Dear colleagues, A new paper on beaked whale sensitivity to acoustic pingers has just been published in Marine Mammal Science: Carretta, J.V., J. Barlow, and L. Enriquez. 2008. Acoustic pingers eliminate beaked whale bycatch in a gill net fishery. Marine Mammal Science 24(4):956-961. The results have implications on the current debate about the effects of Navy sonar on beaked whales, which was highlighted most recently in U.S. Supreme Court proceedings. In summary, we found that the use of acoustic pingers in a gillnet fishery completely eliminated the bycatch of beaked whales, whereas other cetacean species continued to be caught, though at much lower levels than they were before pinger use. The two main conclusions are 1) that beaked whales are much more sensitivie to acoustic pingers (and perhaps other anthropogenic sounds) than other cetacean species and 2) this finding highlights recent concerns about potential threats that some sound sources (such as sonars) may pose to beaked whales.