Bears and whales

[Popeye]

While I have generally stayed out of the jousting on the sonar use and whale impact part of this debate, I will point out that despite the end of the Cold War, that the Russians, Chinese and probably other Pacific rim allies have been patrolling the western coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea for decades.
Also, considering that drug smugglers have been nabbed actually using submarines out of S. America in recent times.

In terms of this topic though I am somewhat neutral, dozens of navies worldwide have submarines and surface vessels equipped with powerful sonars that could probably confuse or disrupt whales and other sea creatures. Why is the focus only on the US?

A lot of it has to do with the location of the Navy's training, off the coast of Ca., which is full of vulnerable to sonar marine life. Here's an editorial from today's NY Times which pretty well reflects my feelings on the subject. It also indicates that this is an issue that a broad spectrum of people are concerned about, not just strong environmentalists'

Whales in the Navy’s Way


Published: January 22, 2008

According to a federal district judge in California, the Navy’s own research predicted that its sonar training exercises off the California coast will cause widespread harm — and possibly permanent injury or death — to nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales. That still didn’t stop the Bush administration from rejecting the judge’s carefully crafted plan to protect these animals from avoidable harm.

There is little doubt that the Navy’s mid-frequency active sonar is an effective tool for locating quiet-running submarines and that training is needed in shallow, offshore waters where sound propagates differently than in the open ocean. The rub is that the sonar, which generates extremely intense underwater sound, is harmful to marine mammals that depend on their own sensitive acoustical systems to feed, communicate and navigate. The waters off Southern California are teeming with vulnerable species.

Early this month, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper issued a tough set of mitigation measures — such as shutting off the sonar when mammals are too close — that the Navy must take to avoid a ban on its training activities. That seemed reasonable, especially given the Navy’s own analysis of the potential harm. Last Wednesday, however, President Bush attempted to override the court order by granting the Navy waivers, on national security grounds, from two environmental laws on which the decision was based. That led the judge to stay some restrictions while leaving others in place.

Now the fight will resume in court over whether the White House overstepped its authority in granting the waivers. From our perspective this looks less like a matter of national security than of convenience for the Navy, which resists efforts to constrain its activities no matter the harm to marine life.

Causing permanent injury and death to species of whales that are listed as endangered is just unacceptable.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/opinion/22tue2.html?ref=opinion

 

[Bunz]

I dont disagree with you on this issue Popeye. In regards to training, the Navy would be prudent to train in areas that arent so enviromentally sensitive. I know though, that there will be times when through normal patrols that all the military ships in service throughout the world, and many civilian ships equipped with active radars. Why only go after the US Navy when they are certainly not the only culprits.

 

[9sublime]

I'm not focusing on the US in general. I think the amount spent on bombs and spanking new planes is a tar on the reputation of humanity. Something like the UK stopping buying new bombs and guns for a year could feed Africa for a year.

 

[WileE]

...

The Navy has other options. The 'Barking Sands Underwater Tactical Range' (BARSTUR), for example, which is located off the island of Kauai, was purposely designed for testing submarine capabilities.

For the Navy to feel that, in addition to all these other resources at its disposal, it also needs to encroach on protected marine habitats, is exhibiting just the kind of callous and wanton disregard I was referring to. We can be a safe nation without resorting to the destruction of other species in the process.

You seem to think that all the U.S. Navy vessels stationed everywhere in the world would have to converge on Barking Sands to do their training. That would make one hell of a traffic jam! Look, the Navy participates in uninational and multinational war games all over the world, with the units involved divided into opposing forces -- usually designated as the "Purple Force" and the "Orange Force" -- which engage in real-world, real-time simulated combat. Of course, submarines and antisubmarine tactics are often involved in addition to surface-to-surface, air-to-air, et cetera. None of it has anything to do with how the Pentagon "feels", as you put it. Where the impact on marine life is concerned, I feel the same way you do. It would be nice if the Pentagon could find a way to operate without harming any living creature.

You let me know when bin Laden comes up with a Navy. In the meantime, don't let me stop you from hiding under your RV every time you hear a noise or Fox raises the terror alert.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" -FDR

It has nothing to do with fear of bin Laden or anyone else, as I'm sure you know. If it were a perfect world, no nation would ever need a military force of any kind.

 

[Popeye]

I dont disagree with you on this issue Popeye. In regards to training, the Navy would be prudent to train in areas that arent so enviromentally sensitive. I know though, that there will be times when through normal patrols that all the military ships in service throughout the world, and many civilian ships equipped with active radars. Why only go after the US Navy when they are certainly not the only culprits.

