Goodmorning to all of my citizens...

I want to congratulate the people in the cape God area, NY, for the help they provided to the whales, you did a great job.

For those unaware of the happenings there: There where between the 50 and 60 whales stranded of the beach and volanteers managed to get about 49 back to the ocean.

All Hail, the Benevolent Ruler. When was this, KM? Think it could be Cape Cod?

Yes, America had a good weekend, 9 out of 9 miners in Pa, Tour de Lance in France, and 46 out 55 Pilot Whales in Dennis, Ma (Link to Story). All unbelievable if you wrote it in a novel.

Cecil, don't forget about the Amtrack accident. I think they where lucky having no deaths reported (as far as we know here).

Quite a weekend.

There were a number of nearby residents that pulled many people from the train. Lots of good folks lending a hand. It’s a shame that the media never gives these kinds of stories any attention; they are much more interested in dirty laundry.

And the bombing in Jerusalem that only killed the bomber. On the whales I may have spoke to soon 40 of the survivers from yesterday beached themselves again today, story on CNN. If they were weakened yesterday they may have a tougher time today, hope for the best. Rescuers are on the way, high tide at mid-day.

Does not look good, they have abandoned the effort and most will probably die or be euthanized (sp). Very sad, at least we tried. Why whales and dolphins do this may never be known.

There is a discussion of Navy Sonar causing the strandings over in Bonaire Webcams. I did some checking on this and found some interesting information. Here's the Navy's response, Response. Interesting stuff especially if you compare what the Navy says and what the Enviromental site says (Click Here). I have a tendancy to believe the Navy, they at least used some scientific techniques to study the problem not just blacket statements without backing as on the enviromental site.

(rant mode on)
This alarmist crap from the enviromental side has got to stop. How are we as concerned citizens going to make an educated decision if we are feed misleading and wrong propaganda. We all operate on limited budgets of time and money and we need to do a much better job of picking our fights. Right now I believe if you care about the oceans, worry about oil tankers, over fishing and land run-off. Don't worry about Navy Sonar (keep an eye on it), captured Dolphins or sharks.

(rant mode off)

My $.02.

Cecil, another report here from the New Scientist.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992433

No further comments from me on this, but I will continue to read this thread.

Yes there are always 2 sides to every story and sometimes there are even more. I’ll admit I commented without all of the facts. The issue is this isn’t a recent development, the Navy has admitted to killing a bunch of whales of the Bahamas with mid range sonar. However there are limitations (geographical and if mammals are present) to the use of this lower range sonar imposed by NOAA who granted the exemption. What I would really like to see is the contents of the exemption as the Marine Mammals Protection Act is a significant document. NOAA indicates it’s a small exception.

The following are links to various stories from various points in time on this issue from NOAA, CS Monitor, the Associated Press and the BBC. All sides accounted for.
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2001/mar01/noaa01037.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0815/p1s3-usgn.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/navy141.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/news/249news1.shtml

One cannot but wonder about the coincidental timing of the recent beaching of mammals and the exemption to the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Much to my utter amazement they also tested this on Navy divers. The sound (160 decibels) was something equivalent to an airplane taking off. Reportedly pings are as loud as 210 dbs, that would be louder than a rocket taking off and being real close to it. Then I looked into the impact of sound underwater and found some interesting information. Sound underwater is as one would expect quieter than in the air. 160 dbs underwater is the same as 100 dbs in the air (the equivalent to a loud radio). http://birds.cornell.edu/BRP/dBinWater.html One hundred forty dbs is considered harmful. The scale is logarithmic, noise seems twice as loud for every increase of 10 dbs.

I’m still not convinced that everything is OK as the Navy is the only party that are to monitor the impact of their activity. Obviously Navel actions need to be secret to protect our country, but there must be a better answer. I think when you have a mass die off of Squid in the Pacific and 2 occurrences of mammal beachings in the Atlantic in one week it’s not alarmist to respond. Blame the Navy? No, there’s no evidence to make such accusations. Tell the Navy you’re concerned? Damn right and NOAA too.

One more interesting article on Whales. This one postulates that Whale watchers could be part of the demise of Whales, at least a specific pod in the Northwest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14220-2002Jul28.html

I've read a little more on the subject since I posted earlier. It does seem the jury's still out, www.Snopes.com has a fairly balanced discussion and links. It bears watching but there are bigger battles to be fought right now. I'm still mad about the false misleading statements on the enviromental site. The junk science is got to end. What some people believe defies logic sometimes, on another board somebody was making the case that it was Cell Phones that caused the strandings. I mean they both use the same frequencies, UFB (OBTW, Cell Phones use MHz, Whales and Sonar uses Hertz, only a factor of a million).

Good sites, Scott, the site about underwater noise was very good. Did not know that.

I have to agree the sound site really put things into perspective for me. It’s funny how this little fact doesn’t get mentioned in any of these articles…the fact that the underwater scale is different than the in air scale…

It just shows you that you can make any argument on any topic and find something to back it up…as long as you don’t explain everything.

P.S. I just threw my cell phone in the garbage (just kidding!)

Hi everybody,
Going on with the chat, I have been reading all the reports regarding the beached whales and I found these interesting following ones. Sorry two are french language but tell about the alarmist sonar use, I can try to translate it in english if you want. http://www.ac-creteil.fr/svt/Big_mag/Actualite/mort-baleines.htm
http://www.chez.com/soniag/reportage/baleine.html
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/Science_Nature/0,1113,2-13-46_1084090,00.html
http://www.deafwhale.com/stranding/theories.html
If I understood well, it seems theses beachings are all due to a strong underwater noise pollution, and it makes me very sad. I already mentioned about this in the wednesday BT.

Here is another less publicized recent stranding of some dolphins
14 rough-toothed dolphins found dead in stranding on Eastern Shore island