NYC whale beaches itself, dies suddenly

NF Reporter · 04-18-2007, 09:30 PM

AP - A young whale that swam aimlessly for two days in a small bay off an industrial section of Brooklyn beached itself at an oil depot dock Wednesday and died suddenly. Animal activists said the minke whale, about a year old, was too young to survive on its own.

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waltky · 10-01-2008, 07:22 AM

Whale beachings to be studied...

Sounding off
Tuesday, 30 September 2008 - Scientists attempt to find cause of whale strandings

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As a scientist, you know your world is about to change when your boss, the government and the international media are all suddenly on the phone asking for answers. That was the lot of whale biologists and veterinary scientists in the Canary Islands on 24 September 2002 - a date that may go down as one of the most significant in humankind's long history of interactions with whales. "There was already some news that many animals were stranding along the beaches of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote," recalls Antonella Servidio. "Most of them were still alive and people on the beach were taking care of them with towels, trying to make them comfortable; but they were already in a very bad condition.

"On the beach were many tourists, the press were already there, we were receiving phone calls every five minutes to know what was going on; it was a really tense situation." What made it especially tense - and the tensions have not fully subsided, six years on - was that over the bodies of dying whales, the tourists and the locals and the press could all see the flotilla of warships assembled for the Spanish navy's Neotapon 02 exercise. The Society for the Study of Cetaceans in the Canary Archipelago (Secac), for which Ms Servidio works, scrambled to co-ordinate the collection and study of the dead and dying animals. Beaked whales - for they, and only they, were stranding - are big creatures, up to seven metres (23ft) long and three tonnes in weight.

And yet speed of collection was vital, otherwise decomposition could overwhelm indications of what killed the animals. So for the most part, scientists cut off the heads and other bits of tissue likely to be of interest and brought them to local laboratories for autopsy. Six of them ended up in the Veterinary School of the University of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, which had already made a specialism of studying marine mammals - hardly surprising when the school is just 300m (1,000ft) from the sea. What Antonio Fernandez's team found when they dissected the whale heads would eventually transform the use of military sonar in Europe and the US.

"What we found in the micro-vasculature (capillary blood vessels) was that gas bubbles and fat were working there as foreign bodies, blocking the cardiovascular system," he says. "Obviously these foreign bodies were blocking the small vessels, breaking them and inducing haemorrhage." Not only was this seen in the six whale heads, but the same signs turned up in the liver, kidney, spleen, lungs, pancreas and lymph nodes of the whales examined intact. Environmental groups said it proved that military sonar used during the exercise was driving the animals to their death. The military said there was no proven link.

Global picture

waltky · 10-10-2008, 03:56 AM

Anybody bettin' on the whales trumpin' national security?

Save the Whales, or the U.S. Navy Sonar?
Oct. 8, 2008 - Case Before the Supreme Court Pits Marine Life Against Technology Used in Key National Security Training

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National security and environmental law went head-to-head today at the Supreme Court when a government lawyer argued the U.S. Navy's use of sonar for antisubmarine-warfare training is critical for national defense, while environmentalists claimed the practice causes irreparable damage to marine mammals. "The ability to locate and track an enemy submarine through the use of midfrequency active sonar is vitally important to the survival of our naval strike groups," Solicitor General Greg Garre told the court.

But a lawyer representing environmental groups on behalf of whales, dolphins and other marine life rejected the government's arguments, saying there is scientific evidence that mammals such as the endangered beaked whale suffer irreversible damage when they are exposed to the intense underwater noises that sonar produces. "The reason that happens, especially to beaked whales, is because they dive for very long periods of time," Richard Kendall of the Natural Resources Defense Council told the court. "If they come up too fast, they get the bends so there is evidence of -- when they do the necropsies of these beaked whales, they find hemorrhaging, the embolisms in various parts of the bloodstream and many, many deaths."

Kendall said the sound intensity of the sonar, correcting for water would compare to a jet engine in the courtroom multiplied 2,000 times. He said the Navy is "perfectly able to train" with some restrictions that would protect marine life. The justices will have to decide whether a lower court was correct in its decision to limit the exercises, and whether the executive branch can give the Navy an exemption from federal environmental laws. The Navy has conducted training exercises off the Southern California coast for more than 40 years. It argues that its current training exercises have taken on added significance since the United States has been engaged in ongoing hostilities.

More ABC News: Save the Whales, or the U.S. Navy Sonar?

waltky · 11-13-2008, 07:37 PM

Foregone conclusion...

Supreme Court Sides With U.S. Navy in Dispute Over Sonar Use, Whale Safety
Nov. 12, 2008 - Justices: National Security Strongly Outweighs Alleged Harm to Marine Mammals

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The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the U.S. Navy's need to conduct realistic training with active sonar outweighs the concerns of environmentalists that the sonar could damage marine life. The decision means the Navy can go forward with exercises off the coast of Southern California and does not have to sharply limit sonar use. Chief Justice John Roberts began the opinion by quoting George Washington: "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"This case was vital to our Navy and nation's security, and we are pleased with the Supreme Court's decision in this matter," the Hon. Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy, said Wednesday. "We can now continue to train our sailors effectively, under realistic combat conditions, and certify our crews "combat ready" while continuing to be good stewards of the marine environment." But Roberts, who was joined in full by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, also wrote, "Of course, military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question."

The Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the case, pointed out that the ruling is narrow enough that it leaves several principles in place to protect the animals from the effects of the sonar. "The Supreme Court eliminated two of the injunction's mitigation measures out of deference to the Navy's claims that they would impinge on training," Joel Reynolds, NRDC's marine mammal program director said in a statement. "The court did not upset the underlying determination that the Navy likely violated the law by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement."

More ABC News: Supreme Court Sides With U.S. Navy in Dispute Over Sonar Use, Whale Safety