Low frequency active sonar, which is used by the military in the world’s oceans in order to detect “enemy” submarines, are extremely harmful to marine mammals, said a researcher in a recent visit to the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Marsha L. Green, founder and President of the Ocean Mammal Institute, was greeted with a yellow lei and spoke to an audience of 25 to 30 people in the moot courtroom of the UH Richardson School of Law.
The luncheon presentation, which occurred last Wednesday, was on “The Effect of the Navy’s Planned Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) on Marine Mammals and the Marine Environment.”
Green explained that whales and dolphins avoid the sonar since it is a large sound at about 180 decibels underwater, and that the sonar underwater could be louder than standing one foot away from a Saturn 5 rocket taking off.
“Some of these sonars are so loud they have the capacity to kill, deafen, injure, or disrupt the behaviors of marine mammals and other marine creatures,” Green said during the presentation.
She also said that the impacts that were found from the sonar included abandoned calves, mass stranding of whales, deaths of whales and dolphins, a reported case of a navy diver getting seizures, whales having to bleed in their ears and brains, whales’ cell membrane ruptures and auditory damages in whales and fishes.
Green also mentioned about the mass stranding and deaths of whales and dolphins, which occurred in the Bahamas in 2000. The whales died from hemorrhaging in their inner ears and cranial space. The Navy acknowledged that it was caused by their use of a high intensity mid-range active sonar in the area. Green claims that most of the impact of the sonar is not visible since most whales that have been stranded due to the sonar could have died and sank into the ocean.
She also said that there are new passive listening technologies developed in the military which are able to detect silent submarines and are not dangerous to marine life.
The low frequency sonar the military is presently using “doesn’t seem smart because they’ll know where you are,” Green said. The military is restricted to use the LFAS technology in 10 percent of the world oceans until the summer of 2003, due to a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council against the U.S. Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service, according to Green. She encouraged the audience (including this reporter personally) to write to their senators, since she said that Hawai’i is the state with the most impact on the new Bill in congress, the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative.
This new bill excludes the military from having to go by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
The audience consisted of students and faculty of the law school, and people from the community. The presentation was sponsored by The Environmental Law Program at the UH Richardson School of Law.
For more information on the Ocean Mammal Institute, go to their Web site at http://www.oceanmammalinst.org.
By Alice Kim, Ka Leo
