Sonar affects whales� song, study shows Associated Press A powerful new sonar being tested by the Navy affects the length of humpback whale songs but doesn't seem to lead to any other extreme behaviors, according to a new study. Scientists reported today that the low-frequency, high-range sonar used to detect submarines extended the mating songs of some humpbacks while others stopped singing altogether. "We looked for any sorts of extreme responses like breaching, where the animal would jump out of the water and swim rapidly away from the sonar," said Patrick Miller, the study's lead author and a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "We didn't observe any sorts of extreme reactions." The new sonar has come under greater scrutiny after a biologist hired by the National Marine Fisheries Service suggested a possible link between Navy traditional sonar tests and ear hemorrhages that fatally disoriented the animals. In March, 16 whales of four different species beached themselves in the Bahamas. Seven died, and initial autopsies suggested the deaths might have been linked to the Navy tests. The latest research took place off Hawaii in 1998. Miller and his colleagues first recorded the whale songs without the sonar and later asked the Navy to transmit the signals. Of the 16 whales monitored, five stopped singing altogether. The remainder sang on average 29 percent longer when the sonar was activated than without it. The findings appear in today's issue of the journal Nature. The research, sponsored by the Navy but conducted by independent scientists, said it wasn't clear how much of a threat the sonar and its effects on mating songs pose to whales. But Miller said the Navy should avoid active breeding areas when using the new sonar.

Do you think the whales in the Bahamas were frightened and disoriented by the Navy sonar tests? I remember posting something about this at the Marine Mammals topic on the SpringArk board.

Yup, I remember and though adding this topic here would get wider readership. Post your Spring ark one here - copy and paste it! It is interesting and not impossible! I believe I posted something there as well. Have to go look!

This was originally posted to [SpringArk]: Marine Mammals on Mon, Apr 17, 2000 Last month the were about 14 whales which beached themselves in the Bahamas; 9 of them were freed back into the ocean. The problem, according to some marine biologists, was that the US Navy was conducting sonar detection testing in the area. The Navy says it doesn't think the testing of its equipment had any effect on the whales. The biologists think it may well have disoriented and frightened the whales. Their reasoning is that just as humans depend to much on sight and are in fact highly visual creatures; whales are extraordinarily acoustical creatures. The marine biogists also noted whale beachings in the Canary Islands about 4 years ago, and in Florida slightly before that, while the Navy was carrying out the same sorts of tests in those areas.

Efforts Intensify to Rescue South African Penguins http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000626/sc/safrica_penguins_dc_3.html By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - Efforts to rescue thousands of jackass penguins from a murky death intensified on Monday after an oil spill off the Cape Town coast. Environmentalists said that over 2,000 oil-covered penguins had been plucked from Robben Island by late Monday and the whole colony -- an estimated 20,000 birds including 6,000 chicks -- would be evacuated over the next week. The affected birds are being cleaned at the South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds' (SANCCOB) rehabilitation center in Cape Town. The ecological disaster began unfolding Friday when the freighter Treasure, carrying a cargo of iron ore from Brazil to China, sank off Cape Town. The spill coincided with the start of the breeding season, adding to the urgency of the situation. ``Nearly 70 percent of Robben Island's adult penguin colony has been affected by the devastating spill,'' SANCCOB said. ``Unoiled birds that have been rescued from the island will be airlifted to Cape Recife, near Port Elizabeth, Tuesday for release,'' the organization said in a statement. According to reports last week, the ship was ordered out of South African waters after a failure to agree to a plan to unload the Treasure's 1,400 tons of fuel -- highlighting the difficulties ships in distress have in finding safe havens. Christina Pretorius, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told Reuters the South African Airforce was assisting in the airlift. She said it would take the birds 10 to 12 days to swim back to Robben Island -- enough time to hopefully clean up the mess on the island's beaches and shoreline. Wildlife experts from the U.S. and Britain have been arriving since Sunday to help with the penguin clean-up, the SANCCOB statement said. A large team of volunteers has been helping in the effort. SANCCOB said the scale of the disaster exceeded the 1994 spill from the sinking of the Apollo Sea, which triggered one of the world's largest seabird rescue operations in which 10,000 oil-covered penguins were retrieved and cleaned. Although less than half survived, birds were returned successfully to the wild and have been breeding ever since. Jackass penguins, also known as African penguins, are the continent's only penguins and are endemic to South Africa's coasts. They number around 150,000. Robben Island, a World Heritage Site, has the third largest colony of the birds. Former South African President Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in prison on the island.

