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China, US Discuss LFAS in China EEZ
August 31, 2009During bilateral meetings on maritime safety, China asked the US to phase out surveillance activity using Low-Frequency Active Sonar near its coast. Over the past year, there have been five incidents in which Chinese ships (Naval and fishing boats) harassed the USNS Impeccable, one of two US ships equipped with LFAS, and other Navy ships. […]
2004 Hanalei Bay Incident Not Related to Lunar Cycle; Sonar Link Remains
August 8, 2009During the 2004 RIMPAC multinational navy exercises in Hawaii, a pod of over 150 melon-headed whales appeared in a shallow bay, far from their normal offshore habitat. Their agitation was obvious, and one young whale beached and died. When it became apparent that sonar training was taking place offshore that day, the Navy initially said […]
China Continues Pushback Against Lurking LFAS Ship
June 8, 2009Throughout the spring, China has been actively complaining about the presence of the USNS Impeccable off its coast (see earlier AEInews coverage). This week, the “Bejing Review,” an English-language weekly, ran a story on the controversy, playing the environmental card in its efforts to reach in international audience, though some of its examples confused mid-frequency […]
“Gliders” Coming of Age for Ocean Acoustic Monitoring
June 5, 2009One of the more exciting new technologies to come of age in the past couple years is ocean “gliders” that can cruise the seas, silently or nearly so, while collecting data ranging from temperature and salinity to sounds. The gliders are small (roughly 6 feet long), and surface periodically to send data to satellite communication […]
Minke Whales Flee Sonar in UK
May 26, 2009Two UK environmental and research organizations that were monitoring whale activity during a recent NATO naval exercise report that minke whales were seen fleeing along the surface while their hydrophones were picking up loud mid-frequency active sonar signals. Observers from the Hebrides Whale and Dolphin Trust saw “two minke whales within an hour displaying unusual […]
Fish & Wildlife Service Wind Energy Impact Guidelines Ignore Inevitable Noise Effects
May 14, 2009The revised draft of wind energy wildlife impact guidelines released by a US Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Advisory Committee was released in March, and like the first version, contains not a single occurrence of the words “noise” or “acoustic.” The Committee is directed to “recommend effective measures to avoid or minimize impacts to wildlife and their habitats […]
Diverse Scientific Body Calls for Sonar Training Limits to Specified Areas
April 24, 2009A new report issued in the wake of an active sonar mitigation workshop held by the European Cetacean Society calls unequivocally for sonar training to be limited to relatively small dedicated areas. By contrast, the US Navy continues to insist that it needs access to nearly the entire eastern seaboard and most of the west coast […]
Night Sonar Test in Northwest; Transient Orcas in Area
April 21, 2009Earlier this month, the US Navy spent a night testing sonar and communications systems on the USS San Francisco, a submarine that had recently completed major repairs to its sonar dome after crashing into a seamount in 2006. The sub was doing “required training dives” in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island […]
New Study: “Sonar Deafens Dolphins”, or, Sonar Impacts Have Been “Vastly Overestimated”??
April 9, 2009A study published this week in the British journal Biology Letters has raised a bit of a ruckus, with headlines suggesting that it confirms that sonar can deafen dolphins (even Nature and New Scientist ran such heads). The paper is a brief report (3pp) on a study in which a captive dolphin was exposed to […]
US to Sell Pakistan 445 Sonobuoys
March 20, 2009The United States and Pakistan are cooperating in a new initiative to supply the Pakistani Navy with 445 sonobuoys, including mid-frequency active sonar units used to detect quiet submarines. It is not clear what subs would be the target for this program (the “Taliban Navy” and “Taliban Airforce” are often tossed out by bemused observers […]
AEI Annual Ocean Noise Recap for 2008 Now Available
February 18, 2009This year, the annual Acoustic Ecology Institute Spotlight Report on recent developments in ocean noise is too large for easy viewing on a web page. So, we’ve created a pdf version that you can download (or view in your browser if you’re a glutton for punishment). [AEI: Ocean Noise 2008 (pdf, 4MB)] Here’s what you’ll […]
Philippines Stranding Spurs Wild Speculation by Senator
February 11, 2009In the Philippines this week, over 200 melon-headed whales appeared in near-shore waters across a large bay from Manilla, and appeared confused about how to get out. Initial speculation ran wild, as a Philippine Senator called for an inquiry into whether the US research vessel the R.V. Langseth had created the trouble while doing a […]
NMFS Gives Sonar OK for Atlantic Coast
January 27, 2009NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has formally given the Navy its seal of approval for the third of the Navy’s “Big 3” sonar training EISs, just in the nick of time as the Navy’s 2-year national security exemption expires. The Atlantic Fleet Active Sonar Training (AFAST) EIS, along with the recently approved EISs covering Hawaii […]
Passive Acoustic Detection of Beaked Whales: Easy Within 1km, Harder Beyond That, and Take Your Time!
