Sonar Kills Whales, So What?

By William Rossiter

A summary of the noise issue is that: strandings "coincidental" to active sonars keep happening; no one knows why some sonars harm some cetaceans in some situations or whether marine life is left floundering in the sonars' wake; regulations and rules are based on guesswork because science is still at the preliminary stage; conflicts of interest and the relationship of ethics to science are becoming major issues; the pivotal lawsuit about the LFA sonar is back in court; the Administration and Congress may succeed in exempting the Department of Defense from complying with major environmental laws; but thankfully, the European Cetacean Society is deeply concerned, and the Marine Mammal Commission may soon provide guidance.

So far, the swirl of politics, economics, and science has only fought and delayed solutions for cetaceans besieged by our noises. Although manmade noise in the oceans is only one of many issues, it may define our society's willingness to act for a greater good. CSI is concerned that if science ever does give us the facts, there may be no legal requirement or political will to do anything about it. That's where you, the voters, come in. Ultimately the decisions will be based on power. In spite of all that has happened in the US in recent years the power of the People must always rule; call your legislators and tell them not to weaken environmental laws or exempt the military.

The Council of the European Cetacean Society (ECS) announced in early July an official statement on anthropogenic noise and directed noise research deriving from the 17th ECS Conference in March. The full Statement and supporting science may be found at: http://www.broekemaweb.nl/ecs. In summary ECS said that:

"In light of an alarming recent increase in mortality events, it is becoming clear that man-made noise, at different intensity levels, negatively affects cetacean populations in important ways. This includes, for example, the animals' displacement, avoidance reactions, collision with ships, stranding and death.

"Evidence is particularly strong that high intensity active sonar, and probably other loud noise sources, like those from shipping, gas exploration, seismic surveys, etc., cause lesions in acoustic organs which are severe enough to be lethal. The same sources may also produce behaviours that cause acute lesions which eventually lead the animals to strand and die.

"The current scientific knowledge on the effects of noise on marine mammals and their habitat is insufficient to understand the relationships of frequencies, intensities, and duration of exposures that produce injury.

"In the face of this uncertainty, the European Cetacean Society Council considers that:

"1. Research on the effects of man-made noise on marine mammals is urgently needed and must be conducted to the highest standards of scientific and public credibility, avoiding all conflicts of interest;

"2. Non-invasive mitigation measures must be developed and implemented;

"3. In areas of cetacean concentration, the use of underwater powerful noise sources should be limited until their short- and long-term effects on marine mammals are understood and can be taken into consideration."

The National Research Council's 2003 report "Ocean Noise and Marine Mammals" has again made many recommendations, citing a "disturbing" lack of knowledge about the effects of ocean noise on marine mammals. NRC formally expressed concern for the potential for adverse impact of manmade sound on the marine environment, emphasizing that "Remarkably few details are known about the characteristics of ocean noise, whether it be of human or natural origin, and much less is understood of the impact of noise on the short and long term well being of marine mammals and the ecosystems on which they depend." As all information currently is scattered between the military, academic institutions, shipping companies, and the oil and gas industry, NRC recommends that a single federal agency should be responsible for monitoring and coordinating research of ocean noise to prevent harm to whales, dolphins and other sea creatures. The report acknowledges that noise sources are becoming more numerous and louder, such as a 15 decibel increase from ship traffic in the past 50 years, but newer ships may be quieter. Although worldwide fleets increased from 30,000 commercial vessels in 1950 to 87,000 in 1998, "consequent noise changes cannot be determined because noise data were not collected in a systemic way to allow for scientific comparisons, nor are they being systemically collected at this time."

Much focus has been on military sonars. Here is a recent example of why:

The US Navy's guided missile destroyer USS Shoup, on 5 May 2003 transited the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait, bordering the US and Canada. Other military vessels may have passed the area in the days before and after this event, perhaps using active sonars, and there were reports of "coincidental" marine mammal avoidances.

