The British Broadcasting Corporation reports:
US Navy in sonar ban over whales
Whales use sound waves to navigate, hunt and communicate
A federal judge in California has ordered the US Navy to temporarily stop using sonar equipment because it might harm whales and other sea mammals.
Environmentalists applied for the restraining order to cover a Pacific warfare exercise off Hawaii’s coast.
The US Department of Defense had earlier exempted the navy from another law aimed at protecting sea mammals against the use of sonar equipment.
See also here.
British navy sonar kills whales: here.
Associated Press reports
SANTA MONICA, Calif. Oct 19, 2005 — Environmentalists sued the Navy on Wednesday, claiming that a widely used form of sonar for detecting enemy submarines disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins.
The sonar “is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with dangerous levels of noise pollution,” according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
The Navy settled a similar lawsuit two years ago by agreeing to limit the peacetime use of experimental low-frequency sonar.
The new lawsuit, by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other plaintiffs, seeks a court order to curb mid-frequency sonar, the most common method of detecting enemy submarines.
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Associated Press reports:
SANTA MONICA, Calif. Oct 19, 2005 — Environmentalists sued the Navy on Wednesday, claiming that a widely used form of sonar for detecting enemy submarines disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins.
The sonar “is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with dangerous levels of noise pollution,” according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
The Navy settled a similar lawsuit two years ago by agreeing to limit the peacetime use of experimental low-frequency sonar.
The new lawsuit, by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other plaintiffs, seeks a court order to curb mid-frequency sonar, the most common method of detecting enemy submarines.
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