[tinfoilman]

The US navy does not care.

They have known about this for years; they have either finished the testing OR they have completed their purpose with regards to the weapon. My guess is the later

Sorry for the DMlinks but 2012 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142763/U-S-Navys-so... 2014 - http://www.rt.com/usa/204191-navy-whales-dolphins-military-d... 2014 - (about a report from 2000 http://www.wired.com/2014/07/war-of-the-whales/

Given this has been on going for a 15 years we know about, and most likely another 5-10 years before the public noticed it does make me wonder what they were up to 20+ years of Sonar abuse towards animals. Feels more like they had a plan rather than simply testing a weapon.

[wtbob]

> They have known about this for years; they have either finished the testing OR they have completed their purpose with regards to the weapon.

Sonar is not a weapon; it's a sensor system intended to discover enemy submarines.

[Amezarak]

I have no idea what sonar frequencies are what, but to expand on your point, sonar is basically the only kind of sensor that works underwater. Radar and sight are basically useless.

Sonar is really all you have to see underwater, and is used heavily for scientific purposes, not only military purposes. Ocean-floor mapping is done with sonar. Active sonar of the kind that hurts whales is not in frequent use by deployed military vessels on military or surveillance missions because, while it gets you a good picture, it also announces "HERE I AM!!!" to the entire world.

[rustynails]

According to Wikipedia, the issue is with (low frequency, active) LFA sonar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_stranding

I read somewhere it's about 240db. For reference, a jackhammer at about 1m (3.3ft away) is 130db and is classified as Painful for humans,

http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Noise/

I am not knowledgeable on acoustics, let alone acoustic dissipation or acoustics in water - but I can see logic behind the argument that LFA sonar causes a problem for whales.

[dantillberg]

I did a little digging, and it seems that it's not really appropriate to compare underwater decibel measurements with decibel measurements in air. For example, [0] discusses whales that generate clicks at 230 dB, and suggests that that is "equivalent to 170 decibels on land."

I'm not sure if it's even possible to get to 240 dB in air... Ah, an article on wikipedia sort of backs me up: [1] says that, at 1 atmosphere of pressure in air, the maximum loudness for undistorted sound is around 194 dB. Anything louder would be a shockwave.

[0]: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1103_031103_...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure

[nitrogen]

Also keep in mind that decibels are logarithmic, so 240dB is 10^(24-13) times as much sound power as 130.

[jleader]

No, you forgot that the d stands for deci (i.e., 1/10th).

So 240dB is 10^(2.4-1.3) times as much sound power as 130dB.

[vonmoltke]

No, nitrogen's math is correct. The conversion from linear to dB is

y = 10 * log(x)

and the conversion back is

x = 10 ^ (y/10)

Every change of 3dB is a doubling or halving of power. Every change of 10dB is an order-of-magnitude change in power.

[awjr]

> Sonar is not a weapon; it's a sensor system intended to discover enemy submarines.

When a friend was working on sonar software they had extremely rigorous safety controls in place when working in the same room as a test rig. Pings could kill you. At a minimum you would shatter your ear drum.

[MrZongle2]

A passenger jet engine could do the same, yet that too isn't classified as a weapon.

[awjr]

The medium is different. Sound travels 4 times further and faster in water than air. Dolphins even use sound to stun their prey.

Sound in water is a more effective weapon. The ping of a sonar is a weapon within the medium of water. A quick search: "There are no noise-cancelling headphones to stop the U.S. Navy's 235-decibel pressure waves of unbearable pinging and metallic shrieking. At 200 Db, the vibrations can rupture your lungs, and above 210 Db, the lethal noise can bore straight through your brain until it haemorrhages that delicate tissue. If you're not deaf after this devastating sonar blast, you're dead."

[masklinn]

> The US navy does not care.

Of course it doesn't, which is why it's being made to care by court order.

[Bluestrike2]

It's a settlement, and not a court order. Huge difference.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navy-settlement-sonar-ex...

[TomGullen]

> Of course it doesn't

Well why not?

[droopybuns]

Their function is to both perform War and to project enough strength that War is undesirable to other parties.

What is the reasonable argument that this institution should prioritize Whale protection in that continuum?

