Court upholds limits on Navy sonar training

edition.cnn.com...

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.

Also on Friday, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a similar ban for that state's coastline.

I personally feel that this is long overdue.

The appellate court said the Navy has acknowledged that high-powered sonar may cause hearing loss and other injuries to marine mammals. The court said the Navy has estimated that its Southern California exercises would expose more than 500 beaked whales to harassment and would result in temporary hearing loss to thousands of marine mammals.

Thousands. And that is only for one set of excersizes scheduled for later this year. How many in the past? How much needless injury to these species during the advent of sonar, and the years following? During a time when these species were flourishing in thier unaffected habitat?

Sickening. Now you can understand my "mood".

Hopefully this is another step in a movement towards governments and all humans being held responsible for the endless decimation of our co-species on this planet.

My only question, when reading the quote below, is who will police the Navy?

"The court is saying that neither the president nor the U.S. Navy is above the law," Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Saturday.

And of course, it couldn't be a branch of the US Government without playing the preverbial "current-event" card....

The Navy said those restrictions would limit its ability to conduct anti-submarine warfare training and possibly prevent certification of some naval strike groups preparing to deploy to the Persian Gulf.

And of course my other question would be: how do I post this in the correct forum?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Sorry for being such a noob, first time threading

[edit on 3/7/2008 by Kaiser Sohse]

If high power sonar will do that what about the explosions from things like torpedoes, or the big guns? I don't know how much power is in the sonar but it does seem to me there are still worse things out there. I am not saying the Navy should be able to do there testing with in the twelve mile limit, but I will say I don't think it should be that big a deal for the Nave to go out side the twelve mile limit to do there necessary operations.

reply to post by RedGolem


I'm not sure what the 12 miles signifies. 12 miles off the coast would place a ship on the border of the Territorial and Contiguous zones. Beyond the Contiguous zone would be the Exclusive Economic Zone, which may be too heavily trafficked for these tests.

Beyond that you are in International waters, which is not the ideal place for military testing, for obvious reasons.

en.wikipedia.org...

More great news on the critter front:

www.physorg.com...


Like your Avy by the way Red. Many people didn't like "The Fountain". I really enjoyed it.

Probably twelve miles because fewer animals are able to flee and beach themselves. Out of sight - out of mind.

The impact these new sonar systems has on marine life is gruesome to say the least. The source is often over 200db. Deafness is probably the least damaging effect. Internal bleeding, embolisms... Imagine being forced to listen to Cher at incredibly high volume over and over again. Some animals literally leap out of the water trying to get away. To call this animal cruelty is an understatement. Many of these animals are intelligent and self-aware.

reply to post by apc



Absolutely. Thanks for the input apc.

I personally believe that the life of mouse is no less precious than that of a man. If one opens thier eyes everyday you will see more and more of mankind's needless trampling of other species in which we SHARE this planet with.

Quite frankly, it sometimes makes me ashamed to be a human being.

There's another story on here about some kids maliciously killing kittens.

As far as I'm concerned these kind of individuals are the worst of the worst. They lack the moral fiber to be included in our existence, and shoud be "put out to pasture", so to speak.