Dolphin and Whale Stranding Reports

Washington Post  Friday, April 28, 2006-Washington -- Federal marine specialists have concluded that Navy sonar was the most likely cause of the unusual stranding of melon-headed whales in a Hawaiian bay in 2004.

melon-headed whale

Image Credit:FAO Fisheries Global Information System

The appearance of as many as 200 of the normally deep-diving whales in Hanalei Bay in Kauai occurred while a major American-Japanese sonar training exercise was taking place at the nearby Pacific Missile Range Facility.

The report is the latest in a series of scientific reviews linking traditional mid-frequency naval sonar to whale strandings. The sonar has been used for decades, but it was only recently the apparent connection to strandings was established.

While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists said they could not definitely state that sonar caused the strandings, they said extensive study led them to the conclusion that there was no other likely cause.

The Navy says it was virtually impossible for its sonar to have led to the Hanalei Bay stranding.

The Navy is planning another major sonar testing maneuver in the same area in July and -- for the first time -- NOAA has formally asked the Navy to use expanded measures to protect whales from the possible effects of its sonar.

The active sonar used by navies around the world sends out loud pings of sound that appear to frighten and disorient whales, especially deep-diving species like melon-headed whales. 

Dolphins stranded on day of sub mission 

BY JENNIFER BABSON The Miami Herald

Tue, Mar. 08, 2005 KEY WEST - A nuclear-powered submarine used two different types of active sonar to navigate over several days as it trained off the Florida Keys last week, including the day of a massive dolphin stranding in Marathon, the U.S. Navy said late Monday.

At the time, the submarine was approximately 39 nautical miles southwest of Marathon, where about 80 rough-toothed dolphins -- nearly 30 of which have since died -- beached suddenly late Wednesday.

The submarine, the Connecticut-based USS Philadelphia, was in the Keys for about 10 days, the Navy said.

USS Philadelphia (SSN 690)

A Navy spokeswoman said it was premature to speculate on the cause of the strandings and whether the incident had anything to do with sonar use. Necropsies and tests are underway on the dead animals by fisheries biologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That process could take months to complete.

''The cause is not known and I cannot speculate, but every effort will be taken between federal agencies to determine what might have caused the stranding,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Jensin Sommer, spokeswoman for Naval Submarine Forces, based in Virginia.

Some scientific reports say there is evidence that marine mammals may have a particular sensitivity to active sonar. The technology allows subs and ships to spot targets and other vessels by emitting sound waves that bounce off objects, revealing distance and location.

Marine mammals rely on sound for just about everything, from feeding to finding a mate to communicating, which different animals do at different frequencies.

Dolphin and whale strandings, however, are not unusual in Florida and can stem from a variety of circumstances, from a sick dolphin leading a pod onto shore to harmful algae blooms.

SUB'S SONAR USE

After it surfaced last Monday, the Philadelphia used mid-frequency active sonar on its bow in reduced visibility to ''provide for the submarine's ability to avoid potential contact with other vessels at sea'' for a period of 21 minutes, Sommer said.

On three other days, Feb. 27, March 1 and March 2 -- the day the normally deep-water dolphins mysteriously beached on offshore flats -- the sub used high-frequency active sonar mounted on its sail while it was submerged to help it ''avoid other ships'' before it came to the surface, Sommer said. She did not know how long the high-frequency sonar was used, but said it was ''short duration'' and of low intensity.

High-frequency sonar is considered to have a shorter range than medium frequency or low frequency. Factors like water temperature and salinity can also affect how far the sound travels.

After a whale stranding in 2000 in the Bahamas, the Navy acknowledged in a report the existence of some marine mammal sensitivity to sonars, but has also argued at times that the extent of any cause-and-effect is scientifically vague.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, successfully sued the military in 2002 to limit use of new, low-frequency sonar believed by some to be particularly damaging because of its ability to travel extremely long distances. Some types of sonar can be extremely loud -- as much as 235 decibels at close quarters, equivalent to the noise made by a Saturn V rocket on takeoff -- according to the council.

''It's too early to draw a conclusion, but the Navy's use of active sonar near the stranding site heightens our concern that sonar played a role in harming these animals. We already know that exposure to high-intensity sonar can kill marine mammals. A full transparent investigation is needed to get to the bottom of it,'' said Joel Reynolds, director of the council's Marine Mammal Protection Project.

STRANDED WHALES

Within the past two months, at least 35 whales of three species stranded off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The stranding coincided with Navy sonar exercises in the area, though a final cause of death for the animals hasn't been determined.

In recent years, military sonar use has also been alleged as a factor in the strandings of porpoises off the coast of Washington state, and of melon-headed whales off the coast of Hawaii, while other potentially sonar-related strandings have occurred in Greece and the Canary Islands.

The International Whaling Commission last year issued a report supporting a link between active sonar use and whale deaths.

Some researchers believe that sonars may disorient or scare marine mammals, causing them to surface too quickly and creating the equivalent of what divers know as the bends -- when nitrogen is formed in tissue by sudden decompression, leading to hemorrhaging.

A POSSIBLE CLUE

In South Florida, biologists are hoping that necropsies of the dolphins who died after the stranding may shed some light on what prompted the incident. One key clue may be the condition of the animals' acoustic tissue, a potential indicator of sonar damage.

''As with every marine mammal stranding, we are conducting a thorough investigation,'' said Laura Engleby, a biologist for NOAA Fisheries, which coordinated a massive response to the stranding last week and is now spearheading efforts to determine its cause.

``It's way too early for us to know what caused this, and our scientists are collecting as much data as possible.''

Eleven dead animals were examined and their tissue sampled over the weekend, with more scheduled for necropsy later this week.

At least 20 of the dolphins managed to make it out to sea within a day of the incident.

But at least 28 in poor condition or pain were subsequently euthanized or perished on their own.

Researchers and volunteers are still trying to nurse back to health 26 rough-toothed dolphins that survived after being moved to several South Florida dolphin rehab centers.

Report: Sonar likely affected Puget Sound orcas

Thursday, March 17, 2005 SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Sonar pulsing from a Navy guided-missile destroyer during training exercises near the San Juan Islands two years ago was likely loud enough to send killer whales fleeing, according to a government agency report.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) report backed up local experts who said sonar from the USS Shoup caused a group of orcas to behave abnormally, apparently trying to avoid the sound.

It contradicts the Navy's previous findings that orcas in Puget Sound's J Pod seemed unaffected by the sonar coming from the Shoup on May 5, 2003.

The 10-page report, dated January 21 but not released publicly until March 10, said the Shoup's sonar was not loud enough to cause the whales any temporary or permanent hearing damage.

Orca

Image Credit:FAO Fisheries Global Information System

Cmdr. Karen Sellers, the Navy's spokeswoman for the Northwest, acknowledged the Shoup's sonar signals were the "dominant noise event" experienced by the orcas that day. She said the Navy maintains the "biological significance" was minimal, The (Bremerton) Sun newspaper reported Wednesday.

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor said whether the whales suffered hearing loss is beside the point.

"They are trying to get away, and they are stranding and dying. It is irrelevant whether they had hearing loss if they are dead," Balcomb said.

Marine mammal researchers have also expressed concern about 15 harbor porpoises found dead in northern Puget Sound in the spring of 2003. Sellers said the Navy stands by its conclusions those deaths were not related to sonar.

The NMFS report said scientists found no signs the porpoises' ears suffered any acoustical trauma, although decomposition hindered researchers' analysis.

Puget Sound's orca population has been proposed for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Ted Harrison
Saturday September 28, 2002
 The Guardian

The Canary Islands authorities have asked Nato to halt a naval exercise in the area, fearing it may be responsible for the death of 17 whales washed up on the coast of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote this week.

The heads of six Cuvier's beaked whales have been taken to the veterinary department of Las Palmas University for examination, in particular to discover if their inner ears were damaged by pressure from sonar devices.

Cuvier's beaked whale

Image credit: Garth Mix, GMIX Designs

The exercise Neo Tapon 2002, organised by the Spanish navy and involving about 30 Nato ships and submarines, is being held in the Atlantic between the Canaries and Gibraltar.

They include the US frigate De Wert, which specialises in anti-submarine warfare.

USS DE WERT (FFG 45)

Two months ago a new sonar system, Surtass LFA, was authorized for US naval use, despite fierce lobbying by conservationists who claimed that sonar had been responsible for the mass death of whales in the Mediterranean and off the Bahamas.

