BAHAMAS (16 Mar 2001) -- Ken Balcomb, research scientist with the Center for Whale Research, fears many whales have been killed last year in the Bahamas by Navy experiments with low-frequency sonar. Balcomb, who studies whales in the Bahamas and the San Juan Islands, says that all of the beaked whales he has identified over the years suddenly disappeared from the Bahamas after the Navy experiments. Balcomb has sent a letter to the Navy warning that the proposed deployment of a new low-frequency sonar system could wipe out whales throughout the world. The Navy has admitted that sonar may have contributed to the deaths of seven whales in the Bahamas that beached themselves during an exercise involving five Navy ships. The National Marine Fisheries Service suggested that the whales may have become disoriented by Navy low-frequency sonar used in the exercise and died due to beaching. "Considering the observed damage to the whales that stranded and died and the short time period between stranding and death, the NMFS statement that the whales died from stranding is patently absurd," Balcomb said in his letter. "The whales that we observed swimming toward shore and stranding were only the temporary survivors of an acoustic holocaust that can be likened to fishing with dynamite." "The killing is largely due to resonance phenomena in the whales' cranial air spaces that are tearing apart delicate tissues around the brain and ears," Balcomb said in his letter. "This is an entirely separate issue from auditory thresholds and traumas that the Navy has fixated upon." | | The evidence is overwhelming that Navy sonar kills marine mammals. Balcomb has backed up his warnings with mathematical equations that describe the relationship between the size of air spaces and the resulting resonance. Navy researchers deny that the low-frequency sonar system can cause injury but have admitted that it may cause behavioral changes. Balcomb said he is disappointed that the Navy has not provided adequate answers to the Bahamas incident. "We are not talking theory stuff here," Balcomb said. "The Navy can throw up all kinds of theoretical reasons why it didn't happen. But it happened. There has to be something wrong with the theory. I'm trying to get them to look at the resonance issue." The Navy's new system, towed by a ship, uses a series of speakers to produce low-frequency sounds that can travel hundreds of miles. Reflected sound waves are used to locate other ships. The system supposedly would not be deployed close to shore, the Navy says, and operational procedures reduce the chance of a whale being nearby during transmission. |
