175 beached whales, dolphins die

[leftchick]

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/nov/30whales.htm

<snip>

According to Australian officials, 97 whales and dolphins died Sunday after beaching on King Island near Tasmania.

On Monday, 43 whales were found beached on Maria Island, some 450 km away. Local residents and officials struggled overnight to save 24 that were found alive by dragging the huge creatures-each weighing at least a ton, back into the sea.

In New Zealand, rescuers were able to save 20 of the 73 pilot whales beached at Opoutre, near Auckland, on Sunday. However, some of those rescued are unlikely to survive the ordeal, said officials supervising a mass grave for the 53 dead animals.

As explanations--ranging from changing weather patterns, the availability of mackerel close to the coast to 'sound bombing' by oil companies scouring the deep seas—started coming in to explain the mass deaths, the Australian government announced the establishment of a national database on whale strandings.

:(

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Does anybody have personal knowledge of these beachings?

Are they frantic when they go on shore, like they're evading a predator? Or is it a sonic malfunction?

[jdj]

20. Mid-frequency Navy sonar.

people are starting to connect the dots. This case is interesting because different species are involved. Dragging them back into the water will NOT help. The are forced to swim up from the depths so fast that they get what is known to divers as 'the bends'.


Their internal organs hemorrage and they bleed to death. Some have been found bleeding from their eyes, etc.

Someone was doing a training exercise in the area. I hope all these people slow-cook in hell.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. Could this be tied to the submarine that Taiwan was following

last week? In other words, could it be a Chinese sub?

[Cadence]

29. Me too! n/t

[Swamp Rat]

2. sad

:cry:

[Just Me]

3. I wonder how accounts are indeed due to "sound bombing".

It's so terribly sad.

[R Hickey]

4. I think it is Bush's new sonic submarine detection device.

Our new submarine detection device blows out the eardrums of whales and dolphins. Without eardrums, the whales are blind, so they swim up on the beach.

All the whales will soon be killed by this device. Bush is the first human to deploy this underwater weapon.

[leftchick]

5. omg....

:cry:

[Darth_Kitten]

6. really?

:mad:

His destructive nature just never stops hurting innocents. :mad: :cry:

[Marxdem]

9. Do you have a link?

I have never heard of this weapon yet.

[leftchick]

16. google link with all sorts of sources...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=sonar+whale+deaths+navy

Example....

~snip~

Death knell

The latest in a series of mass strandings of whales around the world has implicated naval use of modern sonar equipment. Owen Dyer looks at how the military are trying to avoid responsibility

30th October 2002

The Guardian


Last month, 17 whales beached and died in the Canary Islands. Nobody knows for sure what killed them, but the government of the Canaries made an educated guess. Four mass whale strandings have occurred in the islands in the last 20 years, and each one of them coincided with NATO naval exercises.

This time was no exception. Neo Tapon 2002, a NATO exercise hosted by the Spanish government, had just left the area. NATO argues that there is no proof of a causal link. However, the local authorities politely have asked them not to return.

In the summer of 2000, 17 whales of various species beached in the Bahamas. Necropsies revealed bleeding in the ears and brains. Just an hour before the first whale was found, a squadron of American destroyers had passed close by.

~snip~

Sonar, the acoustic system that ships use to find submarines, is the prime suspect in all these cetacean deaths. Everyone is familiar with the pinging sound that punctuates old submarine movies. This is active sonar, a sonic equivalent of radar. The submarine hunter emits pings that bounce off the hull of the lurking sub and are picked up by microphones.

Sonar has changed dramatically in the last few years. Cold war technology relied on passive sonar, which emits no sound but merely listens for the engine noises of the underwater enemy. Passive sonar is no longer good enough, according to military planners, as modern subs are just too quiet. So navies are turning back to active systems, but these new sonars emit pings that are millions of times louder than the vintage models.

http://www.eurocbc.org/sonar_lfas_implicated_in_whale_deaths_30oct2002page1253.html

[Nihil]

46. Specific article from August 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fish/story/0,7369,1278645,00.html

> ...
> It is one of the loudest sound systems devised by man, capable of
> sending a sonic boom so thunderous experts warn it can rupture the
> brains of whales hundreds of miles away.
>
> A single ping of the new low-frequency technology can affect animals
> across 3.8 million square kilometres of water, roughly the size of
> the Pacific Ocean.
> ...
> The noise, far greater than any natural sound, has been linked to ear
> damage and harm to body tissue, and can trigger intense confusion.
> Startled whales surface too quickly and suffer the bends, a
> decompression sickness that affects deep-sea divers but was thought
> an impossible condition in whales.
> ...

