As I hope you haven't been able to miss, we've been doing a bit of a whaleathon the past few days trying to convince the Navy to knock it off with their undersea shenanigans already.
The deadline for comments is midnight eastern tonight. Please pretty please give them what for, and then make sure everyone you know has the information they need to do the same.
Commenting Period Ends on 11:59 PM CST, Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Submit comments via this project website
Mail comments to:
Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic
Attn: Code EV22 (AFTT EIS Project Managers)
6506 Hampton Blvd.
Norfolk, VA 23508-1278
Let's dive below the C++ anemone and have a gander at some comments already submitted by Kossacks, shall we!
walk2live:
Hello, I would just like to voice my opposition to continued testing of underwater high-frequency, low-frequency, and high-power sound generating equipment. The damage to life in our our oceans is impossible to measure, and once done cannot be undone. Future generations will look back and judge us - please consider your own place in history.
In addition, this technology, while interesting, is of dubious practical use. The threat of underwater attack upon the US is a cold-war-era issue. Today's threats are very unlikely to be discovered by this kind of technology. Our nation's time, energy and money would be better spent elsewhere.
mofembot:
(My voting address is in Massachusetts; I'm an ex-pat living in France.) Please stop the indiscriminate deafening and killing of marine mammals. There is no excuse — none whatsoever, not logistically, not tactically, absolutely no justification — for the Navy to sully itself by such wanton destruction of sea life. Surely we can defend ourselves without resorting to this kind of violence. Surely the Navy can develop better technologies that will not result in such slaughter.
This one here, from
Panacea Paola, is a doozie:
As humanity searches for the answer to the question of whether we are the only sentient species in the universe, those who crane their necks skyward too often skip making sure there aren't other sentient species on Earth first. In light of mounting evidence, we at least must consider the possibility that cetaceans (dolphins, whales, porpoises) satisfy the criteria. If there is even a chance this is the case, as virtually all evidence suggests, immediate steps should be taken to protect these intelligent, self-aware creatures, who aren't really mere "creatures" at all but instead the very answer to our search for non-human intelligence in the universe, and not just in the universe somewhere unknown or unreachable, but literally sharing with us a home we call Earth.
The Navy's plans to test high frequency (et al.) sound equipment underwater will kill an estimated 1,800 cetaceans and deafen another 15,900 (a probable death sentence for beings which rely so heavily on echolocation) over the next five years alone. It is irresponsible and immoral of us to so casually discard the lives of so many intelligent beings, so close to extinction as it is (and that almost entirely our own doing as well), and especially so when the benefit to us is uncertain and of questionable importance to the security of our nation. If, as the evidence suggests, even one of these species affected is worthy of the "non-human person" descriptor, it would be unconscionable to knowingly take steps which kill and maim these unique beings.
Orson Scott Card wrote of "xenocide," the wiping out of an entire intelligent alien species, but in his work, the person who ultimately brought about this purposeful extinction was unaware of the affects of his actions and had been hoodwinked into doing this without his knowledge or consent. If the Navy proceeds with its plans, it will be fully culpable for the blood on its hands, facilitating the extinction of several species who we know are self-aware, with complex social structures and sophisticated minds.
It is time humanity's shortsightedness is brought to an end. Although we face many challenges and have wrought much destruction on the natural world, the purposeful elimination of an entire intelligent Earth-born species would be among the most inhumane acts our species can commit, a blight on human history surpassed by no other.
If we are as intelligent a species as we claim to be, it is imperative every action be taken to ensure the survival of other intelligent, sentient beings at our mercy. That means stopping this project now, and working henceforth to right our past wrongs by rehabilitating and protecting these under-appreciated and misunderstood beings.
And last but not least, here is what I sent them:
Hello,
I am writing to you regarding ongoing underwater testing that poses a risk to the world's whale and other sea life populations. I was perusing your draft statement and couldn't help but notice that you list the North Atlantic Right Whale as an endangered species under extreme threat. Per your paper:
"Any mortality or serious injury for this stock should be considered significant. This is a strategic stock because the average annual human-related mortality and serious injury exceeds potential biological removal and because the North Atlantic right whale is an endangered species."
Yet these plans persist. I also couldn't help but notice the statements that estimates of whales' hearing capacities and sensitivities are, in actuality, based on an extremely small and captive, i.e., non-wild and therefore non-representative, sample. Yet these plans persist.
Another thing I couldn't help but notice was the bizarre verbiage of "no expected impacts. Well, I'm sure you are amply familiar with the "best intentions" adage. When one reads your draft report, it quickly becomes clear it is based on assumptions, the lowest of lowball estimates, and hoping for the best. To wit:
"There are many unknowns in assessing impacts such as the potential interaction of different effects and the significance of responses by marine mammals to sound exposures."
Your paper goes on to acknowledge that "many other factors besides just the received level of sound may affect an animal's reaction such as the animal's physical condition, prior experience with the sound, and proximity to the source of the sound."
We all know you cannot control such things. The draft paper cites the case where a pod of dolphins happened upon an explosion test site at precisely the wrong moment. You can't prevent that from happening. You don't really know, at any point in time, what animals are directly in the vicinity of your experimental blasts and noises.
Face it, gentlemen: YOU JUST DON'T KNOW AND YOU CANNOT CONTROL ALL THE VARIABLES.
Please get right with that understanding and set about the one thing you can control: abandoning plans that you yourself acknowledge pose a threat to "strategic" whale populations.
I don't know what you imagine you gain by conducting these tests, but I do know that the law of unintended consequences is patently immutable. As I said, you cannot control all the variables in these tests of yours and you don't even know what all of them are. In a nutshell, there are way too many unknowns for this exercise to be considered prudent by any stretch of the definition.
Another noticeable characteristic of your draft statement is that it does not seem very forward-thinking or holistic in its assessments of potential damage. By that I mean we are living in one of the most extreme weather cycles in human history. The Navy must be more familiar than most with the changes to ocean currents wrought by glacial melt. The sea levels are rising. The increased temperatures are thought to be pulling food sources and the whales who feed on them closer to shore. It is also suspected that plankton and algal blooms are coming unseasonably early and that whale populations might miss the feeding if their migrations have not been adjusted apace.
We are in wholly uncharted territory here. One thing that is abundantly clear is there are currently, as I type, several risks posed to the world's whale populations. They might be able to weather one, maybe even two in succession. But it seems equally clear that they would not likely survive two challenges at once, and that, gentlemen, is a test we simply cannot afford to conduct. Decimating our whale populations is simply not an option, because as I said, the law of unintended consequences will apply, as sure as death and taxes.
I understand you all are very busy, but please watch at least the last two minutes of this video of a whale rescue, if you can't watch the whole thing:
http://youtu.be/...
A humpback had become entangled in a fishing net; her reaction to being rescued and set free can only be described as dancing with joy. The animals to whom these experiments pose a risk are sentient and very self-aware; make no mistake about that. Nobody on this planet has the right to harm them for any reason. I hope you can see your way to doing the right thing here. As I am quite fond of saying: just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Sincere thanks,
me
This is the video from my comment (hat tip to the delightful Laughing Planet):
And that is why we fight, people. Please help us make a splash on this last day of the comment period: let the Navy know just what you think of these ridiculous tests of their MIC boondoggle war toys. Most importantly, please get everyone you know to do the same! There is also a petition you can sign via MoveOn/SignOn.
Save the whales and they will dance for you, apparently!