January 10, 2002
Fund and HSUS sue to stop Makah whale slaughter
The Fund for Animals and the Humane Society of the United States are
suing the federal government to stop the Makah whale hunt on the basis it violates the National Environmental Policy Act by having failed to study the effect of the hunt on the environment and nearby residents.
Because the Makah are now authorized to kill at anytime of the year, there is a greater chance of their killing resident whales with unknown effects on the inshore ecosystem.  The longer season extends the risk of people on the shore being killed by high-powered rifle fire.

The Makah are requesting $1.9 million dollars of taxpayers' money to engage in a slaughter that most Americans and people around the world oppose.  The government had ignored a previous court ruling that the hunt violates existing law. 

December 13, 2001
Norwegian whale-processing plant destroyed by fire, ship sunk
A fire of as yet undetermined origin destroyed the Olavsen brothers' whale processing and distribution plant at Lofoten on December 11.
On December 6, the whaling ship, Nihella,  burned and sank while
moored to a dock in Lofoten. 

These fires, described as "very suspicious" by a whaling spokesman,
were reminiscent of a fire that sank the moored whaler Nybraena during the Christmas  season in 1992.  The Nybraena, subsequently raised and repaired, was moored next to the packing plant and damaged again by  the fire that leveled the plant.

December  13, 2001
Norwegian whaling is probably decimating the minke population which whalers claim to be abundant and able to sustain a catch of 2,500 animals a year. 
The government has reduced the quota for the last three years from 753 to 655 to 549.  Even so, the whalers did not fill their quota last year, an indication that minkes are less abundant than they purport.  Sea Shepherd Conservation Society charges that the minke population may be in serious decline (  http://www.seashepherd.org/issues/whales/norwaysbiglie.html  ).  (Sorry, link won't take. Please copy and paste.)

Whaling is a business in Norway.  The whalers are paid for the amount of whale flesh they unload at the processing plants.  As the number of whales they can legally kill is limited, it behooves them to kill only the biggest whales.  The biggest whales in any pod are usually the pregnant ones.  Killing them is practically the equivalent of killing two whales.  This affects future generations by selectively targeting reproductive females.

An even more deplorable method of selecting victims consists of harpooning a baby whale.  The mother trying to help her baby then becomes an easy target.  Two whales are killed, but it seems likely that only one is counted.

This has been going on since Norway defied the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on whaling in 1986.  Unlike Japan, Norway did not attempt to pass off her industrial whaling as "scientific research."  Attempts to boycott Norwegian products have so far not succeeded in halting the slaughter.   Norway is no less guilty than Japan of threatening the world's remaining whales.

April 2001
Review of effects of low frequency sonar on cetaceans
from WILDLIFE CONSERVATION March/April, 2001 issue: (p. 13)
Beaked whales diving off the Bahamas immerse themselves in a world of sound.
That world may soon be regularly bombarded with the loudest man-made noise
ever introduced into the marine environment.

To locate silent submarines, the United States Navy, and other NATO forces, plan to deploy Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) systems, which will periodically emit sound pulses of up to 235 decibels throughout 80 percent of the world's oceans.

Marsha Green, president of the Ocean Mammal Institute (OMI) of Reading, Pennsylvania, and many other scientists believe that testing of mid-frequency active sonar in the Bahamas in March 2000 caused a mixed mass stranding of 17 cetaceans, including three species of beaked whales. Most of the whales were reported to be bleeding from the eyes and ears. A similar stranding of beaked whales in the Mediterranean, in 1996, has been clearly linked to LFAS tests. "Only six mass strandings of multiple species of beaked whales have occurred (1974-1999)," states a report from the International Whaling  Commission, "and all of those have been associated with military activity."

According to Navy Lieutenant Bill Speaks, although noise levels of over 200 decibels are deemed safe for cetaceans, the Navy will not expose whales to above 180 decibels. "The systems will not be turned on when whales are detected within a thousand-yard radius of the sound field," says Speaks, "and we will not deploy LFAS within twelve miles of any coast, where our research shows lower sound levels can cause problems."

The stranded whales in the Bahamas and Mediterranean were exposed to sonar at under 160 decibels, says Green, and "the Navy's proposed LFAS can produce a sound field of 150-160 decibels up to a hundred miles from the transmitting vessel."

To date, efforts to halt LFAS deployment have met with little success. For more details, email Marsha Green at <AHREF="mailto:marshag@alb.edu">marshag@alb.edu</A>.-Paul Molyneaux

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