Ocean Noise in the News
Wrong policy on right whales
Conservationists suing the United States say it is failing to protect the giant North Atlantic mammal from extinction
RANDY BOSWELL, CanWest News Service
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
A coalition of wildlife protection groups has launched one suit in which they accuse the U.S. government of "twiddling its thumbs" over new rules on ship routes and speed limits while the giant mammal edges closer to extinction.
Another court action targets the U.S. navy over its planned sonar training-range off the coast of North Carolina, which opponents fear will menace migrating pods of right whales with deafening, disorienting blasts of underwater sound.
And yet another battle is raging over a proposed marina in Georgia, which conservationists warn will have hundreds of recreational boats cruising through waters crucial to right whale reproduction.
Canada has already imposed new regulations aimed at preventing collisions between ships and right whales in and around the Bay of Fundy, where the threatened population spends time each summer and fall before migrating south to its winter breeding grounds.
Similar measures have been planned in the U.S. for four years, but frustrated environmentalists say the National Marine Fisheries Service has acted so slowly in implementing rule changes that the species could be irreparably weakened by ship strikes and net entanglements by the time regulations are adopted.
Eight right whales - including three pregnant females - are known to have died from collisions or by drowning in fishing nets in the past two years, and scientists say those deaths probably represent a small fraction of the actual losses.
"Every time a commercial ship hits and kills a right whale, it pushes the species that much closer to the brink of extinction," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, which has joined with the U.S. Humane Society and the Ocean Conservancy in filing the lawsuit.
"There are a number of obvious, simple steps the federal government can take to cut whale deaths, including slowing and rerouting ships, and they need to do it before it is too late for the right whale."
Humane Society vice-president Jonathan Lovvorn, whose organization represents almost 10 million members in the U.S., said the Fisheries Service "has been promising regulations to protect right whales 'within the next year' since 2001. Everyone knows what needs to be done. The only question is whether the agency is going to continue to twiddle its thumbs until the last 300 members of this species are gone forever."
The Fisheries Service acknowledges the right whale's vulnerability. But a spokesperson responded to the lawsuit last week by saying the agency is striving to establish regulations "that would be permanent, rather than an emergency measure," and that the work would be finished no later than 2006.
Meanwhile, conservation groups in Georgia have appealed to state regulators to stop plans for a 400-boat marina near Cumberland Island, a federally protected wildlife zone where right whales breed and give birth to calves.
Increasing levels of ocean noise generated by military sonar, shipping, and oil and gas exploration are threatening dolphins and whales that rely on sound for mating, finding food and avoiding predators, according to a new report.
Released yesterday by the U.S. Natural Resources Defence Council, the report found the effects of ocean noise on marine life range from long-term behavioural change to hearing loss to death.
Researchers believe whales are suffering the same type of decompression sickness that is known as "the bends" in humans. The leading theory is that sonar either causes whales to panic and surface too quickly or forces them deeper before they can expel nitrogen, leading to nitrogen bubbles in the blood.
The Natural Resources Defence Council sued the navy last month in an attempt to curb its use of mid-frequency sonar, the most common method of detecting enemy subs.
The mavy vowed to ensure, through an environmental impact study now under way, that the submarine-detection system will bring no harm to the species.
Critics remain unimpressed.
"These animals are teetering on the brink of extinction," Humane Society spokesperson Sharon Young has said. "Adding a sonar range in what may well be the middle of their migration route is just insane."
AP contributed to this report
Slow and steady
- The right whales were hunted for centuries. They got their name from whalers who considered them to be the "right" whales to kill because of their large size, coastal distribution, and slow swimming speed. Unlike other whale species, the stocky right whale also floats after death.
- The North American right whale, which is closely related to the North Pacific and South Atlantic right whales, was almost hunted to
extinction in the mid-1700s. The hunt was eventually banned in 1935.
- Today, they run the risk of getting hit by a ship or entangled in fishing lines. The whales spend summers in the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Pregnant females migrate south to waters off the U.S. state of Georgia in the winter to give birth. Researchers don't know the winter locations of most of the other types of right whales.
- Right whales are so rare that scientists who study them know them by name. Each whale has a distinctive pattern on the top and side of its head. The patterns are made up of rough, raised patches of skin called callosities. Scientists use the patterns to distinguish individual animals.
- Scientists photograph right whales from boats and small airplanes. They also track the whales' DNA by obtaining small skin biopsy samples from each whale. From these samples, researchers can learn the paternity of calves. The information is used to develop a genetic profile of each right whale as well as a family tree for the population.
Source: National Geographic