... and both the UK and US defence establishments are pouring money
into these systems, trialling them and refining them.

No wonder they don't give a shit about the Japanese hunting whales
to extinction - it deflects the slaughter that the US and UK are
performing with every sea-trial.

Nihil

[TX-RAT]

14. If thats the case

How do you explain all the beaching that have taken place before Sonar was invented. Beachings have been taking place for hundreds of years.

[The Stranger]

17. The NATO subsurface bombing exercises coinciding with these

specific beachings indicates the cause.

Do you have a link to the "beachings have been taking place for hundreds of years"?

[TX-RAT]

18. www.webmedia.com.au/whales/strand.html

Whats interesting is a statute passed in 1324, claimed all stranded marine life belonged to the King.

[jdj]

21. your link transfers to a tourist site.

but from a sublink I found on this page:

"The Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, today attacked Japan and Iceland over plans to increase the slaughter of whales under the guise of scientific research.

He called on Japan and Iceland to abandon the practice, which next year will result in the killing of about 850 whales of various species.

"This generation has a responsibility to rebuild the health of the world's oceans," Senator Campbell said. "Saving whales is an iconic representation of that work.

"Killing whales in the name of science is an affront to science. It is not science - it is commercial slaughter."


Well put.

[TX-RAT]

32. My apologies, Wrong one

www.nhm.ac.uk/zoology/stranding

[Shakespeare]

27. Check out post 8.

Yes, beachings have taken place before sonar was invented, but they're increasing in number, and have been directly linked to sonar "sound bombings." Whales and dolphines are most certainly adversely affected by our sonar experiments.

But please do continue to play the skeptic. :eyes:

[NickB79]

41. This took place off the coast of New Zealand

Somehow I doubt that this had much to do with US sonar usage all the way down there.

[Scrooge]

7. sad

Bush and his ilk in the oil companies. I am so sad and angry. It just never stops.

[jdj]

23. Thomas Jefferson said it best:

"I tremble for my species when I reflect that God is just."

[leftchick]

8. Link To Article About US Navy Sonar Killing Whales.....

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0426-03.htm

U.S. Navy Asks to be Exempted from Federal Law Forbidding Harassment or Killing of Whales
by Kenneth R. Weiss

~snip~

The U.S. Navy is asking to be exempted from a federal law that forbids the harassment or killing of whales as it begins exercises with a powerful new sonar designed to hunt for super-quiet submarines.

The controversial sonar system, designed to blast swaths of ocean with low-frequency sound waves, will be the subject of protests today in Los Angeles and then a public hearing.


The hearing will be the first of three to be held across the nation by the National Marine Fisheries Service since government scientists confirmed that a different Navy sonar was probably responsible for the mass stranding of beaked whales in the Bahamas in March 2000.

Necropsies showed that six whales died from hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones--presumably from intense internal vibrations caused by bursts of mid-frequency sound waves.

[genieroze]

10. That's so sick

[mahina]

30. It happened here

and the navy said there was no connection between that and the sound waves it was broadcasting underwater at the same time. right,

[THUNDER HANDS]

11. if there's any justice in the world

Next time Bush goes on an Aircraft carrier he'll fall off the side and get eaten by a whale.

[LoneDriver]

12. I think I know how they felt

They say he didn't have an enemy
his was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
the last one on this side of the world
He measured a half mile from tip to tail
silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
that's how we got the Grand Canyon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
but you can't always trust your mother
Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
the lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
and he'd been on death row since 1958
The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse
The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
and tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
and caused a hugh tidal wave
The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
the tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
but sadly one thing more
Some local yokel member of the NRA
kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sight
blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Well Americans don't care for much of anything
land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
with human life not worth more than infected yeast
Americans don't care too much for beauty
they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim
They say things are done for the majority
don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It's like what my painter friend Donald said to me
Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done

L. Reed (thanks to)

[rman]

13. google: whales beaching inner ear autopsy

damaged inner ear isn't likely to be due to natural causes.