Interesting, Maggie. Thanks!

Science News - Week of July 15, 2000; Vol. 158, No. 3 Ultimate Sea Weed Loose in America J. Raloff On June 12, while surveying a private lagoon in San Diego County, biologists ran across a strange, 14-inch-high mat of algae. Not only did it look unlike anything they had seen before, but it had infiltrated, squashed, and killed a 30-by-60-foot patch of 4-foot-high eelgrass. Rachel Woodfield, part of the research team that made the discovery, sent a specimen to seaweed taxonomist Paul C. Silva of the Jepson Herbarium at the University of California, Berkeley. "I took one look," he recalls, "and it just screamed, 'I'm a weed! Get out of my way!'" Without question, Silva says, "this was the so-called killer alga" that has been progressively smothering the Mediterranean seafloor (SN: 7/4/98, p. 8). More: http://www.sciencenews.org/20000715/fob1.asp

SING OUT LOUD, SING OUT LONG Some male humpback whales lengthened their songs while others ceased to sing altogether when exposed to low-frequency sonar tests off the coast of Hawaii in 1998, suggesting that sonar transmissions by the U.S. Navy could disrupt whale breeding and cause other behavioral changes, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. On average, the whales' songs were 30 percent longer than normal, a strong shift given that the sonar was tested at less than full strength, said Patrick Miller, lead study author and a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Still, he said the researchers didn't notice any "extreme reactions" in the whales such as breaching. Many environmentalists are calling on the Navy to end some of its uses of sonar, saying that it can disorient and killwhales. BBC News, 06.22.00 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_801000/801458.stm

unless, it's as they say, a leader of the group becomes ill and beaches to end the suffering and the others come along for comfort. but i do think that the sonar can confuse them.

I think they have established that. Sort of like hearing strange noises in your house and cutting your finger as you slice veggies when your concentration shifts... Only, this is on a much larger scale with much more serious ramifications...

There is a theory that it is much worse for whales because they are acoustical creatures, much in the way humans are visual creatures. Hearing is the sense the sense upon which they rely most heavily. So it might be like seeing strange things in your house, or a profound shift in your visual perception. In which case, you probably would cut your finger when you slice veggies, not being able to properly gauge distances.

Good point. I am sure you are right. They use sound for everything from navigation to locating their babies to finding food. I would surely be blind and fingerless by now!

Dolphins to desert dying British seas Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor Sunday Times 17th Sept http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/ DOLPHINS and porpoises could soon disappear from the seas around Britain, driven away by overfishing and pollution, says a report out this week. It predicts that large parts of the English Channel could become a dead sea, and re-veals that fish in the Irish and North Seas have been devastated, with birds, shellfish and many plankton species also threatened. The report, for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), studied 10 key species, including dolphins, porpoises, cod, salmon and oysters. It also looked at coastal habitats, including mudflats, rocky reefs and salt marshes. It concludes that two-thirds of the species fished for food are overexploited, and that without tougher controls on fishermen and industry some will disappear. The WWF said: "Cod has been fished unsustainably for years. It is threatened with commercial extinction." However, figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food reveal that fishermen are stripping more life from the sea than ever, taking 772,000 tons of fish and shellfish last year, up from 600,000 in 1990. The ministry says the en-dangered species include cod, monkfish and nephrops, otherwise known as scampi. The decline of dolphins and porpoises is perhaps the most obvious sign of damage. Populations of bottlenose dolphins around Britain were stable until they recently suddenly started falling. Destruction of their food supplies through overfishing is a big factor, but many also drown after being caught in nets. The effect of pollution is also severe. Scientists said a baby bottlenose dolphin washed ashore in Cardigan Bay was one of the most polluted animals ever found. Inland, wild salmon are disappearing from many British rivers largely because of fish farming, the report warns. The WWF wants changes in legislation to halt the damage and give threatened species a way of recovering. These include turning some of the waters around Britain into protected areas where fishing and other commercial activities are banned, and an oceans act to protect the coast, seas and sea bed.