — a phenomenon known as an algal bloom — and poisonous chemicals in wastewater as the two main factors.
Call for ‘investigators from outside’
Well-known anti-China activist Le Anh Hung, who is based in Hanoi, said he signed the petition after "losing trust in the morality and objectivity of Vietnamese agencies." "That is why we need independent investigators from outside, especially from the U.S. government," he said. "I want to hear a positive response from the White House."
Vietnamese protesters take to the street during a rally denouncing recent mass fish deaths in Vietnam's central province, in Hanoi, Vietnam
Tuesday's call for a White House probe comes just weeks before President Barack Obama makes his first visit to Vietnam, and it is unclear whether he will mention this petition in meetings with Vietnamese officials. "We The People," the White House-run site, says petitions that gather 100,000 signatures in 30 days will be reviewed to ensure "it gets in front of the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response." At the end of 2014, the Obama administration responded to a petition signed by more than 130,000 Vietnamese about imposing sanctions on China for bringing a giant oil rig into waters claimed by Vietnam, an incident that plunged Hanoi-Beijing relations to its lowest point in years.
Pressure from within
it is implied, isn't it?No one has suggested that, though, have they.
