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Recommended: Effects of active sonar on whales

Nearly 500 whales beach themselves every year due to an excessive use of sonar. Military passive sonar (sound navigation and ranging) is killing and causing whales to avoid their major feeding and breeding grounds while temporarily deflecting from the high frequency sound coming from this unknown source. This event is raising hell in the political sector. Scientists have found many similarities between all the beached whales that have been in the same area that military sonar was being used. Military sonar is affecting the life of whales and their natural habitat for the worst.
Passive sonar allows military ships to detect submarines and other vessels without transmitting their own signals to other ships since World War I. Sonar allows a shipmate to be able to know the exact speed, coordinates, and how big the ship or submarine is. According to NOAA, “The technology steadily improved, and by World War II, was used once again for military purposes. Sonar is messing with the way whales communicate. In the 1960s, the development of digital computer technology made plotting of sonar data much easier”1 The military was going to try and communicate with whales but the whales were not found at their regular sites.
Many whales avoid breeding grounds and feeding areas in relation to several different species of whales being beached have had some kind of trauma beforehand. Scientists are starting to research and discover that most of them were bleeding around the brain and ears. Due to all of the naval ships in the area, people began to question if they had any part of the beaching. “Most previous attempts to determine whether military sonar use and whale strandings are correlated have looked at mass stranding records of beaked whales an...

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...der an immediate halt to any Navy training exercises. Instead, it requires the NOAA to re-evaluate the Navy permits under the terms of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.”5 sdf
(my opinion) I honestly do not care either way about military sonar simply because I agree with both sides of the argument. Yes it kills thousands of marine animals but it also allows the Navy to keep the people safe from any “ninja” submarines that might want to bomb the U.S. or what not and potentially kill millions. Military will continue to sonar.

Works Cited

3)http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&sid=5fc497ae-909a-4d43-9478-1c0934c849c5%40sessionmgr110&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=48811457
4) Bohannon, John. "NATO Asked To Silence Sonar." Science 302.5645 (2003): 547. Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.

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