You're right Bunz, though we are the largest and most flagrant, the US Navy is not the only violator. I found this information on the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) website:

Today, many countries including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States deploy multiple high-intensity active sonar systems. Nearly 60 percent of the U.S. Navy’s 294 ships and submarines are currently equipped with mid-frequency active sonar systems. And powerful new “low-frequency” systems have begun to proliferate among member states of NATO.

During the Cold War, sonar programs were focused in large part on the deep-water environment, but today’s sonar systems are increasingly tested in coastal and shallow waters – environments that are home to endangered species of marine mammals, many important fisheries, and much of the richest habitat in the sea.

What a shame this is, proper precautions could be employed. Maybe not a perfect answer, but better than the arrogance presently being demonstrated. It's just amazing to me, that a large percentage of the human race, seem to think it's perfectly OK to destroy any other life that just happens to get in our way.

http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=110750

 

[Popeye]

You seem to think that all the U.S. Navy vessels stationed everywhere in the world would have to converge on Barking Sands to do their training. That would make one hell of a traffic jam! Look, the Navy participates in uninational and multinational war games all over the world, with the units involved divided into opposing forces -- usually designated as the "Purple Force" and the "Orange Force" -- which engage in real-world, real-time simulated combat. Of course, submarines and antisubmarine tactics are often involved in addition to surface-to-surface, air-to-air, et cetera. None of it has anything to do with how the Pentagon "feels", as you put it. Where the impact on marine life is concerned, I feel the same way you do. It would be nice if the Pentagon could find a way to operate without harming any living creature.

Though it compasses a much wider range, the present argument is over the Navy sonar training exercises off the coast of Ca. Now you would think, that these could be carried out at Barking Sands.

At the very least, the measures outlined by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the original ruling before Bush stepped in, is not too much to ask.

We're not only talking about life, we're talking about some species that are listed as endangered.

 

[WileE]

...

Though it compasses a much wider range, the present argument is over the Navy sonar training exercises off the coast of Ca. Now you would think, that these could be carried out at Barking Sands.

At the very least, the measures outlined by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the original ruling before Bush stepped in, is not too much to ask.

We're not only talking about life, we're talking about some species that are listed as endangered.

If one wanted to start a crusade against maltreatment of wildlife, how about taking on American pigeon hobbyists and competition breeders who slaughter tens of thousands of falcons and hawks each year because they prey on their birds. But no, that wouldn't work here because the pigeon people are a loosely organized federation of individuals, and it's not a hot-button political issue for left-leaning news media. On the other hand, a monolithic entity like "The Navy". Yeah, now there's something a man can sink his teeth into!

 

[PLC1]

Are you aware that the earliest polar bear fossils were found in an area that is not considered to be an arctic environment, and that polar bears flourished during the medieval warm period.

Polar bears are not endangered, nor are they threatened. They are simply the latest poster child being used by the left to pull the heart strings of the gullible.

I wondered about that. Since you offered nothing to back up your opinion, I did a little searching of my own. I found this:

During the last interglacial period, which ended 125,000 years ago, the forerunners of the modern polar bear, Ursus maritimus, were more similar to the brown bear (grizzly bear) than the polar bear of today, and likely had no trouble finding food in the birch forests that used to reach the Arctic Circle. They only started developing those traits that we associate with the modern polar bear when a warming climate stranded a small group of brown bears on glaciers in Siberia or Alaska.

OK, so that explains what happened 125,000 years ago, and how modern polar bears evolved, but 500 years is not enough to create a new species. What about the medieval warm period of 500 years or so ago?

I found this:

There is no good evidence that the MWP was a globally warm period comparable to today. Regionally, there may have been places that exhibited notable warmth -- Europe, for example -- but all global proxy reconstructions agree it is warmer now, and the temperature is rising faster now, than at any time in the last one or even two thousand years.

Anecdotal evidence of wineries in England and Norse farmers in Greenland do not amount to a global assessment.

Oh, well, once global warming is reversed, in another 10 millennia or so, I suppose a new polar bear like creature will evolve another 125 thousand years or so after that. That's just the blink of an eye in geologic time, anyway.

I wonder how long it will take human civilization to adapt?

 

[WileE]

Not to worry

I wonder how long it will take human civilization to adapt?

It will be difficult, yet easy.

1. Difficult because humans have never had the ability to biologically adapt
to changing environment as well as lower lifeforms can.
2. Easy because we humans have the ability to adapt by modifying our
artificial environment far better than the lower lifeforms can.

