"where dolphins are dying by the score" [View All]

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA08Ak02.html



Dolphins: Iran's weapon against the US?

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A US court's decision to place rigid limits on the US Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar off the coast of southern California is aimed to protect whales and dolphins. Should the navy be forced to similarly curtail its activities elsewhere, its global operations will be severely affected. This will especially be the case in the Persian Gulf, where the US containment of Iran involves sonic monitoring of its Russian-made submarines, and where dolphins are dying by the score.
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The Pentagon, which has in the past tried to place its naval operations above US laws, has suffered a court reversal that is bound to have repercussions well beyond the California coast and impact the US Navy's global operations.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has imposed rigid limits on the navy's use of mid-frequency sonar off the coast of southern California. The sonar is suspected of causing disruption to whale and dolphin navigation systems.

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The court's finding, with "near certainty" that US naval sonic "mitigation schemes" are "grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure", has direct bearing on the navy's operations in the Persian Gulf, which include active sonar training "under actual conditions".

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Despite the US's heavy energy dependence on the Persian Gulf and the extensive use of this waterway by US naval ships, there is no US initiative to help mitigate the growing ecological problems affecting the gulf's biodiversity and marine mammals' eco-systems.

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The US Navy's use of high intensity, mid-frequency sonar is probably behind the alarming rate of self-stranding dolphins and whales on Iran's beaches. The Persian Gulf is the habitat of 40 different types of dolphins and the largest living mammal, the blue whale, and both species are endangered by US sonar activities. These activities, per the US court ruling, "cause irreparable harm" to marine mammals. Many more mammals may have died in deeper waters and, in the absence of any systematic study and data, we may be witnessing only the tip of the iceberg with beached mammals.

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From the prism of international (environmental) law, US naval activities that harm the national resources of Iran and other Persian Gulf countries are prime for litigation in national and international courts. This is not to mention the pollution caused by the shipping noise as well as "military solid wastes" connected to explosives, munition fragments and other toxic material dumped into the Persian Gulf each time the US Navy holds a maneuver.
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america, polluting, damaging, killing, where ever it goes