Concern spreads about U.S. Navy sonar harm to dolphins

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:

 

 

Concern spreads about U.S. Navy sonar harm to dolphins

 

SAN FRANCISCO, TEHRAN--Ruling on behalf of the Natural

Resources Defense Council, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals on November 13, 2007 allowed the U.S. Navy to

finish a training exercise off the coast of California that was

already underway and was to conclude on November 22, but ordered the

Navy to reduce the harm done to whales by sonar anti-submarine

detection equipment before beginning a new exercise near the Channel

Islands in January 2008.

Eight other planned Navy exercises may also be delayed by the

ruling, reported Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle. " Three

anti-submarine exercises had already been held, " Egelko wrote,

" when U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered a halt on

August 7, saying the Navy's protective measures were 'woefully

ineffectual and inadequate.' She said the underwater sound waves

would harm nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five

species of whales. Overruling Cooper on August 31, an appeals court

panel said she had failed to consider the need for military

preparedness. " But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed

the earlier panel.

The 9th Circuit verdict only superficially appeared to

support the claim of Sha'aban-Ali Nezami, head of the Iranian

state-run fisheries organization, that U.S. military activity caused

the deaths of 152 dolphins who washed up in September and October

along the Iranian southern coast.

" Distressing pictures of rows of dead dolphins have appeared

in the Iranian media, alongside reports that they had 'committed

suicide,' wrote Guardian Tehran correspondent Robert Tait. " Nezami

told Iranian journalists that, 'As these dolphins are not among the

species normally found in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, probably the

Americans brought them to carry out laboratory work. This group of

dolphins have not been able to tolerate the tests. The likely reason

for these deaths is water pollution, the spreading of

electromagnetic waves by military ships, or a kind of virus.' "

But tissue samples showed no sign of poisoning or pollution,

Tait wrote. The Iranian environmental protection agency " found

bruising on some corpses, arousing suspicion that the dolphins had

suffered violent blows, " in waters " rich in tuna and a site of

industrial-scale fishing. "

" We are basing our hypothesis on fishing, " said environmental

agency deputy chief of marine biology Mohammad Baqer Nabavi.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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Fax: 360-579-2575

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Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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