The Invisible Sea Monster:
The Consequence of Sonar Use on Marine Life With the birth of marine warfare, the military struggled with seeing underneath the water. They needed a way to map the ocean to find old shipwrecks or to navigate around oceanic structures and a way to locate potential enemies. This search came with the answer of sonar. Sonar use has grown and developed over the years and the consequences are now being recognized. Whale and dolphin strandings have been recorded near Naval sites within hours of their sonar testing. The injuries found on these creatures correspond with the exposure of high decibels which would directly correspond with the sonar use. One must understand what sonar is to understand its dangerous affects,…show more content… The Woods Hole Oceanic Institute reports in the Oceanus Magazine that within 36 hours of Navy destroyers using sonar in routine practice exercises, “17 animals were found on three islands nearby” (Nevala, 2009). The animals that managed to beach themselves permanently on the land were found with hemorrhages near their ears and in their brains. While random strandings here and there are quite common, to have so many within such a short time span and within a short range of distance is quite strange. They were definitely all within a 300 mile range from the sonar transmitter, and thus very likely to have been exposed to the signals. As military sonar testing increases, so does the number of terrible events regarding the health of marine life. Such as in January 2005, Scientific American noted the strandings of 3 different whale species just along the coast of North Carolina’s Navy sonar training center (Scientific American, 2009). They claim that marine animals are depressingly desperate to get away from the sonar signals- they “will swim hundreds of miles, rapidly change their depth (sometimes resulting in bleeding from the nose and eyes), and even beach themselves to get away from the sound” (Scientific American, 2009). Since each stranding has similar outcomes- bleeding or hemorrhaged bodies of beached whales or dolphins- all occurring within a reasonably range of sonar…show more content… However, the consequences are quite deadly. Strandings of marine mammals all throughout the world have been related back to Navy sonar use. As a result of the gruesome nature of these deaths, green movement organizations such as NRDC and other smaller groups have banded together to try and get legislation to restrict the Navy. While the mammal deaths are incredibly horrible and outstanding in nature, the Navy must be able to test sonar to ensure the safety of our beloved nation. Since the two options are hard to mediate, no real legislation has been made permanent. Each side wins selective battles only to have it overturned within a year or two. Considering the information presented, it really is hard for one to say one side is more reasonable than the other. Hopefully in the near future the Navy and other military branches using sonar will work together with the environmentalists and marine biologists to create a safe testing environment. This research has really opened my eyes to the lack of media attention toward the harm military can cause to our earth as well as the lack of media attention to the ocean and its life in general. All the sources I found to write my paper were scholarly magazines or websites- no typical newspaper articles or generic magazines. One would probably have a hard time searching for this topic in the everyday paper. Marine life is so underappreciated and undervalued