December 16, 2008The US Navy and others are working hard to find ways to detect elusive beaked whales so that they may be less apt to be triggered into behaviors that seem to cause them to occasionally beach and die. One “great white hope” is passive acoustic detection, or listening for their calls. A recent paper from […]
Scientists Call Strongly for More Stringent Safety Thresholds for Sonar Exposure
November 15, 2008This is an AEI lay summary of the following academic paper: Parsons, Dolman, Wright, Rose, Burns. Navy sonar and cetaceans: Just how much does the gun need to smoke before we act? Marine Pollution Bulletin 56 (2008) 1248–1257. This paper represents a clarion call by several biologists who are convinced that we now have […]
AEI News in Context: Supreme Court Sonar Ruling
November 13, 2008What does it mean? How will this ruling affect the ongoing debate as the Navy rolls out its regional EISs to govern sonar training in offshore ranges around the US coastlines and Pacific ocean? It’s interesting to note that the Navy did not appeal two aspects of the lower courts’ safety measures: establishing a 12-mile […]
Six Years Later, Canary Island Strandings Still Spur Questions
October 1, 2008The BBC has run a three-story series that reflects on the stranding deaths of six beaked whales during NATO sonar training exercises in late September 2002. Coming two years after a similar incident in the Bahamas during a US Navy sonar training exercise, the Canaries stranding cemented a growing concern about the potential for […]
Supreme Court to Hear Sonar Case October 8
October 1, 2008Oral arguments on the California sonar case will take place before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 8, in the culmination of perhaps the most convoluted sonar challenge to date. The case began as a simple NEPA challenge to routine Naval sonar training off the Southern California coast in early 2007, and has turned into […]
Undersea Warfare Training Range DEIS Moves Site to Florida, Near Right Whale Calving Area
September 29, 2008A new Draft Overseas EIS released by the Navy shifts the preferred site for a long-planned sonar training range from North Carolina to Florida, near Jacksonville. The 575 square mile Undersea Warfare Training Range would be outfitted with a grid of instrumentation which is designed to provide detailed feedback during training missions using mid-frequency […]
US Researchers Observe Whale Reactions to Sonar; UK Report Suggests “Significant” Behavioral Responses
August 5, 2008As a new UK Navy report suggests that beaked whales made “potentially very significant” behavioral changes in response to mid-frequency active sonar signals, a team of scientists has just completed a pilot study that involved monitoring the detailed behavior of whales during a major Naval exercise. The UK military report details observations of whale […]
Beaked Whales Strand in New Jersey, Florida; Sonar Possible, but Other Causes Likely
June 29, 2008The appearance of beaked whales on beaches always raises concern about possible sonar impacts, since these deep-diving whales are the family that is apparently most sensitive to mid-frequency active sonar. Over the past couple of weeks, two beaked whales stranded, one dead near Atlantic City, one alive in Florida. The Florida whale has been diagnosed […]
Orcas Avoid Mid-frequency Sonar Signals, but not LFAS; Herring Unaffected
June 22, 2008Kvadsheim, Benders, Miller, Doksaeter, Knudsen, Tyack, Nordlund, Lam, Samarra, Kleivane, Godo. Herring (slid), killer whales (spekknogger) and sonar – the 3S-2006 cruise report with preliminary results. Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). 30 April 2007 This paper reports preliminary results from an ambitious multi-national Controlled Exposure Experiment using acoustic D-tags, which allow researchers to record received […]
UK Strandings Lead to Murky Picture of Naval Activity
June 11, 2008A week after the UK’s worst dolphin stranding since 1981, reports from locals and the UK Navy are conflicting. Two weeks of live-fire exercises were wrapping up in the area over last weekend, with the Navy first claiming to have concluded those exercises Sunday afternoon, then saying that in fact the last live-fire took place […]
Japan, UK, Madagascar Strandings Spur Sonar Speculation
June 10, 2008Reports of unusual stranding events around the world this week are each triggering questions about possible sonar connections, despite little clear evidence thus far. In Madagascar, over fifty melon-headed whales stranded and died after becoming trapped in a bay; in the UK, 26 common dolphins (mostly juviniles) died along the shores of an estuary river […]
CA Appeals Court Upholds Most Sonar Restriction
March 3, 2008California Appeals Court Hands Navy Sonar Setback; Supreme Court May be Next – The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday night rejected the Navy’s appeal of restrictions that banned high-powered sonar within 12 nautical miles of the coast and set other limits that could affect Navy training exercises to begin this month. One of […]