Marine mammals will die in naval warfare testing program

Marine mammals will die in naval warfare testing program

newswithviews.com

By Rosalind Peterson
March 28, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

The United States Navy requests permissions from the United States Department of Commerce (NOAA), to kill thirty two species of marine mammals over five years in their Pacific Ocean Warfare testing program.

The Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense have decided that their Northwest Training Range Complex, in the State of Washington, should be expanded, and have devised a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), dated December 2008, for public review and comment. The expansion of their area of operation will include the State of Washington, the State of Oregon, part of the state of Idaho, and Northern California. The final date for public comment is April 13, 2009.

These designated areas will also include large areas of the Pacific Ocean from California to the State of Washington and areas along the border between the United States and Canada. (The extent map designating this program area also extends throughout Northern California to the San Francisco Bay Area under an “Extent Map Warning Area” designation.) Once implemented there is no date specified in E.I.S. for this Navy Warfare Testing Program to end although various documents show that this is a five-year Navy Warfare Testing program.

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We always wondered why whales and dolphins beach themselves. Subsequent autopsies on these fantastic animals offers nothing other than speculation by scientists that these animals were ill or lost due to disorientation.

I recall a couple of years ago a bottlenose whale swam up the Thames river and the municipal authorities and volunteers tried their darnedest to guide the whale back to the sea. The whale kept returning to the river at the heart of London. Eventually it died of starvation.

The article states that, "The Navy Warfare Testing Program will “…utilize mid- and high frequency active sonar sources and explosive detonations. These sonar and explosive sources will be utilized during Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) Tracking Exercises, Mine Avoidance Training, Extended Echo Ranging and Improved Extended Echo Ranging (EER/IEER) events, Missile Exercises, Gunnery Exercises, Bombing Exercises, Sinking Exercises, and Mine Warfare Training…”

Sea mammals are highly evolved creatures that are solely reliant on sound for all aspects of their survival in the sea. A large proportion of their immense brains is dedicated to processing sound and they have profoundly sensitive and delicate senses. Science is also discovering in the most unlikely creatures, animals have the ability to anticipate, think, mourn and be altruistic yet we are prepared to kill these higher creatures.

It seems to me that the psychopaths that have reached the higher levels of authority in our countries have a disregard for the other occupants of this planet. Perhaps it is about time that there should be a civil rights moment for whales and other self aware animals. Maybe nations prepared to enforce protection for these animals endow them with citizenship and all the rights offered. Killing a whale should be analogous with murder.

My thoughts are with the bottlenose whale in central London; what so so bad in the high seas that this animal preferred to die of starvation in the Thames River?

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