US Military Attacks Ocean Marine Mammals

US Military Attacks Ocean Marine Mammals
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The ocean's fish, animal and marine mammal life are all under direct threat
today by the world's militaries, specifically the United States Navy.

The issue is noise pollution, which can physically disrupt and even kill sea
animals. The US Navy, NATO and other navies are blasting the world's oceans
with enormous sound waves as part of their tracking systems to detect enemy
submarines.

Low, mid and high frequency active sonar, used by 60 percent of the US Navy's
nearly 300 ships and submarines, is introducing powerful and highly intrusive
new sounds in the ocean environment, directly affecting the health and
well-being of all sea creatures. The sound levels are physically harmful to
fish and marine mammals, and in many cases deadly to whales, dolphins and other
creatures through which hearing is their most important underwater
communications, mating and food finding sense element.

Recently, the US Bush Administration has pushed through legistlation that
exempts the US military from core provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection
Act, leaving the armed forces much freer to harm ocean marine mammal life in
the course of using underwater sonar.

The proliferation and use of sonar in the world's oceans is a major global
environmental problem, affecting the survival of entire populations of whales,
dolphins and porpoises. Mass strandings have occured off the coast of
Washington state in 2003, in the Canary Islands in 1985, 1986, 1989, 2001 and
2002, in the Bahamas in 2000, in the US Virgin islands in 1998 and 1999, and in
Greece in 1996. In July, 2004, researchers uncovered an extraordinary
concentration of whale strandings near Yokosuka, Japan; the site of a major US
naval military base. The US military is planning to deploy active sonar use in
nearly 80% of the world's oceans.

However, in October 2004, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling
for a halt to the development of high intensity active naval sonar. In November
2004, 16 of the world's nations approved an international resolution calling for
a curb on the use of military sonar and other underwater noise technology. In
February 2005, a coalition of international organizations petitioned NATO to
protect marine life from needless harm during sonar exercises.

Today, international measures need to be put forth to stop the militarization of
the world's oceans, as well as protect the sanctity, environment and well-being
of the planet's marine (mammal) life. The US military's deadly assault and
attack on whales and dolphins, in particular, must be immediately terminated.

Finially, there is an overwhelming need to establish a global environmental
authority with international criminal court jurisdiction to arrest, prosecute
and incarcerate the military commanders and strategists who are carrying out
this wanton slaughter of what is, perhaps, the grandest and most defenseless
species of life on Earth.

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Steve Jones
Kapaa, Kauai
State of Hawaii
Hawaiian Islands
USA

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SOURCES:

1. Natural Resources Defense Council/NRDC
40 West 2oth St, New York, New York 10011 USA
Main Website: http://www.nrdc.org/
Marine Mammal Website: http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp

2. Marsha Green
Ocean Mammal Institute
P.O. Box 14422, Reading, Pennsylvannia 19612 USA
Website: http://www.oceanmammalinst.org/

3. Greenpeace Foundation
1118 Maunawili Rd, Kailua, Hawaii 96734 USA
Main Website: http://www.greenpeacefoundation.com/
Marine Mammal Website:
http://www.greenpeacefoundation.com/action/campInfo.cfm?campID=18

4. Hawaii Wildlife Fund
P.O. Box 637, Paia, Hawaii 96779 USA
Website: http://www.wildhawaii.org/

5. American Cetacean Society
P.O. Box 1391, San Pedro, California 90733 USA
Website: http://www.acsonline.org/

6. Ocean Noise Coalition
300 Broadway, Suite 28
San Francisco, California 94133 USA
Website: http://www.oceannoisecoalition.org/

7. Earth Island Institute
300 Broadway, Suite 28
San Francisco, California 94133 USA
Website: http://www.earthisland.org/

8. International Marine Mammal Project
300 Broadway, Suite 28
San Francisco, California 94133 USA
Website: http://www.earthisland.org/immp/index.htm

9. Acoustic Ecology Institute
45 Cougar Canyon, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508 USA
Website: http://www.acousticecology.org/

10. Global Electromagnetic Weapons and Warfare
Website: http://www.geocities.com/ninevahdestroy

11. Low Frequency Active Sonar/FAS
Federation of American Scientists
1717 'K' St- NW, Suite 209
Washington, DC 20036 USA
Website: http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/lfa.htm

12. Low Frequency Active Sonar
c/o Love Earth Network
5683 Midnight Pass Rd, #106
Siesta Key, Florida 34242 USA
Website: http://wlfas.org/

13. Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
Brookfield House
38 St Paul Street
Chippenham, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
SNL5 1LJ
European Union
Website: http://www.wdcs.org/

14. The Humane Society of the United States
2100 'L' St- NW
Washington, DC 20037 USA
Website: http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals

15. Ocean Futures Society
Jean-Michel Cousteau
325 Chapala St, Santa Barbara, California 93101 USA
Website: http://www.oceanfutures.org/

researched by: seraphim2279@yahoo.com