With the Shoup in view on 5 May, experienced witnesses reported up to 100 harbor porpoises and a minke whale "fleeing at high speed" on the surface. 22 members of J-pod orcas, ranging in age from one month to over 90 years, appeared agitated, tried to keep their heads out of the water, and seemed held close inshore on the west side of San Juan Island as the Shoup passed. They were doing their best to escape something. The event was well documented and the media swarmed around the controversy. The Navy's first response to the "coincidence" between the strandings, observations, and recordings to the Shoup's passage was universal and unswerving: the Navy claimed it is a good steward of the sea, such active sonar transits are normal and necessary, and there is no proved connection between the Shoup and the strandings.

One of the sonars in the Shoup's suite is unconfirmed as the SQS 53C, the same type implicated in the Bahamas multiple species stranding of 2000, and 2002's beaked whale strandings in the Canary Islands. The 53C uses a 0.5 second ping with a source level of at least 233 dB, repeated every 24 seconds at frequencies of 2.6 and 3.3 kHz. That description may not fit what was documented at the Shoup event; another sonar may be implicated.

Why was the Shoup operating its suite of sonars as it passed? The locally based ship's crew knew about previous events, knew that the straits were deep and echoing rock-walled valleys, and knew that the region is politically volatile, particularly over cetaceans that are both sacred and sick, but the use of active sonar is a very standard US Navy procedure worldwide. For more information see the Center for Whale Research's web site, including the demand for an explanation by Washington State Governor Locke: http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/news.html.

The USS Shoup, orcas of J pod, and whale watch boats.
Photo courtesy the Center for Whale Research.

Did the Shoup's sonars cause the behaviors and strandings? No one knows. Between 2 and 20 May 2003, 13 dead harbor porpoises were reported stranded on beaches or floating in the waters near where the USS Shoup had passed, but only five were "fresh" on or after the 5th, and at least one more had drifted away. The Navy is making an internal investigation of the USS Shoup incident and may share some results with NMFS.

Everyone wants incontrovertible post mortem exams of the dead porpoises, but there have been delays finding a suitable computerized tomography (CT) facility to run scans. There is some concern that NMFS might schedule the necropsies prior to finding a suitable CT scanner, which might lose valuable data on internal structure and fine scale damage. The Orca Network's independent high resolution CT scan on one porpoise head and two ear bones from a Baird's beaked whale that stranded in January "showed evidence ... consistent with hemorrhagic trauma that could be due to" naval use of sonar.

Even if there is no clear evidence of physical trauma the debate will continue over the potential for the noise to have caused the behaviors that resulted in the strandings and deaths. CSI wants science to prove us wrong, but we fear that sonars have been leaving a wake of injured cetaceans, and only the ones that blunder or float ashore are getting any attention.

The answers everyone seeks must come from science, but so far the answers have been sluggish and few. As frustrations grow we are concerned that ethical limits will be violated. For example, the most efficient way to find answers about noise impacts is something CSI would fight absolutely: subject a healthy cetacean or surrogate creature to sonar sounds until something in the creature fails, then pick it apart to find what happened. But what good would the "science" be; how could it be published without retribution?

You might think that such research could never be contemplated, but others do not agree that cetaceans are that "special". One Navy scientist saw nothing unethical in his research, as he jokingly chided "his" dolphins for trying to leap out of their pens to escape sound tests intended to document deafening noise, and a few mumble that it is a shame that certain tests would never be allowed in the US. In the end animal welfare issues have rarely prevented scientific investigations deemed a military necessity.

We accept the responsibility that, by fighting tests that may do harm, CSI may weaken the potential for the core questions linking sonars to cetaceans to be solved.

We support society's ethical standards to limit the probability of harm or wrongdoing, and rely on human ingenuity and brilliance to document the facts without violating ethical standards.

But even with absolute proof, ethical or not, that the sonars cause lethal behaviors or injuries under some circumstances, would the Navy modify its sonar operations? The Navy has been researching known beaked whale habitats, and may be implementing limited sonar use in those areas. We would like to know if the Navy will make other accommodations, such as starting active sonar operations with a "warning" burst, to give cetaceans a chance to escape. The evidence suggests that escape may just mean coming to the surface, where the noise effects are reduced.

