Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Brief Communications
Nature 425, 575-576 (9 October 2003) | doi:10.1038/425575a
nature jobs
Chair
- McMaster University
- Hamilton, Canada
PhD student position
- Laval University Cancer Research Center
- Quebec city, CANADA
Gas-bubble lesions in stranded cetaceans
P. D. Jepson1, M. Arbelo2, R. Deaville1, I. A. P. Patterson3, P. Castro2, J. R. Baker4, E. Degollada2, H. M. Ross3, P. Herráez2, A. M. Pocknell1, F. Rodríguez2, F. E. Howie5, A. Espinosa2, R. J. Reid3, J. R. Jaber2, V. Martin2, A. A. Cunningham1 & A. Fernández1
Abstract
Was sonar responsible for a spate of whale deaths after an Atlantic military exercise?
Abstract
There are spatial and temporal links between some mass strandings of cetaceans — predominantly beaked whales — and the deployment of military sonar1, 2, 3. Here we present evidence of acute and chronic tissue damage in stranded cetaceans that results from the formation in vivo of gas bubbles, challenging the view that these mammals do not suffer decompression sickness. The incidence of such cases during a naval sonar exercise indicates that acoustic factors could be important in the aetiology of bubble-related disease and may call for further environmental regulation of such activity.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
