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Please pass this information along as you see fit. The following is an article featured in UK's Dive Magazine August 2003 edition:
BITE BACK
A CHANCE TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
By John Nightingale
LAST YEAR the Bush administration gave the US Navy permission to deploy its Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar system over 75 per cent of the world's oceans, despite a mass of evidence indicating that it can injure marine mammals. At close range, LFA sonar can destroy a whale's eardrums, cause its lungs to haemorrhage and even kill it. At a test two years ago in the Bahamas it caused mass strandings of four different species, all showing haemorrhaging
around the eyes and ears, indicating severe acoustic trauma. During tests, a scuba diver was exposed to 14 minutes of LFA noise at 160 decibels (the sound level 100 miles away from the source!), and experienced uncontrollable shaking in his limbs before going into a seizure that recurred for days afterwards. The National Resources Defense Council in the US successfully got a temporary injunction to stop the LFA activity, the judge agreeing that the science clearly demonstrates 'the possibility, indeed probability, of irreparable injury to marine animals'. The Navy is still determined to deploy it. Tell George W. Bush that the oceans and its contents are not his to destroy, email president@whitehouse.gov.
Checkout The National Resource Defense Council's web site for more information on this subject at ~ http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp
BITE BACK
A CHANCE TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
By John Nightingale
LAST YEAR the Bush administration gave the US Navy permission to deploy its Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar system over 75 per cent of the world's oceans, despite a mass of evidence indicating that it can injure marine mammals. At close range, LFA sonar can destroy a whale's eardrums, cause its lungs to haemorrhage and even kill it. At a test two years ago in the Bahamas it caused mass strandings of four different species, all showing haemorrhaging
around the eyes and ears, indicating severe acoustic trauma. During tests, a scuba diver was exposed to 14 minutes of LFA noise at 160 decibels (the sound level 100 miles away from the source!), and experienced uncontrollable shaking in his limbs before going into a seizure that recurred for days afterwards. The National Resources Defense Council in the US successfully got a temporary injunction to stop the LFA activity, the judge agreeing that the science clearly demonstrates 'the possibility, indeed probability, of irreparable injury to marine animals'. The Navy is still determined to deploy it. Tell George W. Bush that the oceans and its contents are not his to destroy, email president@whitehouse.gov.
Checkout The National Resource Defense Council's web site for more information on this subject at ~ http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp