vegcurry
Jan 7th, 2009, 01:45 PM
Biologist says Naval activity is dolphin death 'smoking gun'
A LEADING marine biologist has added weight to the theory that naval sonar activity could have led to the mass strandings of dolphins off the Roseland coast last summer.
Professor Chris Parsons, from Virginia University in the USA, who is also a research associate at Millport Marine Laboratory in Scotland, has said he believes naval sonar activity before the mass stranding of dolphins should be treated as a 'smoking gun'.
Prof Parsons has spent a decade studying cetacean strandings around the world and has examined the Cornish strandings in detail.
After talking to navy commanders about their exercise, Prof Parsons said: "I would say there's a substantive amount of noise-producing activity just a couple of days before this stranding event occurred.
"To use a term that's often associated with these strandings, it's a smoking gun.
It fits with the pattern of stranding events we've seen in other parts of the world where it's taken a couple of days before the animals have actually stranded."
The death of 26 dolphins in the incident in June, most of them in the shallow waters of Porth Creek on the Roseland, was one of the UK's biggest wildlife tragedies in recent years. Though up to 200 other dolphins were saved by the intervention of the RNLI and wildlife volunteers, campaigners say 80 more could have been traumatised by the incident.
The Royal Navy denied involvement in the disaster, but the Ministry of Defence confirmed it was carrying out exercises in Falmouth Bay just hours before the dolphins beached themselves.
And a subsequent request to the MoD under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that a substantial exercise involving 20 Royal Navy ships and submarines, as well as vessels from foreign navies, was being conducted in the area in the days leading up to the disaster.
The MoD also confirmed that sonar "dipper" devices were used seven times by Merlin and Lynx helicopter crews in the week before the incident.
News article here (http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/truro/Biologist-says-Naval-activity-dolphin-death-smoking-gun/article-593148-detail/article.html)
A LEADING marine biologist has added weight to the theory that naval sonar activity could have led to the mass strandings of dolphins off the Roseland coast last summer.
Professor Chris Parsons, from Virginia University in the USA, who is also a research associate at Millport Marine Laboratory in Scotland, has said he believes naval sonar activity before the mass stranding of dolphins should be treated as a 'smoking gun'.
Prof Parsons has spent a decade studying cetacean strandings around the world and has examined the Cornish strandings in detail.
After talking to navy commanders about their exercise, Prof Parsons said: "I would say there's a substantive amount of noise-producing activity just a couple of days before this stranding event occurred.
"To use a term that's often associated with these strandings, it's a smoking gun.
It fits with the pattern of stranding events we've seen in other parts of the world where it's taken a couple of days before the animals have actually stranded."
The death of 26 dolphins in the incident in June, most of them in the shallow waters of Porth Creek on the Roseland, was one of the UK's biggest wildlife tragedies in recent years. Though up to 200 other dolphins were saved by the intervention of the RNLI and wildlife volunteers, campaigners say 80 more could have been traumatised by the incident.
The Royal Navy denied involvement in the disaster, but the Ministry of Defence confirmed it was carrying out exercises in Falmouth Bay just hours before the dolphins beached themselves.
And a subsequent request to the MoD under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that a substantial exercise involving 20 Royal Navy ships and submarines, as well as vessels from foreign navies, was being conducted in the area in the days leading up to the disaster.
The MoD also confirmed that sonar "dipper" devices were used seven times by Merlin and Lynx helicopter crews in the week before the incident.
News article here (http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/truro/Biologist-says-Naval-activity-dolphin-death-smoking-gun/article-593148-detail/article.html)