9
October 2003
Sonar: Death knell?
In September last year 14 whales — mostly beaked whales — were stranded and died on the beaches of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Previous mass strandings have been blamed on the use of military sonar and on this occasion international naval exercises were taking place nearby. The exercises were suspended at the request of the Canary Islands government. Military authorities do not readily acknowledge a link between their manoeuvres and mass strandings. But the results of post-mortem examination of the stranded Canary Island whales now provides evidence of severe liver damage due to in vivo formation of gas-bubble lesions. This challenges the view that these mammals do not suffer decompression sickness, and the incidence of such cases during a naval sonar exercise implicates acoustic factors in this incident. In a wider conservation sense, these findings need to be taken into account in considering the regulation and limitation of the adverse impact of marine sonar systems on ocean life.
Gas-bubble lesions in stranded cetaceans
P. D. JEPSON, M. ARBELO, R. DEAVILLE, I. A. P. PATTERSON,
P. CASTRO, J. R. BAKER, E. DEGOLLADA, H. M. ROSS, P. HERRÁEZ, A. M. POCKNELL,
F. RODRÍGUEZ, F. E. HOWIE, A. ESPINOSA, R. J. REID, J. R. JABER, V. MARTIN,
A. A. CUNNINGHAM & A. FERNÁNDEZ
Was sonar responsible for a spate of whale deaths after an Atlantic military
exercise?
Nature 425, 575–576 (2003); doi:10.1038/425575a
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