Super Ferry

[Al Mialkovsky]

The website isn't clear about how many passengers get to go but I was told it was two go for the car price.

If you look at the route the ferry will take it appears they are sensitive to sea life. They will stay away from the islands to avoid whales for example.

 

[www.scubamazing.com]

If you look at the route the ferry will take it appears they are sensitive to sea life. They will stay away from the islands to avoid whales for example.

I would think they'd have to be. If only we could get the fish-netters to be as concious about sea-life.

 

[howard4113]

I would think they'd have to be. If only we could get the fish-netters to be as concious about sea-life.

My son has been adamantly opposed to the ferry until they get front-scanning sonar (common on many HS ferries) so as to avoid whales.... I share his concerns and wonder why they were so neglectful as to leave it out in the first place. I don't know if they've add this equipment yet. I don't know that they have to be any more conscious about sea life than they are required to be. After all they are in business to make money, not to promote ecological concerns.

M

 

[Clearwater]

I was interested in the comment on the web site that they would haul "fresh produce and cattle to market daily" along with vehicles and pax. Are they just talking about the odd farm truck on the vehicle deck, or will there be a dedicated freighter section? :icon5:

 

[VBlueV]

My son has been adamantly opposed to the ferry until they get front-scanning sonar (common on many HS ferries) so as to avoid whales...
M

but i've heard some folks say, "sonar is bad for whales/marine life":
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=136666&highlight=whales+sonar

This is the first time I've heard of this, but it appears that there is now evidence from beached whales that sonar may cause some whales to dive and surface to avoid the noise...

From Nature, vol. 440, 30 March 2006, p. 593:

"More whale strandings are linked to sonar

Examinations of four whales found stranded along the Spanish coast in January seem to confirm a 2003 Nature report linking sonar to the deaths of several beaked whales.

In recent years, naval sonar devices have been the suspected cause of an increasing number of whale strandings worldwide. The whales are thought to take evasive action to avoid the noise, sometimes diving and surfacing until they suffer decompression sickness and die.

In 2003, British and Spanish researchers reported that Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris), stranded off the Canary Islands the previous year, had deadly gas-bubble lesions called emboli in their livers. They suggested these were caused by decompression (P. D. Jepson et al. Nature 425, 575-576; 2003).

After a group of beaked whales went ashore in January, along Spain's Costa del Sol, the Spanish Cetacean Society in Madred called veterinarian Antonio Fernandez to perform necropsies on four of the animals. He and his colleagues from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria found the same embolic syndrome as that found in the 2003 study.

"This is the first confirmation of the 2003 report," says veterinarian Paul Jepson of the Zoological Society of London, lead author of that article. The new findings are expected to be published in the coming months.

Officials at the Cetacean Society suspect that mid-frequency naval sonar caused the strandings. But Fernandez notes that the ships that might have been responsibile have not been identified.

Earlier this month, about 45 pilot whales died after stranding on the western side of the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, following joint US and Indonesian naval exercises in the nearby Macassar Strait. The cause of the stranding is under investigation.

Some US Navy officials, and oceanographers who use devices to generate air bursts underwater for seismic studies, have been accused of blocking efforts to uncover the links between noise and whale strandings (see Nature 439, 376-377; 2006).

Rex Dalton"

and... the devil's advocate:

Quite the contrary, in fact. The U.S. Navy has performed the most comprehensive study of this by far. It’s endorsed by NOAA and their NMFS subsidiary. Their results put a stopper over a lot of the media rhetoric. Oddly, I have found that hardly anyone (including marine mammalogists) is even aware of these NMFS-approved studies, much less have read them. They have a lovely website too, but nobody ever visits it.
http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/

Despite all the hooplah, there is very little quantifiable data to support most of the claims from environmentalists. It's primarily ancedotal reporting and coincidental conjecture. I've been keeping close tabs on this for a few years, now. On three occasions I've actually had to forward these studies to colleagues who actually WORK in this field. They were blissfully ignorant, which is... highly unprofessional.

