Sound testing
on whales begins

Those who would halt the Navy's
project off the Big Island have
another shot next week

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

Humpback whales off the Big Island will hear the Navy making low-frequency sounds today.

About 120 biologists, scientists and sailors were to head 10 miles off the northwest coast of the Big Island this morning to subject male whales to low-frequency sounds for 30 days -- which environmental groups unsuccessfully tried to prevent.

A U.S. District Court ruling yesterday allowed the tests to go on, saying the environmental coalition called Earthjustice failed to prove the tests would harm the whales.

"Nobody knows for sure what's going to harm them," said Paul Achitoff, attorney for Earthjustice. "That's the point. They need to do a more extensive study on the long-term impact."

That's also the Navy's point for the testing. The Navy and independent researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Cornell University hope to learn the sound threshold of what whales can tolerate before they stop singing, or undergo other behavioral changes.

"If they stopped singing, that would be alarming," said Christopher Clark, lead researcher on the Navy project and Cornell University's biocoustics program. If the testing appeared to harm the whales, the Navy would stop the testing, Clark said.

The maximum sound tested on the singing humpback males will be 155 decibels, about the volume of a whale song. "This is a very conservative level that we know will not do any harm to them," he said. Research to date shows whales detect sound at 120 decibels. The Navy's testing will begin at 125 decibels.

The Navy chose to study the singing male humpbacks because they tend to roam alone offshore, which will minimize risk to other marine mammals, like the bottlenose dolphins and leatherback turtles, said Peter Tyack, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass.

The mother humpbacks nursing their calves inshore will never be subjected to the Navy's sounds, Tyack said, but the females will be monitored by researchers as the males listen to the sounds offshore.

Only the male humpbacks sing, the females don't, said Tyack, who did his thesis on why male humpbacks sing. The male songs serve as a courtship display. The females appear to be drawn to males based on their songs, he said.

"This is a very carefully controlled study to find out where their behavior is disrupted," Tyack said.

The Navy uses the sound technology to detect and track the new generation of silent submarines, owned by Russia, Iraq, Iran and China, among others, said Jon Yoshishige, Navy spokesman for the Pacific Fleet.

Earthjustice will get another shot at stopping the Navy's testing on the whales next week at a preliminary injunction hearing.

"We need to change the laws," said Susie White, president of Greenpeace Foundation, based in Hawaii. "They're not adequate to protect the whales from arbitrary and capricious court decisions. I'm concerned about the whales."