I am arguing against you, but I am pro-whale, pro-dolphin, pro-environment. I am trying to make the point that "why not?" is a silly question. It's not simple. People need to fight for doing the right thing here. The Navy's job is "war." If your institution is in possession of & has the opportunity to use nuclear weapons, you aren't spending time focusing on "doing nice things".

[saiya-jin]

not utilizing weapons and tools available to full potential vs possible harm to some marine life... guess what a soldier chooses?

[kohanz]

> possible harm to some marine life

It's not "possible", it is certain and documented. 155 whales and dolphins killed in 5 years and over 2000 injured [0]. And by accounts from marine biologists, they are dying agonizing deaths.

[0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-to-limit-some-training-that...

[TomGullen]

So we must just accept the fact that military is there to destroy environments and they just don't really care? I expect more from them.

[Zach_the_Lizard]

Destroying the environment is half of what the military does during wartime. So long as we have militaries, it's hard to see a future where we're not burning cities, bombing bridges and other critical infrastructure, and driving around highly environmentally unfriendly tanks, planes, and warships.

[knowaveragejoe]

Well, to be fair, the military is also the largest and most capable humanitarian organization at the disposal of the world's governments. To think their sole purpose is destruction for the sake of destruction is also a bit of an oversimplification, peacekeeping is a useful role as well.

[sologoub]

Agree that we should expect more of military and government, but given the fact that a lawsuit was required here and the rampant abuses in the name of national security, we are a long ways off.

[wtbob]

> So we must just accept the fact that military is there to destroy environments and they just don't really care?

No, the military is there to win wars. When you're in a fight for your life, you don't much care if you trample on a bush, or even break your own bones.

[ChrisPebble]

It's not binary. It's a trade-off that potentially decreases their capabilities and readiness. We might weigh the calculus differently (fewer dead whales) but it's not as simple as saying they don't care.

[spenczar5]

I think that "of course" is often intended to be descriptive of the way things are, not the way things ought to be.

[mhurron]

Their entire purpose is to kill people, why would you expect them to care about some animals?

[wuntune]

Search for "navy rescues people" and you will see that the military and other navies around the world do far more than fight and are trained to do far more than fight and do so willingly and without regard for their own safety, every day of every year.

[pvaldes]

> the US navy does not care

Maybe they should reconsider their position them for practical 'poorpoises', like saving the last 55 maui's dolphins remaining on earth, or preserving the truly unique native aquatic vertebrates frequenting the coasts of Hawaii in their annual migration.

http://www.coupay.com/topoften/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ob...

Sound travels at 0.9 miles by second in the sea, so this poses a very interesting question about what should be a theoretical safe distance for a sonar. Maybe somebody here could answer this. I hope they keep the keys for this engine safe and not sound in any case.

[vonmoltke]

> Sound travels at 0.9 miles by second in the sea, so this poses a very interesting question about what should be a theoretical safe distance for a sonar. Maybe somebody here could answer this. I hope they keep the keys for this engine safe and not sound in any case.

Speed doesn't matter, it's all about the wavefront. The radar equation provides a rough guide here, in that the power of the signal drops off at a ratio proportional to the distance squared, the r^2 dependency. I have no idea what the rest of the terms in that equation would be, though, as I have only ever done the calculations for RF in air.

[knowaveragejoe]

Actually, from my reading on the subject, they're required to stop what they're doing if they see any wildlife in the area. It's the same with other developed navies for the most part.

It doesn't always happen, but I got the impression that it does most of the time(and coincidentally is a source of frustration on their part as they have to wait for the wildlife to leave).

I can't seem to find the article I was reading about this, but in the comments there were a number of people claiming to be current or former members of various navies, and their responses were mostly along those lines. Some people said they willingly ignored those requirements, however.

[MrZongle2]

"The US navy does not care."

Devil's Advocate: why should they? It's not part of their mission. The armed forces of the United States exist to defend the nation. Full stop.

Saying that the USN doesn't care about whales is like complaining that Susan G. Komen doesn't care about landmines. It doesn't mean that whale-killing or landmine use is any less repellant, but expecting either to do something about it is out of scope.