 

[Bunz]

Here is an interesting article in the Anchorage Daily News in the 1/27 edition about polar bears, its possible classification etc. Below is a link and an exerpt but the article is quite in depth.
Once again, science has turned into a political issue where emotions and influence are taking the upper hand. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and we can invest the resources needed to actually study the bears instead of making policy decisions that could have vast unintended consequences.


http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/295420.html

By TOM KIZZIA
tkizzia@adn.com | tkizzia@adn.com

Published: January 27th, 2008 02:42 AM
Last Modified: January 27th, 2008 05:55 AM

Ken Taylor has had easier jobs than this one. It's not like the good old days chasing rhinos, climbing into bear dens and wrestling beluga whales in shallow water.

These days, sitting at a desk as deputy commissioner of fish and game, the veteran wildlife biologist has to muster the best science he can find to argue that Alaska's polar bears are in good shape and need no special protection from hypothetical doomsday scenarios.

This requires Taylor to stand up to the prevailing wisdom about global warming in most of the world's scientific community and the public -- not to mention some pretty strong opinions in his own department.

But Taylor, the Palin administration's point man on polar bears, argues that the scientific justification simply isn't there -- at least not yet -- to declare the polar bear "threatened" and touch off a cascade of effects under the Endangered Species Act. A decision on the bears is expected from the U.S. Department of the Interior in the next few weeks.

"From my perspective, it's very difficult to put a population on the list that's healthy, based on a projection 45 years into the future," Taylor says. "That's really stretching scientific credibility."

The state's own scientific credibility hasn't been helped by the fact that the Fish and Game Department no longer has any polar bear experts of its own. Nor did it help that, when state officials found a scientific study reinforcing their polar bear stance, a congressional committee called a hearing to decry "phony science" and Exxon Mobil-funded "climate deniers."

Still, Taylor has helped produce two reports in the past year arguing against an endangered species listing.

The state argues that there's too much uncertainty about the future of the Arctic ice sheet on which the polar bears depend. Explanations for global warming other than greenhouse gas emissions, such as sun spots and variations in the earth's orbit, need to be considered, the state says.

And despite experts who call the idea "fanciful," the state argues that polar bears forced onto land might be able to adapt quickly by eating birds, caribou and other terrestrial species.

"The country is being hit with sky-is-falling-type articles," said Taylor. "Very little attention is being given to those who say it's overblown."[/QUOTE}

 

[Popeye]

Here is an interesting article in the Anchorage Daily News in the 1/27 edition about polar bears, its possible classification etc. Below is a link and an exerpt but the article is quite in depth.
Once again, science has turned into a political issue where emotions and influence are taking the upper hand. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and we can invest the resources needed to actually study the bears instead of making policy decisions that could have vast unintended consequences.


http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/295420.html

By TOM KIZZIA
tkizzia@adn.com | tkizzia@adn.com

Published: January 27th, 2008 02:42 AM
Last Modified: January 27th, 2008 05:55 AM

Ken Taylor has had easier jobs than this one. It's not like the good old days chasing rhinos, climbing into bear dens and wrestling beluga whales in shallow water.

These days, sitting at a desk as deputy commissioner of fish and game, the veteran wildlife biologist has to muster the best science he can find to argue that Alaska's polar bears are in good shape and need no special protection from hypothetical doomsday scenarios.

This requires Taylor to stand up to the prevailing wisdom about global warming in most of the world's scientific community and the public -- not to mention some pretty strong opinions in his own department.

But Taylor, the Palin administration's point man on polar bears, argues that the scientific justification simply isn't there -- at least not yet -- to declare the polar bear "threatened" and touch off a cascade of effects under the Endangered Species Act. A decision on the bears is expected from the U.S. Department of the Interior in the next few weeks.

"From my perspective, it's very difficult to put a population on the list that's healthy, based on a projection 45 years into the future," Taylor says. "That's really stretching scientific credibility."

The state's own scientific credibility hasn't been helped by the fact that the Fish and Game Department no longer has any polar bear experts of its own. Nor did it help that, when state officials found a scientific study reinforcing their polar bear stance, a congressional committee called a hearing to decry "phony science" and Exxon Mobil-funded "climate deniers."

Still, Taylor has helped produce two reports in the past year arguing against an endangered species listing.

The state argues that there's too much uncertainty about the future of the Arctic ice sheet on which the polar bears depend. Explanations for global warming other than greenhouse gas emissions, such as sun spots and variations in the earth's orbit, need to be considered, the state says.

And despite experts who call the idea "fanciful," the state argues that polar bears forced onto land might be able to adapt quickly by eating birds, caribou and other terrestrial species.

"The country is being hit with sky-is-falling-type articles," said Taylor. "Very little attention is being given to those who say it's overblown."[/QUOTE}

Bunz, Exxon Mobil has put millions into funding organizations that spread disinformation about anthropogenic global warming. How can anything, that comes from anyone associated with them, be taken seriously. To say they have a vested interest in the subject is an understatement.