The US government gave the navy a five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act after tests led to the conclusion that the system was unlikely to injure marine mammals.

One of the independent marine biologists conducting the tests, Dr Kurt Fristrup, said: "If the stranding is tightly correlated in time and space to the Nato exercise, this will be another clear indication of an environmental issue that must be studied."

A Greenpeace spokesman in the Canaries said the link was clear, but a Nato spokesman said that by the time the whales were found dead the ships involved were 500 miles to the north-east.

The Surtass LFA system can transmit signals as powerful as 215 decibels and the US navy says its use is vital in helping to detect super-quiet submarines. Some scientists believe that a whale's eardrums can explode at 180 decibels.

Beaked whales which were studied after the Bahamas incident in March 2000, when eight died, were found to be bleeding from the ears, and there was evidence of damage consistent with an intense pressure injury.
 

Whales Die in Beaching Incident in The Bahamas

March 22,2000- Fourteen whales beached and eight of them died soon after the U.S. Navy conducted anti-submarine exercises off the northern Bahamas. Navy Cmdr. Greg Smith said the tests took place from about 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. March 15 off Abaco Island — part of a series of exercises testing ``sonar buoys'' that were to continue through March 22. Marine biologist Ken Balcomb of the Earthwatch environmental group said beachings began that same day, and within two days at least 14 whales had grounded themselves on Abaco, Grand Bahama to the north, and Eleuthera to the south. Eight died, prompting investigations by Bahamian and U.S. scientists and authorities. ``A whale beaching in the Bahamas is a once-in-a-decade occurrence,'' said Balcomb, an American who has been studying whales around Abaco island for nine years. ``We will be making recommendations to the Bahamian government that these sort of exercises be terminated,'' he said. ``The fact that it coincides with the military exercises cannot be just coincidental.'' But the Navy spokesman said there was no evidence linking the two events. ``My understanding of the actual locations would put the island between the operations where the `sonobuoys' were located and where the whales eventually beached themselves,'' said Smith. Balcomb said the mammals included several deep-water beaked whales, goose beaked whales measuring 16-19 feet, dense beaked whales measuring 10-13 feet, baleen whales measuring up to 27 feet and some small minke whales. Smith said the exercise was testing for upgrades of what the Navy calls the Directional Command Activated Sonobuoy System. The exercise involved a Navy P-3 aircraft dropping two buoys north of Abaco, one as close as 35 miles to the island, the other 70 to 75 miles from the island. One buoy emitted a sonar signal which was received by the other, and a submarine was moving between the two buoys. Marine scientists have been expressing growing concern in recent years about the possible effects of man-made noises on marine mammals who rely on their hearing perhaps more than their sight. The mass stranding occurred less than a week after two other whales washed ashore in a different part of the Bahamas during a period of "live fire" naval exercises in that region. A Navy spokesman in Virginia said yesterday that the Navy had followed all standard procedures to protect wildlife in the area and had concluded there was no connection between the exercises and the strandings.	Children trying to help a beached whale           Navy P3 Orion Aircraft       sonobuoy
	US Navy Submarines

U.S. Navy Tests On Whales

LONDON, March 4 1998 - NATO tests of an underwater sonar system could have caused a mass stranding of whales off the coast of Greece, scientists said today.
Twelve Cuvier beaked whales, a deep diving breed that is rarely stranded, washed up on the west coast of Greece in May 1996 just days after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation tested a Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) system used to detect diesel and nuclear submarines.
Alexandros Frantzis, and colleagues at the University of Athens, think the two events are more than just a coincidence.
"We know that LFAS was used in the Kyparissiakos Gulf. We also know that no other LFAS or mass strandings have occurred in the Greek Ionian (Mediterranean) Sea since 1981," he said in a letter to the scientific journal Nature.
"Taking the past 16.5 year period into account, the probability of a mass stranding occurring for other reasons during the period of the LFAS tests is less than 0.07 per cent."
The LFAS generates very loud, low-frequency sound which enables long detection ranges. Although its effect on whales has not been studied thoroughly, many specialists think that at high levels it could physically damage the whales and affect their behavior.
Mass strandings of the creatures are extremely rare. Since 1963 there have been only seven cases worldwide of four or more whales and three of them occurred near the Canary Islands during similar military maneuvres.
The latest stranding was also odd because the animals were not stranded together, but over a 40 kilometre area. Deep diving whales also seem especially affected by low-frequency sounds, even at low levels.
Frantzis said that more information is needed to solve the mystery, but unfortunately most of the data about the use of LFAS are a military secret.