[jmcgowanjm]

15. How you can tell navy's in the area-Side Scanning Sonar

TE KAHA and ENDEAVOUR will make one final port visit
to Hobart this weekend before arriving at Devonport Naval
Base on Saturday December 4, 2004. 

29 October - NAVY SHIP SUCCESSFUL IN SEARCH FOR
‘iron maiden’ 
The navy dive tender HMNZS MANAWANUI has found the
wreck of the fishing vessel Iron Maiden this morning.  The
vessel was located in 30-60m of water in the vicinity of
Pandora Bank off the Northland Coast and was found
using MANAWANUI's towed side scan
sonar.

http://www.aumarire.co.nz/navy/frankspage.html
New Zealand - Mass Stranding of Pilot Whales

29th November

It is at Opoutere Beach, south of Pauanui in the Bay of
Plenty. Exactly halfway between Pauanui and Whangamata,
and If you're looking on the map, it's at the base of
the Coromandel Peninsular's east coast. The Coromandel P'
is east of Auckland on the map.


http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/newspages/november_2004.htm

[Gregorian]

19. A statistic that I find amazing. And the reason for dead whales explained.

To some, it may not sound like much. But in 1975 we made 145,000 Camero's. I still can't believe it. And I'm a mechanical engineer. And I even used to be a car lover. I even have my own machine shop. And car collection. But that number absolutely blew me away.

If you slowly ponder the things that go into making a car, and add up the energies and chemicals that it takes, one can see the folly; The poison in our society-
Mining ore for the metal.
Paint pigments.
Tire materials.
Petroleum for greases, oils.
Manufacturing processes for engine, tranny, and assorted parts.
Special metals and plating processes.
Glass and associated processes.
And remember, these things are transported after each part and or material is mined, made, machined. And then there is waste. Waste in the form of just the exhaust from moving the stuff around from mine to plant to dealer. And waste from liquids that are used in a multitude of rinsing processes. It goes on and on. Now this is just the car. You add into this equation, workers transporting themselves to the job, and heating of the factories, and power for the factories, and whatnot, and you have a car that cost more in energy than it could ever be worth.

But when one realizes that not only have our toxic chemicals been dumped in the ocean, but so have household wastes, you have to realize that we have altered the chemistry of that body of water. My guess is that these animals have died from any one of a multitude of things including chemical hotspots to military bullshit. I even used to know someone who did the "sound bombing". They tow a device that is used for seizmic studies of the petroleum content on the ocean floor. Sick. We'd rather kill our own planet than change. Well, it's time to change. Now. Stop shopping. Stop driving. Stop using energy flagrantly. Last night I got up, and looked out over a neighborhood of houses with lights all on. Why? What the hell is wrong with people that they have to have their lights on while they sleep, blaring out into the night? It may be weird, but the way I see it is every light is using petroleum. Or coal. Or nuclear material. Every light is in it's own way a little piece of ignorance. A little bit of agreement, that it's alright to kill for energy.

I'm ashamed to be human in this modern society. I've tried. I've tried my best. I never bought anything new.

[jdj]

22. I never even appreciated this 'til I worked at a vet. and in factories.

here I am recycling newspaper and these assholes throw out EVERTHING. The only thing plants recycle is stuff they can make money off of, like copper scrap. Then they have the nerve to brag about recycling.

[Gregorian]

24. The other day I took my Sunday trip to the metal recyclers

We have this great outdoors private metal recycle place where people just dump their stuff. And it's ok to take stuff, as well. So I go there once a week and grab things. The list is too long to post here. I've found so much great stuff. But the last time, I picked up a gas lawn mower. All it needed was gas. I'd never buy one. I've since found three more. I don't even know what to do with them. They sit in my barn. But they're all the same. So I have spare parts. I don't have a lawn. I just have acres of grass. Not much use.
The problem is that we are so accustomed to cheap available energy in our modern world that we are living way way beyond our means. It wasn't long ago that people used horses, or their own muscles. Then we burned wood for steam. But the population was small. 1890 was about the last year of sanity.