No Witnesses? What if Dr. Alexandros Frantzis had not seen the stranded beaked whales in Greece in 1996, or if Ken Balcomb had not witnessed the beaked whales strand in the Bahamas in 2000? Ken also led much of the response to the Shoup event. This special man deserves the admiration, respect and thanks of everyone concerned with the sonar issue. He just keeps giving; CSI will follow him gladly.

What if all we had were anecdotal reports of strandings and strange behaviors, by unqualified people, long after the event? We would have nothing. What can anyone do with "soft" reports of whales acting strangely, or a remote mass stranding and the passage of unidentified military ships, reported weeks after the event? Nothing. What if there was no shoreline for the traumatized whale or dolphin to blunder into? Because we suspect that events similar to those in Greece, or the Bahamas, Azores, or Canary Islands may have happened many times, we are concerned that this is a far larger problem than anyone yet knows. We want desperately to be proven wrong.

Airborne Low Frequency Sonar (ALFS) now must be added to the mix. This new ALFS was tested in March 2003, as part of the US Navy's new MH-60R helicopter's "integrated Air Weapons System" acoustics suite. Will the ALFS harm marine life? Of course the Navy will assert that the ALFS does not do harm, and has been reviewed and permitted as the law requires, but that will not answer the question.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) supports much of the noise-related research in the US, with grants totaling many millions of dollars every year from the US Navy budget. The Navy's interests in understanding noise are obvious, and the scope of research they fund is most impressive. Implications that the Navy might be influencing research or scientists are denied emphatically, and taken as professional insults. But CSI has found that many US scientists will not voice their professional concerns, particularly about sonars. There is a very real perception of a cultural constraint that precludes individual scientists from expressing their professional opinions. This perception, true or not, is damaging the profession, and society's faith in the objectivity of science. The problem needs to be acknowledged openly and fixed internally.

ECOUS, the Symposium on Environmental Consequences of Underwater Sound, recently reviewed the scope of ONR-funded research. Billed as "a broad-based overview of recent and ongoing research related to the assessment of the effects of manmade underwater sound on marine life" ECOUS was actually a showcase for current research projects supported by the Office of Naval Research. Much of the work presented was preliminary, and many projects were only developing models. ECOUS did not provide an overview of the effects of sonars or seismic surveys, nor did it provide many potential solutions. There were many new bits and pieces, but it was difficult to put them together to define applications. This was a meeting of many of the world's authorities on acoustics and impacts, but it must be said that the most current science has not come close to helping society solve the noise problem. A few presenters acknowledged the continuing ignorance, but far fewer included any calls for caution. But who else can we to turn to for answers and guidance?

Several intriguing points were presented at ECOUS, such as an innovative effort to study the noise level of singing humpback whales by using the audio record from video cameras recording whales underwater in Hawaii. The scientist-divers were startled later to compute from their recordings that the whales' source levels approached 203 decibels (dB) head on, and only reduced about 16 dB laterally. In other words, some divers were subjecting themselves unknowingly to received levels of about 180 dB, but none reported ill effects. Does this fit in with other evidence that the total characteristics of a sound are important, and that loudness alone is not enough? For example, while a humpback's song at 180 dB may do no harm, an LFA or 53C sonar signal may harm at levels well below 180 dB.

Keeping whales and manatees out of harm's way of vessels and propellers was shown to be a tougher problem than imagined. Some experiments to signal right whales about an approaching ship alarmed the whales the wrong way; they came near the surface and waited, even if in front of the ship! Another project showed how deadly silent even enormous tankers can be when approaching head on. By the time a manatee could hear the very loud hull or propeller noise above the various masking effects the creature would be dead from the impact.

