January 2, 2002           previous whale news        whale index         home

More on Bahama whale kill by US Navy sonar tests in March
Navy Secretary Gordon R. England has approved scientists' report that blamed the whale deaths in the Bahamas on the navy's testing of its low frequency sonar system.  The report concludes that  Navy should adopt "mitigation measures that will protect animals to the maximum extent practical" for peacetime training and research.  Should there be a war, the whales would probably be added to the casualty list.

The March testing generated 230 decibels of sound for 16 hours when tissue damage is known to occur in ocean animals at 180 decibels.  Because of their logarithmic scale, 230 decibels are 100,000 times louder than 180, according to an AP report.  Nevertheless, the Navy denied that their sonar testing was responsible for the unusual strandings that had occurred during earlier tests.

The heads of two whales, weighing a couple of hundred pounds each were
stored in a restaurant freezer until they could be flown to Harvard Medical School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute for analysis.  This was accomplished by the quick work and ingenuity of Ken Balcomb and his wife Diane Claridge who run the Bahamas Marine Mammal Survey.  Studies of previous strandings had been inconclusive because the flesh had rotted before scientists were able to examine it.

December 22, 2001
US Navy attributes 6 whale deaths and 16 strandings to sonar tests
A joint study by the Navy and US National Marine Fisheries Service has
acknowledged that the whale deaths and strandings in the Bahamas in March were probably caused by the Navy's low frequency sonar testing.
The six ultimate victims were five Cuvier beaked whales and one Blainville's beaked whale.

The study was made possible by Ken Balcomb, research director for the Center for Whale Research who saw to it that the victims' bodies were preserved after some had beached themselves near his home.  All showed signs of hemorrhaging around their ears, which could have
caused them to breach themselves.  The twelve surviving whales were pushed back to sea, but it is not known how much harm they may have suffered.

December 17, 2001
Orcas and other marine life threatened by Puget Sound pollution
from Environmental News Network
"Toxic chemicals pervade the Puget Sound food web, pushing the region's orca whale population to the brink of endangered status and harming other species of marine life in the Sound, according to a new report released by the Seattle-based organization People For Puget Sound." (PPS)

Like beluga whales in the St Lawrence, Puget Sound orcas are among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world.  Their number has declined from 97 in 1996 to 78 in 2001, a decline of almost 20% in five years, according to PPS.

"Busy Puget Sound located in northwest Washington state is the arena for urban, industrial and military operations. The sound extends 70 nautical miles southward from the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, its primary ocean access.

"Cities border the sound from Tacoma in the south, Seattle in the center, and Belling-ham in the north.  Maritime traffic on Puget Sound is heavy; large commercial vessels using the Ports of Everett, Seattle, Tacoma and others, enter and depart Puget  Sound each day. More traffic on the sound is created by the frequent runs of large Washington State vehicle and passenger ferries as they criss-cross the waterway.

"The U.S. Navy has ship and air bases on the sound, and the Naval Undersea Weapons Engineering Station, Keyport maintains and operates three underwater, three-dimen-sional tracking range sites to conduct in-service testing and evaluation of undersea weapons.

"With all these sources of pollution, and in view of their declining numbers, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decided in August to pursue a status review of Southern resident orca whales to evaluate a petition from environmentalists to list the whales as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)."

"That orca whales are dying is sad enough, but their dramatic decline really sounds the alarm about a much broader problem. The build up of toxic chemicals in the sound is making creatures from herring to rockfish to whales sick, and in some cases, it's killing them," said Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People For Puget Sound.

"The new report pulls together scientific data on how the food web functions. It surveys the levels and health effects of persistent bioaccumulative toxics, chemicals which do not break down over time and build up in the environment and in the tissues of living creatures.

"Contaminated creatures in Puget Sound show signs of birth defects, organ damage, reproductive impairment, retarded growth, cancer, and increased susceptibility to disease, the group reports. Some polluted Puget Sound fish like herring and rockfish populations are in decline.

"The report of People for Puget Sound accords with a computer model done this summer by Dr. Martin Taylor, population biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, which indicates a 95 percent chance of extinction for the southern resident orcas in 33 to 121 years, with certain extinction within 150 years.

"The orcas, often called killer whales, are also suffering from the lack of salmon, their favorite food. Salmon stocks have been dwindling for decades, and some species of salmon are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

"With less salmon available for the orcas, they must rely on their fat reserves for food -- fat reserves full of toxic contamination.

"'It's a one-two punch,' Fletcher says. 'They either starve, or release the toxics throughout their entire systems.'

"Washington's Department of Ecology has initiated a new strategy to begin phasing out and cleaning up persistent bioaccumulative toxics from Puget Sound.  The group is urging the state to fund the new program to a level that will ensure effective implementation.

"'As we look toward the beginning of a legislative session where budget cuts loom large, the governor and legislators must not decrease any support for researching, monitoring, phasing out and cleaning up these poisons,' Fletcher said.

"People For Puget Sound is asking area citizens to get personally involved in the effort to clean up Puget Sound's toxic legacy. People can help by switching to non-hazard-ous household products and unbleached paper products, monitoring pollution permits, and letting elected officials know how important it is to phase out and clean up toxics.

"'If governments take immediate action to reverse the growing threats from pollutants, oil spills, salmon loss and unregulated boat traffic, then the whales can be saved. If the threats are allowed to go on, the whales are sure to go extinct. Our grandkids may never be able to see a wild, living whale and will ask themselves, why didn't they do something back then?' asked Dr. Taylor.       
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