By Linda Rollins Oakland
The U.S. Navy is now conducting underwater sonar warfare training exercises off the Southern California coast. The Marine Mammal Protection Act once provided protection of marine mammals from underwater sonar, but the Bush Administration pushed legislation through Congress exempting the U.S. Navy.
The Navy claims that their goal to wire the seas with deafening noise is essential to “national security.” They also claim that sonar helps them detect enemy subs over long distances. But Navy Rear Admiral Malcom Fages has argued that silent listening systems are more effective and are safe.
Underwater sonar causes eardrum rupture, and brain and lung hemorrhage in marine mammals. These magnificent creatures have exquisitely sensitive hearing and navigation capability that renders them helpless in the face of massive blasts of sound that are, in some cases, 20,000 times louder than what we know can cause injury and death in ocean mammals. The deaths of dolphins and whales has been linked to the activity of the U.S. Navy in various locations around the world.
Contact your U.S. senators and ask them to put an immediate stop to the Navy’s use of underwater sonar. No matter what ridiculous excuse the Navy gives for the use of this sonar, it is deadly to ocean life and must be stopped.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 1, 2007. Read the original PDF.