Dolphin Beaching Followed Sub's Exercises

Sat Mar 5, 7:02 PM ET

U.S. National - AP

KEY WEST, Fla. - The Navy and marine wildlife experts are investigating whether the beaching of dozens of dolphins in the Florida Keys followed the use of sonar by a submarine on a training exercise off the coast.


More than 20 rough-toothed dolphins have died since Wednesday's beaching by about 70 of the marine mammals, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary spokeswoman Cheva Heck said Saturday.

A day before the dolphins swam ashore, the USS Philadelphia had conducted exercises with Navy SEALs off Key West, about 45 miles from Marathon, where the dolphins became stranded.

Navy officials refused to say if the submarine, based at Groton, Conn., used its sonar during the exercise.

Some scientists surmise that loud bursts of sonar, which can be heard for miles in the water, may disorient or scare marine mammals, causing them to surface too quickly and suffer the equivalent of what divers know as the bends — when sudden decompression forms nitrogen bubbles in tissue.

"This is absolutely high priority," said Lt. Cdr. Jensin Sommer, spokeswoman for Norfolk, Va.-based Naval Submarine Forces. "We are looking into this. We want to be good stewards of the environment, and any time there are strandings of marine mammals, we look into the operations and locations of any ships that might have been operating in that area."

Experts are conducting necropsies on the dead dolphins, looking for signs of trauma that could have been inflicted by loud noises

That's too bad. My wife and I love dolphins especially after swimming with them on our honeymoon. But it is very odd that so many of them died like that.

Don't kid yourself; it's all part of their elaborate ruse to take over the planet.

Image of a dolphin attacking a defenseless hobo:

True.

http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10874

Yet we do it anyway.

There were a bunch of whale and dolphin beaching that happened off the coast here fairly recently and "coincidentally" these also occured when the navy was doing exercises involving sonar. It's about time some legislation was introduced, they just need more scientific eveidence of a link.

so submarines are to be no longer allowed to use sonar?

When dolphins and whales lose their hearing they are no longer able to navigate and communicate with each other, they choose death instead.

Maybe they just shouldn't do high intensity sonar testing exercises close to land.

Well if dolphins are as intelligent as some would suggest, maybe it was just a suicidal religious cult.

do dolphins only live near land? i honestly have no clue

I'm not 100% sure either, but I assume they stay pretty close to land because there's not much action (or food) out in the middle of the ocean.

Also, they can't beach themselves in the middle of the ocean, so that's a positive.

--PunkDavid

I believe this particular species of dolphin is actually a deep sea dweller that is rarely seen by humans and rarely comes near shore.

Oh wow that must've been pretty romantic .

-Sunny

It was her favorite part!

Yeah, Rough-Toothed Dolphins are primarily found in deep waters. There isn't too much known about them as they are thought to be rare and not observed very frequently.

As for dolphins in general, they can vary depending on species as to whether they are more coastal or offshore dwelling.

My main problem with the Navy is it's continual insistence that it's not the problem. I just wish they'd be more willing to admit that they can't say for sure and do the research. Hell, they train dolphins in San Diego for Naval use, figure out if the sonar is fucking them up or not.

I'm not crazy about "extra dolphin" in my tuna fish sandwich.

A dolphin slipping into a tuna net is worse than someone shooting my pet. Ok.

The link between active sonar use and cetacean (whale and dolphin) strandings is being studied by marine mammal scientists around the world.

There is an increasing amount of literature that indicates ocean noise pollution is a growing problem in the ocean, not only for marine mammals but for all marine life.

Think about what it would be like to live somewhere where you had to hear and feel jackhammers and rockets being launched in close proximity to you -- all the time! You could never hear anything else and the physical effects of being that close whould make you feel unbalanced and sick, or worse.

Whales communicate with each other across entire ocean basins and human-generated ocean noise pollution is not only physically damaging, it impairs whale communication, feeding, mating and other normal activities.

There is a great website for anyone who wants to learn more about how ocean noise pollution effects marine life: http://www.seaflow.org
Feel free to PM me if you have questions, I follow this issue pretty closely.