The seismic industry asserted there was no impact of significance on sperm whales that must share their Gulf of Mexico habitat with enormous active arrays that boom along at 5 knots, firing impulses with a far field value of 255 dB into the bottom sediments. At that effective source level the vertical signal would still be 180 dB over 5.6 kilometers away, but at 45 degrees the 180 level is "only" 1.4 km from the array, and reduced to 500 m at the surface, so the industry is confident that hour after hour of such noises will have no effect.

It was shown that when military ranges in Scotland were active, cetacean distributions were reduced significantly, in contrast to the still-debated significance of behavioral changes in response to the LFA. The effects of wind farms now appearing all over the world remain unknown, but the speculation is not positive about their noise impacts on many forms of marine life, and perhaps commercial fisheries. In most cases where economic or military interests conflicted with cetaceans the science has simply not been strong enough to prevent whales and dolphins from losing out.

What can you do about human noise impacts in the oceans? Besides calling your legislators to tell them to keep the laws strong to protect whales, CSI urges you to support the Natural Resources Defense Council's legal battle on your behalf, for the whales and other marine life threatened by the US Navy's Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFA). With a hearing on 30 June the full court case on the LFA has begun again, after a delay to allow restricted deployment of the LFA for a few months in the Pacific while both sides prepared for this precedent-setting trial. Whatever the LFA was used for during this period has been well out of the public view. One question we hope the judge forces them to answer is: "can you prove your LFA did no harm?" The Navy ignored the opportunity to try to prove during these operational tests that the LFA was as benign as they assert, probably because they know it is not. Anticipating further delays the Navy has requested a new Letter of Authorization, currently under review at NMFS. NRDC needs your support; their address is 40 West 20th Street, NY, NY 10011 USA, and their direct web site is: http://www.nrdc.org/joinGive/join/lfa.asp.

There are many environmental problems today, the US Navy's LFA is not the only military noise threat, and it is not the only low frequency sonar system among the world's navies, but this is the pivotal case on human noise impacts. Either it will empower our eight years of effort to understand and mitigate the effects of human noise in the oceans, or it will unleash an acceleration of louder technologies, military applications and profit making ventures that ignore the potential damage and cause even more problems. For example, even if it was shown convincingly that some military sonars' operations mentally or physically injured or killed cetaceans, CSI is uncertain that the Navy would stop using those sonars in harmful ways during tests and training.

In brief, NRDC will argue that the authorization permit was inappropriate, and that the Navy cannot demonstrate that the LFA would not cause serious harm to ocean life. The Navy will argue that they are "good stewards" of the oceans, will be excluded from environmental legislation anyway, do not have to prove anything, and the fate of America rests on the deployment of this now-outdated system. Of course CSI is biased on this issue; we are plaintiffs in this important suit, thanks to NRDC.

The LFA was the focus of "Whale-Song and Noise Attack", an interactive event during the IWC meeting in Berlin, aimed at raising awareness of the threats posed by noise pollution and giving people an opportunity to enter the sound-filled world of whales. Sponsored by Swiss Marine Mammal Protection, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and Liquid Sound, the contrasting experience of nature's sounds versus sonars was amplified by presentations by scientists and artists.

"Oceans of Noise" should be next on the agenda of anyone concerned with the marine environment. This superbly detailed but easily digested report is the latest from the UK's Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS). Edited by Mark Simmonds, Sarah Dolman and Lindy Weilgart, "Oceans of Noise" empowers anyone to understand what we seem to be doing with our noise, and suggests what to do about it. The report is online at http://www.wdcs.org/, or from WDCS, Brookfield House, 38 St Paul St. Chippenham, Wiltshire SN15 1LU, UK.

The Marine Mammal Commission will convene a policy dialogue and stakeholder advisory process in January 2004, about the impacts of anthropogenic sound in the marine environment. This is a response to Congress' funding initiative and to hold "...an international conference or series of conferences to share findings, survey acoustic threats to marine mammals and develop means of reducing those threats while maintaining the oceans as a global highway of international commerce." CSI is eager to help this timely forum succeed. We believe that this is the most positive development in the noise issue in several years; a chance for an open, moderated dialogue between knowledgeable people that just might allow the opposing sides to find common ground and mutual goals.