The NOAA 2002 final ruling report can be accessed from this link
The comments and response sections starting on p. 46719 are a great read.
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/prot_res/readingrm/MMSURTASS/lfasonar_fr02.pdf


Here’s a graphic summary of the original study. Also ignored by most anti-sonar websites.
http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/Research/index.htm

This Q&A dispenses most of the commonly regurgitated sonar myths seen online and in magazines.
http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/FAQ/index.htm

Here’s a listing of most of the public outreach work performed by the Navy, from which many of the 2002 final ruling questions originated.

http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/EIA/index.htm

People can always argue the merits of a study sponsored by the Navy, but I ask such critics to read the reports and back up their claims first.

 

[www.scubamazing.com]

After all they are in business to make money

Well. Let's hope they do this and will stay around... of course, not at the expensive of the environment though.


This post about sonar hurting whales is interesting, I had never heard of that. I had never even thought of a whale being able to get decompression sickness. Thanks for pointing that out, I look forward to studying about it more.

 

[Cacia]

thanks VBlueV!

The guy, Tim, who is starting the ferry has been to my house for environmental fundraisers, FWIW.

He is apparently pretty supportive.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

The sonar issue will get us quite a ways off topic, but I would advise looking at more recent sources for information with regard to the history of Navy sonar and marine mammal strandings (2002 is old news). I yahooed whale stranding navy sonar and the first 4 results appear to be relevant.

I would take them out of order, starting with #2;

Navy's use of sonar suspected in near-stranding of whales - The Boston Globe

This article was after the Navy finally admitted that the July 3, 2004 Kauai mass stranding of melon-headed whales did happen shortly after 2 ships turned on their sonar. Below is the NOAA statement at that time.

"At this point, we still know very little about what might have made those whales behave so unusually," said Donna Wieting, chief of the Marine Mammal Conservation Division of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service. "But saying that sonar played no role might be a premature determination. Even if we can't establish a clear cause and effect, we're having these coincidences [of unusual and sometimes deadly] marine mammal behavior around sonar, and we have to ask why."

#4; Report cites Navy sonar in whale stranding

This article concerns the release of NOAA's report after their investigation of the Kauai incident, with their conclusion quoted below.

"While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists said they could not definitely state that sonar caused the strandings, they said extensive study led them to the conclusion that there was no other likely cause."

#1; Whale Stranding in N.C. Followed Navy Sonar Use (washingtonpost.com)

This article is about a more recent stranding involving 3 different kinds of whales.

Finally, #3 is from the NRDC, a conservation activist group, with a short Pierce Brosnan narrated video. The historically signifigant strandings are mentioned as well as some of the science behind active sonar.

NRDC: Protecting Whales from Dangerous Sonar

Historically, Navy's have used mid-frequency sonar and if you believe them most strandings are due to this sonar. Many countries are developing low-frequency devices which maintain their intensity much farther. It's widely believed that this technology is patterned after Humpback song, which evidently communicates between Hawaii and Mexico (song progression?).

Given our history (mankind) of not revealing military testing untill well after the fact, it would not supprise me if some of the strandings were due LFR testing.

If anyone makes it this far in my post, getting back on topic, without EIS's for Maui, Kauai and the Big Island the fat lady has not sung and 2007 is very optomistic for the Ferry IMHO.

 

[Charlie99]

My son has been adamantly opposed to the ferry until they get front-scanning sonar (common on many HS ferries) so as to avoid whales....

Which ferries have this? Does it really work?

I used to drive a ship with some pretty good sonar, but we still ended up with a few nasty bumps in the night that we figured were whales based upon hearing them on passive shortly before hitting them.

We also had some other nasty bumps-in-the-night that I just hoped were cargo containers and not yet another small sailboat wandering around the Caribbean with the crew asleep and w/o lights. I wonder if front scan sonar helps spot semi-submerged cargo containers, logs, etc.

This post about sonar hurting whales is interesting, I had never heard of that. I had never even thought of a whale being able to get decompression sickness.

I'm pretty sure that the front-scanning sonar Howard4113 refers to is a fairly high frequency, relatively short range and low power sonar. The sonars implicated in either whale strandings or DCS in whales have been very high power and often low frequency ---- attenuation of sound in water goes up as the square of frequency, so long range stuff is typically low frequency, while short range sonar uses higher frequencies in order to get better resolution. Two different types of sonar.

 

[Cacia]

Did anyone see the Environmental Impact Study...or did the papers summarize it?

yes, they found air emboli in the whales tissues they think were from rapid ascents.