Although I have not thoroughly reviewed the application to expose beaked whales to naval sonar in the AUTEC naval training range in the Bahamas, I think I understand enough to be able to form an opinion that this research is very ill-advised.  Training maneuvers with naval sonar have occurred in this AUTEC range for many years, the range is well-equipped with a large array of bottom-mounted hydrophones, and beaked whales are present.  Thus, I am sure that years of archived audio recordings exist of these naval maneuvers which could be analyzed to see how beaked whales react to the sonar.  Vocalizing beaked whales could be tracked acoustically to see if there is spatial avoidance of the sonar, vocalizations could be analyzed to determine whether they change when the sonar is present vs. absent, and a wealth of other information must be available in these recordings which would illuminate the potential reaction of beaked whales to sonar.  Naturally, there are security restrictions to this information, and the tactical maneuvers must be kept classified, but I am sure there is a way around this problem.  Surely, random subsamples can be taken which would not compromise security but would allow useful biological data to be analyzed.  My question thus is:  why wouldn't these data be analyzed first before putting more beaked whales at risk unnecessarily?  And if there are really no archived recordings available (hard to believe), then why not make recordings of future naval maneuvers, which are ongoing?  Ideally, naval maneuvers involving sonar should not take place in an area of known beaked whale abundance, but as they are occurring anyway, why not take advantage of the situation?  If the Navy is unwilling to move its range to protect beaked whales, why not at least gain useful information that could help the whales?  However, as WDCS rightfully points out, these whales cannot be considered naive to sonar and thus could not possibly represent beaked whale populations in general.  The most sensitive individuals have probably long since left the AUTEC range.

I am also profoundly disturbed that NMFS personell are the holder of this permit (Boreman) and PI (Southall).  This appears to me to be a conflict-of-interest situation, and at the very least, provides a very poor example for a regulator of research ostensibly used to protect marine mammals.  If the Co-PIs (Boyd, Clark, Ketten, Tyack, Frankel, and Claridge) are so sure that this research will not disturb or endanger whales, then they should take on the primary responsibility and accountability themselves, and be permit holders.

I urge other marine mammalogists to comment on this application before May 17.

Lindy Weilgart, Ph.D.
Dept. of Biology
Dalhousie University

For more details, visit the website of the permit application:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/permits/1121-1900_application.pdf


and draft Environmental Assessment:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/permits/1121-1900_ea_draft.pdf

Lindy Weilgart, Ph.D.
Research Associate and Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia  B3H 4J1 Canada
Ph.: (902) 494-3723
Fax: (902) 494-3736
E-mail: lweilgar@dal.ca