US Navy agrees to limit sonar testing in Pacific Ocean

Science : Because of the danger posed for whales and other marine mammals, the US Navy has agreed to cease testing high-intensity sonar in certain areas off the coasts of southern California and Hawaii. The agreement was reached after several environmental groups filed lawsuits claiming the powerful sonar blasts used to locate submarines and for other purposes are disrupting marine animals’ feeding and mating routines and in some instances causing them physical injury. Evidence of the harm sonar can cause surfaced in 2000, when four different species of whales beached themselves and died in the Bahamas; a government investigation later established that sonar caused the strandings. Environmentalists emphasize that the navy does not have to cut its training, it just needs to avoid doing it in certain key feeding and breeding areas.