Whales drift ashore due to exercises

The US Navy plans to strengthen trials of underwater navigation systems with sound waves in the next five years, despite negative warning for whales and dolphins.

The shores of elephants are becoming more and more frequent all over the world, ever since the military of the country, particularly the US, began using underwater wave navigation systems about half a century ago. century.

Scientists argue that these sounds frighten marine animals and push them into shallow waters, making them disoriented and eventually exposed to the shore. However, the technology that allows to track these cases only appeared in the past decade. In addition to the risk of ashore, the mammal community in the oceans can also suffer from prolonged stress due to facing man-made changes.

Two recent studies deployed off the coast in southern California have discovered many blue whales, whale snouts stop all food hunting and fleeing before sounds similar to those emanating from Submarine hunting equipment of the army.

One crop of 55 whales and dolphins stranded in Western Australia - (Photo: news.com.au)

In particular, benthic whalefish are particularly sensitive to sound and account for a large number of marine animals that land ashore near military drills. This very shy creature can dive down to 900m depth from the surface, and it takes many years for Stanford University (USA) experts to search and track by attaching the chip to each individual , according to a report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

However, scientists are surprised at the reaction of the blue whale, the world's largest animal, long thought to be immune to high-frequency sounds. It is unclear how the behavioral changes of fish that are on the brink of extinction will affect their already small amount, estimated at 5,000 to 12,000 worldwide.

Both of these studies are works done by independent scientists under a five-year project funded by the US Navy, in order to understand the extent to which sound waves emitted from submarine hunting equipment with marine habitat. Accordingly, an estimated 186 whales and dolphins were killed on the East Coast due to military operations, while this figure in Hawaii and southern California was 155. At least 11,000 were seriously injured on the East Coast , 2,000 in Hawaii and southern California; about 2 million individuals suffer from minor injuries, such as temporary hearing loss, on the East and West coasts. Studies also show that marine mammals can change behavior, such as swimming lost (estimated 27 million cases).

Currently the US military is facing accusations of seeking to promote testing of submarine hunting equipment in the territorial waters despite studies showing negative consequences.'Temporary deafness to marine animals also means people are affecting their viability , ' said expert Michael Jasny of the Council for Natural Resources Protection. A US federal judge in September announced that fishery officials did not consider the data collected most fully before allowing the US Navy to conduct military tests that stretched from Northern California to the border. Canadian gender. Meanwhile, the California Coast Committee also rejected the military's five-year naval drill plan, with an expected warm-up time of January next year in the waters off South California. However, the agency does not have the right to ban drills and the US Navy also ignored requests to stop using submarine hunting equipment to protect the marine community.