Thread by @patiencezalanga

I kind of wonder if they’re pissed about the military’s use of sonar.

https://twitter.com/cnn/status/1668917473087717376

From 2002:

“For decades, marine mammal scientists have suspected that sonar pings produced by military ships may have played a role in a half-dozen unusual strandings of beaked whales, toothy marine mammals that often feed deep in the ocean.”

science.org/content/articl…

“In each case, researchers discovered the beached whales shortly after nearby military sonar exercises, but the remains were always too decayed to reveal evidence of sound-energy injuries.”

“In an interim report released 20 December 2001, Navy and NMFS scientists conclude that the strandings were caused by an ‘unusual combination’ of factors, including sea-bottom contours and water conditions that may have channeled and magnified sonar pings.”

“While the researchers could not pinpoint exactly how the sound energy injured the whales' ears or tissues, the acoustic assault appears to have left some dazed and confused, causing them to swim ashore or become vulnerable to shark attack.”

“On 15 March 2000, however, independent marine mammal researchers Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge woke up to find a beached beaked whale outside their seaside home on Abaco Island in the Bahamas (Science, 26 January 2001, p. 576).”

“They soon counted 17 other stranded marine mammals in nearby waters, some with apparently bleeding ears.”

From 2018

“The Navy is asking the National Marine Fisheries Service for another five-year permit to conduct military training and testing that officials acknowledge would harm marine life,..”

news.usni.org/2018/10/29/nav…

“…to an extent, even with mitigation measures meant to lessen those impacts. The service is required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, that analyzes environmental impacts from various alternatives of activities,.”

“The Navy cites the growing need to train crews in realistic situations using passive and active sonar, by ship and by air. It plans to use active sonar and explosives at sea, off the coasts of Hawaii and Southern California.”

“Sonar is used to detect and locate mines and enemy submarines, the latter which officials say are getting harder to find because of quieter, noise-reducing technologies used by countries including China and potential rogue threats.”

“But the Navy’s use of sonar and underwater explosives has come under fire by environmental conservation groups that have sued the Navy for harming marine mammals.”

“Three years ago, a federal judge ordered the Navy to implement some temporary restrictions on training and ship transits, in line with its 2013-2018 permit. Those limitations don’t carry through into the new permit, however.”

From April 2023

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/05…

I dunno what could be for their unexplained behaviors but hopefully the military is a possible consideration. 🤷🏾‍♀️

February 2023

npr.org/2023/02/05/115…

“Causes of whale deaths can be determined in only a fraction of cases, partly because of the difficulty of examining a whale that dies in the wild, from their huge size to the various states of decomposition that might have occurred.”

“For the UME (unusual mortality event) affecting gray whales in the Pacific Ocean, the cause is still undetermined, although researchers note that of the dead whales that were examined, several of them showed "evidence of emaciation."

“One thing the ongoing UMEs on both sides of the coast have in common is their broad scale: While historically some UMEs have been very localized, tracking maps show that the humpback, gray and right whale strandings have happened up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.”