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Science 11 January 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5553, p. 251
DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5553.251c
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ScienceScope

Figure 1

The U.S. Navy has concluded that a sonar training exercise caused a mass whale stranding in the Bahamas in March 2000 that killed several rare beaked whales (Science, 26 January 2001, p. 576). In a report released 20 December 2001, the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service conclude that the strandings were caused by an "unusual combination" of factors, including sea-bottom contours and water conditions that may have channeled and magnified sonar pings. The researchers could not pinpoint exactly how the sound energy injured the whales, but the acoustic assault appears to have left some dazed and confused, causing them to swim ashore. The Navy says that it will try to avoid using sonar in similar situations during training runs. But Naomi Rose, a marine mammal expert with the Humane Society of the United States in Gaithersburg, Maryland, says the report is "carefully worded" so that it does not give ammunition to critics of SURTASS LFA, a new, lower frequency sonar system the Navy plans to deploy.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)