The National Marine Fisheries Service is lining up equipment and experts for CT scans and other tests on about a dozen harbor porpoises found dead in May, when the Navy conducted sonar testing in area waters.
Actual testing and analysis, with the help of experts from across the country, may still be three weeks away, Brent Norberg, strandings coordinator for the fisheries service regional office, said yesterday.
The exams will be used to help determine whether mid-range sonar testing May 5 by the guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup was a factor in any of the deaths. The vessel conducted the tests in Haro Strait, which separates the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island.
In all, 13 dead porpoises were found beached or floating between May 2 and May 20 οΎ— eight of them on or after May 5. Eight are in federal freezers and three, now stored at the Whale Museum on San Juan Island, will be picked up this week. Two carcasses floated away.
“At this point, there is no evidence any of these deaths were connected to the Shoup except for the coincidence in time,” Norberg said.
But there is growing concern about the impact of sonar testing on marine life.
In 2001, preliminary tests by the Navy and the fisheries service determined that sonar tests in the Bahamas likely caused the deaths of at least a half-dozen beaked whales whose carcasses were recovered there. The agencies’ final report has not been released.
The Defense Department, meanwhile, is asking Congress for expanded exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other environmental laws, citing national security.
The fisheries service hopes to pull together preliminary findings from the porpoise CT scans and necropsies “fairly quickly,” Norberg said.
“One of the things we’ll be doing is engaging someone who is very expert at” interpreting the results, Norberg said.
The animals found dead soonest after the May 5 testing and in the best condition will be given priority for CT scans.
By Peggy Andersen, The Associated Press
