Navy Allowed to Kill/Injure Nearly 12 Million Whales, Dolphins, Other Marine Mammals in Pacific

Source: Truth-Out by Dahr Jamail

What if you were told the US Navy is legally permitted to harass, injure or kill nearly 12 million whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea lions and seals across the North Pacific Ocean over a five-year period? It is true, and over one-quarter of every tax dollar you pay is helping to fund it.

A multistate, international citizen watchdog group called the West Coast Action Alliance (WCAA), tabulated numbers that came straight from the Navy's Northwest Training and Testing EIS (environmental impact statement) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Letters of Authorization for incidental "takes" of marine mammals issued by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service. "It is outrageous to think that humans have quantified all of the impacts their actions cause to the marine environment."
A "take" is a form of harm to an animal that ranges from harassment, to injury, and sometimes to death. Many wildlife conservationists see even "takes" that only cause behavior changes as injurious, because chronic harassment of animals that are feeding or breeding can end up harming, or even contributing to their deaths if they are driven out of habitats critical to their survival.

Karen Sullivan, a spokesperson for the WCAA, is a former endangered species biologist and assistant regional director at the US Fish and Wildlife Service; she is now retired. "The numbers are staggering," she told Truthout, speaking about the number of marine mammals the Navy is permitted to take. "When you realize the same individual animals can be harassed over and over again as they migrate to different areas, there is no mitigation that can make up for these losses except limiting the use of sonar and explosives where these animals are trying to live."

Yet the aforementioned staggering numbers are still lower-end estimates, as they do not include dozens of other military projects in the same areas, such as construction using underwater pile driving, and they only apply to marine mammals, not other species. According to the WCAA, the numbers "do not include takes to endangered and threatened seabirds, fish, sea turtles or terrestrial species impacted by Navy activities, using sonar, explosives, underwater and surface drones, sonobuoys, ships, submarines, aircraft, or troops training on 68 beaches and state parks in western Washington..." "The oceans are delicate and finite; we know now that there is a limit to what the seas can provide," Stolarcyk said. "Oceans are not blue deserts [devoid of life] and should not be treated as such; we must tread carefully, for the footprint we leave will be a lasting one."


Read more: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36037-the-us-navy-s-mass-destruction-of-marine-life