Whale Stranding: Sonar or Lunar?

[JBeukema]

On the morning of 3 July 2004, more than 150 melon-headed whales rushed into Hanalei Bay off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, apparently bent on beaching themselves. The whales milled about for most of the day and night in an agitated manner, tail-slapping and vocalizing. A rescue team organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) herded the whales back to sea the next day, though a calf died. One study blamed the incident on U.S. Navy sonar, but another blamed the moon. Now, researchers believe they've finally gotten to the bottom of this attempted mass stranding.

Whale Stranding: Sonar or Lunar? -- Morell 2009 (807): 2 -- ScienceNOW

 

[Mad Scientist]

I always just figured the whales were committing suicide. That's what they wanted to do so no one should try to push em back into the water.

They have a "right" to kill themselves.

 

[Sarah G]

On the morning of 3 July 2004, more than 150 melon-headed whales rushed into Hanalei Bay off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, apparently bent on beaching themselves. The whales milled about for most of the day and night in an agitated manner, tail-slapping and vocalizing. A rescue team organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) herded the whales back to sea the next day, though a calf died. One study blamed the incident on U.S. Navy sonar, but another blamed the moon. Now, researchers believe they've finally gotten to the bottom of this attempted mass stranding.

Whale Stranding: Sonar or Lunar? -- Morell 2009 (807): 2 -- ScienceNOW

Although this has always been so interesting a subject to me, I've never taken the time to research it much. I've read that sometimes one is sick or old and their navigation systems become faulty. Any of the whales following the leader simply become stranded right along with that one.

It could also be El Nino. Whatever it is, it's sad, they're so old and awesome.

 

[Old Rocks]

I always just figured the whales were committing suicide. That's what they wanted to do so no one should try to push em back into the water.

They have a "right" to kill themselves.

I always figured that people like yourself are ignorant, selfish, and care nothing about the world that you are handing to our children. In fact, care nothing at all about our children as long as you have gotten "yours".

Must be stifling, living within the bars of your own selfishness, prevented from seeing to world by walls of ignorance that are self constructed.

 

[waltky]

Navy loses sonar case in appeals court...

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Navy Sonar-Use Rules
Jul 16, 2016 -- A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the U.S. Navy was wrongly allowed to use sonar that could harm whales and other marine life.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision upholding approval granted in 2012 for the Navy to use low-frequency sonar for training, testing and routine operations. The five-year approval covered peacetime operations in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. The appellate panel sent the matter back to the lower court for further proceedings. A message seeking comment from representatives of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Honolulu was not immediately returned. Sonar, used to detect submarines, can injure whales, seals, dolphins and walruses and disrupt their feeding and mating.

The 2012 rules adopted by the National Marine Fisheries Service permitted Navy sonar use to affect about 30 whales and two dozen pinnipeds, marine mammals with front and rear flippers such as seals and sea lions, each year. The Navy was required to shut down or delay sonar use if a marine mammal was detected near the ship. Loud sonar pulses also were banned near coastlines and in certain protected waters. Environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a lawsuit in San Francisco in 2012, arguing that the approval violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

An endangered female orca leaps from the water while breaching in Puget Sound west of Seattle, as seen from a federal research vessel that had been tracking the whales​

The appellate court ruled 3-0 that the approval rules failed to meet a section of the protection act requiring peacetime oceanic programs to have "the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammals." "We have every reason to believe that the Navy has been deliberate and thoughtful in its plans to follow NMFS guidelines and limit unnecessary harassment and harm to marine mammals," the appellate ruling said.

However, the panel concluded that the fisheries service "did not give adequate protection to areas of the world's oceans flagged by its own experts as biologically important," according to a summary accompanying the court's decision. "The result is that a meaningful proportion of the world's marine mammal habitat is under-protected," according to the decision.

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Navy Sonar-Use Rules | Military.com

 

[Crick]

At first we were using standardize "Marine Mammal Mitigation" measures. Watches were trained in whale spotting and then stationed as lookouts. Where technologically possible, passive sonar was monitored by another trained individual listening for whale calls and echo ranging. Any contact within a given range required immediate sonar shutdown and it could not be bought up again till the lookouts had no sightings for 30 minutes.

This was taken much more seriously in PACFLT than LANTFLT. In San Diego harbor we've been stopped due to the appearance of a sea turtle. I appreciate that and feel the for turtle (he's an air breather so he's got air behind his ear drums and sonar will hurt him) but it surprised me to see sailors taking such a liberal interpretation.