The Director of NATO’s SACLANT Undersea Research Centre (SACLANTCEN) announced the public release of the findings of two panels, which convened in June 1998, relating to protection of the marine environment. A Bioacoustic Panel was formed to make assessments and provide advice and recommendations on an incident of whale strandings in Kyparissiakos Gulf (Greece) in May 1996. A second panel met to evaluate SACLANTCEN environmental policy and mitigation procedures and suggest improvements.

Information was received in the fall of 1997 that a stranding of Cuvier’s Beaked Whales occurred (in May 1996) in the same general time and area in which NATO sonar research was being conducted. Based on that awareness, NATO scientists began to reexamine the acoustic data collected during that time. The issue received public attention in March 1998, when correspondence on this matter was published in the journal Nature.

The NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic established guidelines for two panels to investigate the stranding incident and to review NATO procedures for protection of the marine environment. It was requested that the NATO Nations nominate national experts in various disciplines to sit on the two panels. The two panels were tasked to write reports to be reviewed for public release.

The Bioacoustics panel met in mid-June 1998 to investigate circumstances surrounding the stranding of Cuvier's Beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) on the Greek Coast in Kyparissiakos Gulf in May of 1996. The NATO Research Vessel Alliance had been conducting sonar testing in Kyparissiakos Gulf at the time of the strandings. The following summary of findings regarding possible causes and panel recommendations are quoted from the panel report. Bioacoustics Panel Summary of Findings

Acoustic and behavioural

An acoustic link can neither be clearly established nor eliminated as a direct or indirect cause for the May 1996 strandings.

Behavioural responses to acoustic transmission must be taken into consideration as a possible cause for strandings: therefore, acoustic characteristics that induce behavioural changes or physical damage to marine animals should be determined.

The effects of sound on marine mammals vary according to species; therefore, additional research is needed to determine hearing characteristics and behaviour of the entire range of marine species.

Biological and Chemical Agents

Because of the lack of a comprehensive necropsy and complete tissue analyses, the possibility of a pathological cause for the strandings cannot be eliminated.

Environmental Factors

Based on reasonably comprehensive data, no physical environmental factor was found to be a causative agent for the strandings.

With regard to high intensity acoustic sources, there was a strong recommendation from the panel that appropriate environmental assessment procedures be implemented as soon as possible with a view to recommending suitable mitigation and monitoring protocols.

The panel also noted the lack of adequate anatomical data on the stranded animals, particularly auditory and other tissue analyses, was a serious obstacle. It is acknowledged that an exceptional effort was made by the Hellenic Cetacean Research and Conservation Society, considering the resources available; however the panel recommended that proper specimen collection be supported to ensure complete necropsy in the future.

The Environmental Policy and Mitigation Procedures Panel met in June 1998 at the SACLANT Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia, Italy, to review and provide expert opinion on a draft policy by the Centre for protection of the marine environment. The panel reviewed procedures for the use of active sonar and methods of monitoring and mitigating procedures used during active sonar trials. The panel consisted of sonar, marine mammal and environmental policy experts nominated by NATO nations. Based on available knowledge and the results of the Bioacoustics panel, the Policy Panel gave valuable guidance to SACLANTCEN on the further development of its policy to conduct sonar research. The results of this review have resulted in the production of SACLANTCEN Human Diver and Marine Mammal Environmental Policy and SACLANTCEN Human Diver and Marine Mammal Risk Mitigation Rules.

This policy and summary of the panel proceedings may be found at the SACLANT Undersea Research Centre's web site on the World Wide Web, at  http://www.saclantc.nato.int/whales/, published in Adobe Acrobat format. For further information on the SACLANT Undersea Research Centre, see . For further information on the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, see . Further inquiries should be directed to the Public Information Office at the Headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia, USA .