Eleventh pbworks upload


Pbworks Upload Guidelines

 Use the table below to upload your link/title, name, and a short paragraph explaining why you chose the article/video you selected, and how it relates to the class reading or discussion.

 

To sign in, register your email (if I haven't already done so) and wait for a response, then go from "view" to "edit" above and fill in the relevant info in the boxes below. If you are going to require more than a few minutes to upload your comments, please draft your comments in a word processing program and paste them here, as only one person at a time can be editing a page. Also be sure to click on the "add link" button (above right) to hotlink your selected url. Once you are done, click on the "Save" button on the bottom left. Be sure to save your work when you are done, otherwise you will stay logged in and someone else will probably steal your lock. I will go over the mechanics for doing this in class -- if you are having difficulty uploading anything, just send me your link and comments, and I'll do it for you (but I would prefer that you figure it out eventually...).

 

I also would strongly prefer that you get your uploads in by the evening (i.e., not the middle of the night) before they are due, so I can have a chance to read them and integrate them into our discussion the next day.

 

 

Link and Title
Student Comment

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110316153133.htm

 

 

http://www.care2.com/causes/sonar-found-harmful-to-squid-other-marine-life.html

 Michelle Lapointe
The first article I have posted discusses a recent study of the effects of sonar on marine mammals, specifically beaked whales.  A major difficulty for activists has been proving that active sonar negatively effects beaked whales. However, this research seems to have finally obtained more concrete proof of how sensitive these whales are to this noise pollution and what changes need to be made to the regulations. More specifically, an analysis of the foraging and migration activities of beaked whales while naval tests were being conducted found that they were sensitive to 140 decibels of sound, which is not classified as a disturbance under current regulations. The second article that I found is on the possible dangers of active sonar on marine invertebrates. We are not directly addressing the effects of noise pollution on other marine life but I do think it is interesting and important to note that the risks of sonar seem to spread far beyond marine mammals.

 http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/71500/Pages/default.aspx

 

https://www.navy.mil/oceans/Sonar_Marine_Mammal_Fact_Sheet_2.pdf

 Anya Price

 I was interested in the Navy's relationship with marine mammals, so I looked into this further and found out about the Marine Mammal Program that the Navy has in place.  Dolphins are studied by the Navy and trained to determine the location of sea mines with their echolocation.  The Navy is subject to all federal laws governing the use of these animals, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act.  Dolphins are not trained to inflict harm on humans, and they do not put themselves into danger by performing this act.  

I also included a link to measures that the Navy is taking to protect marine mammals.  Granted, this is very biased, as it is from the Navy's website, but it is encouraging to see that there is a large budget allocated for establish and enforce standards of protection.  While sonar is not an issue that should be overlooked, the second link also brings up the point that there are many other damaging factors such as ship strikes and pollution that wind up killing marine mammals, and we should focus attention on these as well.

 http://www.whoi.edu/csi/images/DRK8764.pdf

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/26/local/la-me-0326-dolphins-military-20110326

 Kate McPherson

 The first link is a study that looked at correlating military sonar use with mass beaked whale strandings using historical data. While there is strong evidence that military sonar use results in mass strandings of various cetacean species, no conclusive cause-and-effect relationship has yet been drawn. The historical data analyzed in this study demonstrated that strandings were significantly correlated with military activity in the Mediterranean Sea and Caribbean Sea, but not significantly correlated off the coast of southern California or Japan.

The second article addresses another threat to marine mammals from the military. In an underwater Navy training exercise that took place earlier this year, three long-beaked common dolphins were killed by explosives off the coast of California. According to the Navy Commander Greg Hicks, "They saw the dolphins before the explosives went off, but it came so late it would have put humans at risk to stop the process," he said. "After the detonation, despite all required protective actions taken to avoid marine mammal impacts, three dolphins were found dead in the area."

 http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp

Megan Wyllie

 

 One of the NRDC's main missions is to abort the use of deadly sonar in military tests. There is strong evidence that the sonar is causing dehabilitating problems to the brains of marine mammals. Not only is their own sonar no longer able to be used to protect themselves when competing with the sonar of the military, but the sonar is causing disorientation and behavioral change. Brain trauma causes death to a lot of marine mammals, but strandings are the only evidence to convince people that there is a coorelation between sonar use and marine strandings. However, strandings are only a portion of the problem and have still not been enough to change policy.......

The side box in this article is a long list of all the whale and dolphin strandings in the area after military sonar testing, but the scary reality is that these numbers may only be a fraction of the real estimates. Whales and dolphins, while disoriented, change their diving and eating patterns causing them to surface too quickly or even starve or die out at sea. Even the small numbers of whale strandings should be sufficient enough to convince them military that their experiments and research is unehtical.

What shocks me most is that the sonar technology we use today was developed from observing the incredible mechanisms of these marine animals, and now these same mechanisms are being used against them...

http://nhsbig.inhs.uiuc.edu/bioacoustics/noise_and_wildlife.pdf

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTAM3Ppk0r4

 

http://www.mccoy.army.mil/ReadingRoom/Triad/03282003/

environmentallaws.htm

 

 

  The first article is a literature review on the effects of military noise on wildlife. I was curious to see what other military ramifications existed for endangered animals, and found a number of articles (both good and bad) on the consequences of military actions on certain species. This article focuses mostly on the effects of noise pollution from military training activities, especially on land animals. While direct consequences are hard to measure, due to lack of studies performed, the article investigates the effects of infrasound and ultrasound, noise in the natural environment, and different types of military noise on wildlife, include hearing loss, decreased reproductive success, decreased responsiveness, interference with animal communication, inability to successful hunt, and interference in migration that is necessary for survival. Other articles I found when researching about military noise showed similar harmful consequences on fish species. 

 The second link is a YouTube video relating to Anya’s upload. I find it a little hypocritical that the navy believes their dolphins so intelligent and sensitive to sound that these dolphins are entrusted in detecting sea mines using echolocation, but the navy downplays the same information in regards to active sonar. 

 This third addresses the issues military camps are facing when balancing the need to achieve "military readiness" in the expert use of heavy guns, artillery shelling, and bombs while still maintaining their environmental stewardship of 25 million acres of public land.The Department of Defense counts over 300 protected species on its installations. These animals are exposed to extremely loud explosions, toxic emissions, and actual killing from weapons practice. This article is interesting because it shows the military's side of how to "get around" certain regulations in order to achieve the best training, while still trying to protect endangered species. 

 

 


 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081006112057.htm

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110316153133.htm

 

 Katherine Soule

 This article, from 2008, discusses the relationship between the use of military sonar and whale strandings. Parsons, an international delegate for whale conservation indicates "Generally, if there is a large whale stranding, there is a military exercise in the area...Sonar is killing more whales than we know about." He recognizes in his fight for the rights of the whales that the navy will most likely win; however, he does suggest a harm reduction model. He suggests more comprehensive training of whale experts on ships to help indentify/avoid particular whale populations when using sonar. 

 

The second article, written in 2011, does not show any positive change, as it also links navy exercises to the stranding of whales. In three years, it does not seem as though much has been done to remedy the problem.