[jmcgowanjm]

28. I know this place, and so do you

Robert, your generation will see all this stuff lose even
its provisional usefulness and all of its supposed
investment value. You will have to find a different way to
arrange your lives in the decades to come. You'll have to return
to traditional human habitats of town and farm as the role of
the car diminishes down to nothing, and as the US
economy comes to center on food production. Corridors like
the highway strip above will be your future salvage yards.
A hundred years from now, little will be left of them but the
tilt-up concrete walls and the paved parking lagoons
sprouting weeds. Meanwhile, your cow barns and hog pens
will be roofed with Auto Zone
signs.

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary12.html

[bendeminga]

26. Poor Rosie O'Donnell

Myself and a few buddies once tried to save a beached whale. It ended up being Rosie Odonnell. Boy did we ever feel silly.


On edit--What I mean is I think many are overthinking this:


In the case of mass strandings, whales may be following a disoriented leader, or they could be swimming towards an animal that has already stranded and is emitting a distress call. In short, stranding remains a somewhat mysterious phenomenon.

Source:
http://www.whales-online.net/eng/FSC.html?sct=4&pag=4-1.html

[Cadence]

31. That's just in poor taste.

Read all of the other research where they have found the exploded inner ear and bleeding. This cannot be explained by a "disoriented leader". Especially not when it coincides with the passing of navy ships in the area.
I think it's really ignorant to say it's still a "mystery".

:mad:

[Gregorian]

33. Sorry- the "you think too much" ploy didn't work.

I'm sick of people like you. Go away!
In short- I don't go to the doctor's to find out what's right with me. Thinking is not what got us into the situation we're in. Not thinking, is what it took.

You probably think global warming is just another natural phenomenon, too.

[bendeminga]

34. Funny thing is, you are right!

Global warming has been proven to be part of the earth's natural cycles...you know--the ice age happened before we were here to screw up the planet...

[Ediacara]

36. The thing is although you're correct about ice age cycles

You're missing the point that we're artificially altering them, causing warming at an accelerated rate.

[bendeminga]

37. yep--I agree. n/t

[Gregorian]

39. It's you versus thousands of scientists.

And their consensus is that the CO2 content in the atmosphere has been altered by unnatural causes. That content has not been altered for tens of thousands of years. Not until now.
WE caused this global warming. It is not a natural event.
I might add that not one single scientist has posted evidence to the contrary. Not one.

[jpak]

40. Funny thing is - you're wrong

Climate warming since the mid-19th century is due to the build-up of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

This is the concensus based on the peer reviewed scientific evidence...

S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, J. Wang, T. L. Delworth, K. W. Dixon, and A. J. Broccoli (2001) Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System. Science Vol 292: pp 267-270.

Tim P. Barnett, David W. Pierce, Reiner Schnur (2001) Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans. Science Vol. 292: pp 270-274.

J. E. Harries, H. E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges (2001) Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature Vol. 410 pp 355 - 357.

It's been measured.

It's been published.

Anything else is (ignorant RW) bullshit...

[loudsue]

43. Where did you get that FLAG??? That's PERFECT!!!

Bar code and all!!

:kick::kick:

[loudsue]

44. Do you mind if I copy it into my sig line, Gregorian??

I think THIS needs to be the next universal Dem protest symbol. It says everything!!!

:kick::kick:

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shamanstar]

45. lame

wow... sad thing is that you think that joke was funny.

[Ediacara]

35. This is really odd, all the beachings seem to be facing the NE

King Island is to the northwest of Tasmania, Maria Island to the east of Tasmania, and Opoutre Beach is on the northeastern shore of the North Island.

Big map:


Maria Island:


King Island:


Opoutre Beach (red dot):

[Chovexani]

42. Horrible.

:cry:

[rolltide2005]

47. unbelievable

will bushs reign of abject destruction and terror ever end?

[xerox]

48. Must be

protesting the US and Ukraine election results!