Navy Sonar Study Focuses On Beaked Whale

Robin Baird's research team members stare at the horizon for hours, searching for rarely seen beaked whales. The small, gray marine mammals have been at the center of the dispute over the Navy's use of high intensity sonar ever since several washed ashore with bleeding around their brains and ears during naval exercises in the Bahamas seven years ago. "They appear to be the most susceptible group of cetaceans to impacts from Navy sonars," said Baird, a marine biologist based in Olympia, Wash., whose team recently spent three weeks off Hawaii's Big Island studying whales. Training sailors to use sonar is a top priority for the Navy as more nations, including China, have acquired quiet, hard-to-detect submarines. In many cases, the only way the Navy can find these stealthy ships is by using mid-frequency active sonar, firing bursts of sound through the water and listening for an echo off a ship's hull. Environmentalists have filed lawsuits challenging the Navy's plans for sonar training exercises, claiming the underwater noise harms whales and arguing there's enough evidence to require the Navy to take more aggressive measures to protect the animals...