Judge puts whales ahead of Sailors and Marines

NY Times:

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Navy to stop using medium-range sonar in training exercises off Southern California, saying that the Navy’s own assessments predicted that dozens of marine mammals, particularly deep-diving whales, could be harmed by the intense sound waves.

Beaked whales, in particular, have shown great sensitivity to such sonar. Even without the tests, their numbers in the waters off the West Coast are dwindling.

The judge, Florence-Marie Cooper of Federal District Court in Los Angeles, granted a preliminary injunction sought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, noting in a draft order that “mass strandings of whales following naval exercises have been documented” from the Bahamas and the Canary Islands to Greece and Taiwan. The strandings occurred after use of military sonar.

The judge also criticized the Navy for curbing its efforts to mitigate the impact of the sonar exercises, adding, “What few mitigation measures remain continue to be ineffective.”

The Navy has argued that without training on this widely used system, sailors’ ability to detect enemy vessels is severely hampered. Active sonar, at various frequencies, has been developed over the past two decades as diesel engines on military craft became quieter and harder to detect with passive sonar.

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This is just another example of how the environmental wackos or a threat to national security. On land they have limited the ability of the military to practice maneuvers in certain areas. Putting critters ahead of the training needs of our military is going to cost lives and it may be theirs.