Environmental Press # 104

Subj: FWD: YOU MUST SAVE WHALES AND DOLPHINS, fwd from James Taylor, Pierce Brosnan, Jean-Michel Cousteau
Date: 8/19/2002 2:31:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: doug@seal-beach.org
To: voiceforveterans@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

-------PLEASE SEND FAR AND WIDE--------------
---POST THE LETTER FROM BROSNAN, TAYLOR AND COUSTEAU AT WORK----

Marine mammals, our cousins and companions, are taking the point of our political debacle. The US war machine is using massive, hi-powered sound waves which damage the delicate ears of creatures that can hear sounds over hundreds of miles, and who use sound to figure out where they are and where they need to go. In fact, it seems to mash their ears into jelly.

HOW COULD WE do this?? For what, do we explode the ears of these gentle, complex and mysterious creatures?

THANKS TO NRDC, there is something you can do about it: help stop the slaughter. Due to the stolen election, the office-holder in power, bush, has allowed a 5-year exemption to the marine mammal protection acts. Without such an awful

 

  

administration, this never would have been deployed.

Think about this: one of the OCSD "sewagers" stated that the Ocean is vast and forgiving. But there is a limit to all live things. Imagine a future where the Ocean is full of toxics, dead, deprived of life. How would we begin to bring it back? How would we even START to extract the poisons we dispersed over centuries, in this VAST expanse? Would our species not share the fate of dead whales and birds?

I timed it, takes 35 seconds to customize the letter, enter personal information, and send the letter to navy Sec. England. Also to get on their email list. Join NRDC if you can, support them.
Curse the office-holder, but help NRDC by taking action!

/Doug
FORWARDED THANKS TO JIM
-------------------------------------PLEASE POST THE FOLLOWING AT WORK---------------------------------------
Subject: Sonar effect on whales & dolphins - letter from James Taylor,
>Pierce Brosnan & Jean-Michel Cousteau
>Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 21:05:58 -0700 (PDT)

Dear Friend,

The three of us have never teamed up like this before. But we all share something in common: a deep love of the ocean and marine mammals. That's why we're very disturbed by a U.S. military program that, if approved, will soon be bombarding millions of whales and dolphins around the world with intense noise.

You may have read about the U.S. Navy's "Low-Frequency Active" (LFA) sonar program. The military has been testing this new, high-powered system in secret for years. Now, the Navy wants to deploy it across 80 percent of our Planet's oceans. LFA sonar is designed to detect enemy submarines by flooding vast expanses of the oceans with sound. Leaving aside the military wisdom of this sonar -- which is still in dispute -- the environmental dangers are becoming increasingly clear.

Here's the problem: LFA noise is billions of times more intense than that known to disturb whale migration and communication. Whales and dolphins depend on their sensitive hearing for survival.

To put it simply, a deaf whale is a dead whale. Deafening noise from the LFA system will interfere with the vital biological activities of marine mammals. Scientists fear that long-term
exposure to LFA could push entire populations over the brink into extinction.

Inevitably, there will also be marine mammals unlucky enough to swim too close to LFA loudspeakers. Imagine an acoustic wave so powerful that, even at substantial distances, it can destroy your hearing, cause your lungs or ears to hemorrhage, or even kill you.

We've already seen a glimpse of the resulting carnage. Last year, whales from four different species stranded themselves and died on beaches across the northern Bahamas during a Navy
military exercise. All but one of the dead animals examined by researchers had suffered hemorrhaging around the inner ear -- the telltale sign of acoustic trauma. The U.S. Navy's own report concluded that it is "highly likely" that the stranding was caused by the use of mid-frequency active sonar. But despite this tragic event, the Navy now wants to deploy LFA, the most extensive active sonar system ever devised.

We know that different frequencies will affect different marine mammals and that the lower the frequency, the farther it penetrates the ocean. We believe it is unconscionable to expose
marine mammals around the world to more high intensity sonar. If you agree, then please join us in taking immediate action; it will take you only a few minutes. Just go to

http://www.nrdcaction.org/index.asp?step=2item=515.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Ocean Futures Society (OFS) have set up this web page to make it easy for you to send electronic messages of protest to your U.S. senators and representative. Congress is now deciding the Navy's funding for next year -- tell them to "Turn Off LFA Sonar" by cutting off its funding.

And please forward this message to your family, friends and colleagues. NRDC used web activism to help generate a million messages of protest to Mitsubishi and, just last year, stopped the company from destroying the last unspoiled birthing ground of the Pacific gray whale. Congress cannot ignore millions of us. Together, we can keep whales and dolphins safe from high-powered sonar.

Thank you for your time and your concern.

Sincerely yours,

James Taylor Pierce Brosnan Jean-Michel Cousteau

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