U.S. Navy's Plan That Could Harm Thousands of Whales

The U.S. Navy has just launched a training plan that will take an enormous toll on whales and other marine mammals. Commonsense precautions would allow the U.S. to protect whales without compromising military readiness, but the Navy has refused to use them.

NRDC is suing the Navy over this reckless plan, and now actor and marine mammal activist Pierce Brosnan has released a video drawing attention to what the plan means for the giants of the ocean.

Pierce explains that according to the Navy’s own estimates the training exercises could kill nearly 1,000 marine mammals and seriously injure more than 13,000.

The threat comes from the Navy’s use of sonar and explosives. Whales and other marine mammals use sound to locate food, find a mate, connect with friends and navigate their way through the world. When a sonar blast or explosion thousands of times more powerful than a jet engine fills their ears, the results can be devastating. “In the darkened sea, a deaf whale is a dead whale,” Pierce says.

And yet the Navy’s wants to blast ocean waters with nearly 300,000 hours of deafening mid-frequency sonar. This kind of barrage has been shown to cause whales’ internal organs to hemorrhage. The Navy also wants to conduct a range of underwater explosions averaging one detonation every two minutes for the next five year. Many of these bombardments will occur in and around sensitive whale habitat where animals mate and feed.

Now Pierce is helping hold the Navy accountable for its latest failure to safeguard whales. “The Navy should be putting vital whale habitat off limits to sonar and explosives during routine training,” he says in the video. “But they won’t do that unless you and I speak out right now.”

You can make your voice heard by clicking here and asking the government to take precautions that will protect whales without sacrificing national security.

If Pierce Brosnan supports protecting the massive grey whales off the coast of Mexico, will he want to act as John Daroux if The Minke Connection is made into a movie?

Murray Kibblewhite

Author

The  Minke Connection

Fatal Seal Parasite Released By Melting Ice

Is there a greater danger to seals, porpoises and whales  than Japanese whalers?

Yes there is? The newly discovered parasite coming from the melting Arctic ice!

Check out the article.

Murray Kibblewhite

Author

The Minke Connection

It sounds like something out of a bad science-fiction movie: polar explorers boldly forge ahead in a world of slowly melting ice, only to accidentally uncover and resurrect a deadly pathogen during the course of their research. Except in this case, it’s real life, and the victims are seals, not fictional scientists. It’s the result of global warming, which is changing the epidemiological landscape for both animals and people around the world.

 

Read full article here.

5 star review of The Minke Connection - Murray Kibblewhite

During my holidays,  The Minke Connection was the first book I read. I  could not put it down. I was hoping  for  happy ending for the  first whale.  The whale was so majestically defined that it would have been great for  happty  ending if  it had evaded the Japs.  A little of bit of romance added to the story.  The author is able  to weave a mystery well, especially the Japs placing our  man in the freezer.

How apt for me to read the book at a time when Sea Shepherd and other dispute between the saviours and the merciless hunters. I felt  proud  that I was a Greenpeace  before the Green party came into being.  I am talking about the anti-Vietnam,anti-nuclear and anti-apartheid days.

Jag Lal

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Scientists Learn to Count Whales from Space

 

Counting whales from space is a great idea and should help monitoring their numbers. However, for the rare or endangered species personal identification should be used as was suggested for the mighty Sperm Whale in my novel, "The Minke Connection".

Murray Kibblewhite

Author

The Minke Connection

    

In a world first, scientists have managed to harness satellite technology in order to remotely count the number of breeding whales in an otherwise difficult to navigate area.

Read more here.