US Navy sonar (LFAS) injuring and killing dolphins, orcas and whales

X-ray reveals 'smoking gun'?
SCOTT RASMUSSEN / The Journal of The San Juan Islands 2jul03
Whale researcher Ken Balcomb believes scans link dead porpoise to recent Navy sonar blasts

It may not be the `smoking gun'.

But Ken Balcomb believes X-rays of a dead porpoise retrieved from the west side of San Juan Island are further proof that sonar kills.

The carcass is one of nearly a dozen recovered in and around the San Juans following the Navy's use of sonar in Haro Strait on May 5. According to Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, the X-rays reveal unmistakable evidence showing the animal bled to death from a brain hemorrhage and trauma to its inner ear.

Two months ago, the Everett-based destroyer U.S.S. Shoup swept through Haro Strait with mid-range sonar activated for four-plus hours. The narrow strait separates San Juan Island from the south end of British Columbia's Vancouver Island at an average of seven miles.

Balcomb kept the carcass at the research center, on ice, until this past weekend when a Seattle-area physician with a diagnostics laboratory and computerized tomography (CT scan) examined it. The National Marine

Fisheries Service, the federal agency that oversees marine mammal protection, has yet to necropsy the other porpoises recovered after the sonar incident.

Balcomb thinks he knows why.

On Capitol Hill, Congressional leaders this week are slated to debate and possibly grant exemptions from provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act requested by the Department of Defense. The MMPA, adopted in 1972, prohibits harassment of marine mammals in the wild and offers no immunity for military training or the use of sonar.

"The Navy's view is that the MMPA's definition of Level B Harassment is vague and difficult to interpret in an operational setting," the Navy states in the latest issue of Currents, its quarterly in-house publication. "It is a view shared by others who work at sea or who study the Earth's oceans."

Not by Balcomb, however, an ex-Navy scientist who founded the Center in 1976 and launched pivotal research of the Southern resident orcas, whose six-year decline prompted the petition to list the beleaguered population under the ESA. The petition failed.

On May 5, witnesses report marine mammals in Haro Strait, including orcas, porpoises and a Minke whale, showed abnormal behavior and appeared either to panic or tried to flee the sonar's recurring `pings'. Balcomb captured part of the episode on video. The exercise ended after boaters complained to Canadian Coast Guard officials who then contacted the destroyer.

If granted, Balcomb believes exemptions, which include redefinition of harassment, provide legal cover for expanded use of sonar in the San Juans. The U.S.S. Shoup is part of a squadron of destroyers equipped with so-called active sonar

capable of detecting submarines. The squadron began re-locating to Everett in 1994. The exemptions are likely if potential harm sonar poses to marine mammals remain unexamined, according to Balcomb, who saw similar injuries in beaked dolphins after use of sonar by the Navy in the Bahamas two years ago.

"That's what blew me away," Balcomb said of the X-rays of porpoise skull. "There's remarkable similarity with the lesions and injuries of the dolphins in the Bahamas."

U.S.. Representative Rick Larsen, D-2nd District, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, wants necropsy results on the table before any exemption from federal law is granted, according to Abbey Blake, communications director of the Congressman's D.C. office. Blake notes Larsen previously opposed the exemptions and has pressed the Fisheries Service to complete the exams as soon as possible.

"While I do not wish to see the needs of human patients be delayed while these necropsies are performed, I do ask you to take whatever steps you must to ensure timely reviews of these mammals," Larsen said in a recent letter to the Fisheries Service. "Those involved in this unfortunate incident, including the Navy, cannot move forward until these procedures are performed."

Instead of providing exemptions, Balcomb wants cooperation of federal agencies in protecting marine mammals and helping the Southern resident orcas recover. A good place to start would be putting the pending necropsies on the fast-track and sharing the results, he said.

The May 5 sonar incident is arguably the most controversial episode of the past six months, but it's not the first or second, or third in Haro Strait, Balcomb adds.

"The Navy has to adopt protocols that are more considerate of marine mammals and that recognize sonar travels great distances, like 25-40 miles away," he said.

Center for Whale Research
PO Box 1577
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
P: 360-378-5835
F:360-378-5954
orcasurv [at] rockisland.com