A meeting between government and AUTEC officials could come in the next few weeks, Dr. Brent Hardt, Deputy Chief of Missions at the U.S. Embassy told The Bahama Journal yesterday.
U.S. officials hope the meeting will put to rest fears that testing at the U.S. military base in Central Andros are connected to a number of recent whale deaths, but at this stage officials say they are not willing to heed a call for a temporary stop to testing in the Tongue of the Ocean.
Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources Leslie Miller called for the meeting last Friday in an interview with The Bahama Journal, after a second whale – a 15ft beaked whale – was found dead miles from the base in just over a month.
Concerned Andros residents and fisheries experts fear that the whale deaths are happening too frequently to be a coincidence and have called for a stop to all testing in the Tongue of the Ocean until it can be determined what is causing the deaths.
In an interview with The Bahama Journal yesterday, Dr. Hardt moved to assure the public that AUTEC had nothing to hide.
“The AUTEC base takes special care to deal with the situation of sea life and mammals in the testing range and they actually have the capability to determine if mammals are in the vicinity before any tests are actually conducted. Because with their sonar sensitive equipment they can hear mammals,” said Dr. Hardt.
“Whales make a lot of noise under water and they transmit noise and these sonar waves are picked up by our equipment, so when our equipment picks up that there are whales in the area, they actually do not test. They delay the testing until the whale passes.”
Dr. Hardt said AUTEC would be “delighted” to host Minister Miller and noted that in the past, it had hosted a number of other government ministers, including Ministers Fred Mitchell and Vincent Peet in October 2004, and Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt in January 2005.
“There has already been quite a bit of contact with government ministers and we would be delighted to host Minister Miller and any other minister who would like to [visit AUTEC],” he said, adding that Minister of Energy and the Environment Dr. Marcus Bethel had also been approached about visiting the base.
Although Dr. Hardt could not provide a specific date for the meeting, he said he saw no reason why the meeting would be delayed and noted that it was just a matter of coordinating schedules.
“I went out to AUTEC in early March and met with the base commander and mentioned to him my interest in bringing the ministers down, and he was absolutely supportive of that and said he would be happy to host the ministers out there at any time, continuing the visits that we’ve already had, and he would be happy to have the media out there,” he said.
“We are quite open about the base there and it’s a good thing for The Bahamas and the U.S. We have no hesitation in getting the government out there.”
Asked specifically about the residents concerns regarding the number of whale strandings in the area and a possible connection to the base, Dr, Hardt said AUTEC officials are very determined to look after the sea life in the area.
“There’s actually a room on the base that’s devoted to nothing other than looking at the mammal life there, so I think we are doing everything we can to avoid any problems. The people who work there tend to be people who are fishermen, people who like to dive and snorkel and have a tremendous environmental concern and approach, and that is reflected in the way they do their business,” he said.
Dr. Hardt said he did not think it made a lot of sense to stop testing in the Tongue of the Ocean, because there was no proof that it had anything to do with the whale deaths.
“Whales beach in areas where there is no testing and to put off the ongoing work when something hasn’t been proven-it doesn’t appear to be a very sensible way forward. If there was scientific evidence to support it, certainly that would be something to consider but at this point there is no evidence that any of these occurrences, which have been rare, have been associated with the testing,” he said.
He also denied suggestions that AUTEC personnel are not reporting distressed or dead marine mammals in the area.
Dr. Hardt noted that AUTEC had sent tissue samples taken from the massive sperm whale that beached near the base in late February, which are being tested to see if testing at the base had anything to do with the mammal’s death.
The planned meeting will also include a tour of the base and a look at mock testing exercises, and could involve members of the media and “responsible” animal rights activists, he said.
“Certainly, we do not want anybody to have the impression that we take in any way a cavalier attitude towards the safety of sea life or anybody in Andros,” said Dr. Hardt. “We are very responsible public citizens in Andros.”
By: Erica Wells, The Bahama Journal