I would like to think that the polar bears could adapt with the melting of the sea ice they so depend on. However, the article you posted is the first suggestion I've read of that possibility. Perhaps I spend too much time at environmental sites.

I just have a sneaking suspicion that Alaska's opposition to the listing is based solely on economics, not what is best for the bear.

 

[Bunz]

Hey Popeye,
I thought you might find that article a bit divisive but interesting.

Exxon Mobil has put millions into funding organizations that spread disinformation about anthropogenic global warming. How can anything, that comes from anyone associated with them, be taken seriously. To say they have a vested interest in the subject is an understatement.

For sure, and I will say that as far as I am concerned Exxon is the second most evil corporate entity there is. This is the crux of the issue though really and I think Taylor points it out well. There is not a state of Alaska assesment, and everyone in DC wants to base this on either industry studies or climate change enviros with thier own agenda.

I would like to think that the polar bears could adapt with the melting of the sea ice they so depend on. However, the article you posted is the first suggestion I've read of that possibility. Perhaps I spend too much time at environmental sites.

I mentioned this notion earlier in this thread before the article came out. My mentioning it comes from people I know who live in polar bear country. Of the few that I have conversed with about it, have told me that there are plenty of bears and they manage alright if they miss the sea ice when it moves from the coast in the summer.

I just have a sneaking suspicion that Alaska's opposition to the listing is based solely on economics, not what is best for the bear.

I would say that not having enough information to made a sound decision is the first and focus issue for the spin machine.
But of course economics is playing a much quieter but more important role. Ultimately this listing, could cost Alaska billions of dollars in lost revenue. This listing would kill many important domestic energy projects important for Alaska and America. Expansion of the Thompson point field, the natural gas line, not to mention ANWR would all be dead. That is not good for America.

 

[Popeye]

Good news for whales

Good news for whales and marine life. This means the Navy will have to refrain from using the harmful sonar within 12 nautical miles of the coast and where whales are known to frequent. Notice too, that the Judge called Bush's previous attempt to exempt the Navy from environmental law as "constitutionally suspect." I would expect an appeal as the Bush administration's callous disregard for life knows no bounds.

Judge rejects Navy request for sonar training exemption

February 5, 2008
A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday rejected the Bush administration's attempt to exempt Navy sonar training from key environmental laws, saying that there's no real emergency to justify overruling court-ordered protections for whales and dolphins.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper also suggested that President Bush's effort to maneuver around an earlier federal court order was "constitutionally suspect," although she made no ruling on that issue.

The 36-page order means the Navy will have to follow Cooper's previous injunction forbidding the use of powerful submarine-detecting sonar in areas where whales are abundant, such as within 12 nautical miles of the coast and between Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands.

That January order also will require the Navy to shut down sonar when whales or other marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards of vessels or under certain sea conditions that allow the sonic blasts to travel farther than usual. This type of sonar has been linked to mass deaths of whales in the Bahamas, the Canary Islands and elsewhere, although never off Southern California.

"We are aware of the ruling and reviewing it," said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman. He declined to say whether the Navy would appeal.

Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission, said the federal courts have supported the panel's assertion that the Navy can implement needed safeguards for marine mammals without compromising its training missions.

"I don't know what it's going to take for the Navy to get it," Douglas said. "The courts have said over and over that the Navy must follow the law."

The Navy maintains that the lives of its sailors depend on being properly trained to detect vessels operated by China, Iran, North Korea and other potentially hostile nations.

"The Navy's current 'emergency' is simply a creature of its own making, i.e., its failure to prepare adequate environmental documentation in a timely fashion," Cooper wrote.

Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, applauded the ruling.

"It properly rejected the president's attempted end run around the will of Congress and an order of the federal court," he said. "The court confirms that we don't have an imperial presidency in this country."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sonar5feb05,1,5010590.story

 

[PLC1]

Good news for whales and marine life. This means the Navy will have to refrain from using the harmful sonar within 12 nautical miles of the coast and where whales are known to frequent. Notice too, that the Judge called Bush's previous attempt to exempt the Navy from environmental law as "constitutionally suspect." I would expect an appeal as the Bush administration's callous disregard for life knows no bounds.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sonar5feb05,1,5010590.story

Yes, there is likely to be an appeal, but first, an outcry from the Bushistas about putting whales ahead of the lives of our brave soldiers.

Surely, there must be another way of training in the use of sonar. How about a simulator?

 

[Richard Savage]

Whales: 1 Man: 0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Vfz_Mf9gs