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Sonar Mapping Killed Whales

September 28, 2013 by · Comments Off on Sonar Mapping Killed Whales 

Sonar Mapping Killed Whales, A NOISY technology that blasts high-frequency sounds below water to map the ocean for oil probably caused the deaths of 75 melon-headed whales off Madagascar.

An independent panel of scientists found that sonar surveying by ExxonMobil in late May 2008 led to the sudden displacement of around 100 whales, of which at least three-quarters died.

“This is the first known such marine mammal mass stranding event closely associated with relatively high frequency mapping sonar systems,” said the report released by the International Whaling Commission.

“Earlier such events may have been undetected because detailed inquiries were not conducted.”

The researchers described a “highly unusual event” in which melon-headed whales became stranded in shallow waters in the Loza Lagoon system in northwest Madagascar in May and June 2008.

The culprit was named as a high-power 12 kilohertz multibeam echosounder system, or MBES, operated by an ExxonMobil vessel on May 29 about 65 kilometers offshore from the first known stranding.

The five-member independent scientific review panel said the vessel’s MBES was “the most plausible and likely behavioral trigger for the animals initially entering the lagoon system.”

The sounds would have been “clearly audible over many hundreds of square kilometers of melon headed whale deep water habitat areas.”

The report said that seismic airguns, long opposed by environmental groups for the potential harm they can cause to marine life, were not to blame for the event.

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