The story behind this photo shows up at the end of this post, and it doesn't look like a happy ending is on the way

Bypass registration with this Bug Me Not link


Reference to Sonar Deleted in Whale-Beaching Report

Documents released under a court order show that a government investigator studying the stranding of 37 whales on the North Carolina coast last year changed her draft report to eliminate all references to the possibility that naval sonar may have played a role in driving the whales ashore.

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The January 2005 stranding occurred shortly after naval maneuvers in the area -- which is off North Carolina and in the region where the Pentagon wants to build a controversial underwater sonar training range.

In her initial April 2005 preliminary report on the deaths, Teri Rowles, coordinator of the National Marine Fisheries Service's stranding response program, described injuries to seven of the whales that "may be indicative" of damage related to the loud blasts of sound from active sonar.

She also noted that one of the injuries -- air bubbles in the liver of a pilot whale -- had been reported in mass strandings in the Bahamas and Canary Islands associated with sonar activity.

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But before it was released by NRDC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an updated report -- by Rowles and others -- that did not mention sonar. In a cover letter to that report, NOAA officials said the initial draft that mentioned sonar "contains early information that was later found to be inaccurate."

And it appears that the feds were trying to delay publishing this report for purely time-sensitive, political reasons

The federal court order to release the report came at an awkward time for NOAA and the Navy, which has been holding public hearings on its controversial plan to build an underwater sonar training range.

The public record on that issue will close at the end of the month, and some activists have complained that officials are trying to withhold information about the stranding until after that time. In its court filings, NRDC argued that it was unfair to complete the hearings before information about the strandings was released.

Oh yeah, just one other little nugget of info here

The Navy has also acknowledged that sonar can harm whales. A Navy-NOAA investigation found that sonar from Navy ships was the most plausible explanation for the stranding of 17 whales in the Bahamas in 2000. The report found that sonar-induced damage to the ears of some animals may have disoriented them and caused them to swim onto the shore.

This Administration is clearly motivated to act on behalf of only it's largest campaign contributors, both on an individual, and industrial basis, and the amount of money at stake in developing new sonar equipment for W's campaign contributors is heavy indeed

It's nothing personal when this Administration rapes the envivronment on an hourly basis, it's purely business, just like a pimp renting out one of his girls to a rape-loving client with a fat, overstuffed wallet

Now, that picture at the top goes with the following story, and I just thought visualizing one of these sometimes wayward whales would make it easier to get upset about the above-mentioned & massively changed report about Sonar injuring whales, especially as seeing how this whale at times tried to seemingly beach itself, an action indicative of a whale's now-scrambled auditory system

Whale Brings Gawkers, Concern in London

A lost and likely sick whale swam up the River Thames past Parliament and Big Ben in central London on Friday, attracting huge crowds and a police boat escort before nearly beaching itself on the shallow riverbank.

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"The fact that it is swimming upstream is not a good sign," said Alison Shaw, a manager of the Zoological Society of London, Marine & Freshwater Conservation Program. "The whale must be confused or ill."

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"The whale's chances are not particularly good," Sabian said. "We hope it will swim back to sea."

Mark Simmonds, director of the Science, Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society, said the whale may be debilitated.

"When whales turned up in strange places before, they have been old, sick or wounded," Simmonds said.

Dead whales to pay off major campaign contributors supersweet contracts with the Dept of Defense

Just another day for the Bush Jr Administration