ENS The Bush administration is withholding a large quantity of evidence about harm caused to whales, dolphins and other marine life by high-intensity military sonar, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York federal court.
The lawsuit was brought under the Freedom of Information Act by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national conservation group. It seeks thousands of pages of documents related to mass strandings and mortalities of marine mammals exposed to military sonar.
There is support among scientists that the sonar does cause harm.
A report concluding that the association between sonar and whale mortalities was "very convincing and appears overwhelming," was issued last year by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists.
And the effects of sonar are rather gruesome.
"Whales exposed to high-intensity sonar have been found bleeding from the eyes and ears, with lesions the size of golf balls in their organ tissue. Biologists are concerned that the whales we see dying on the beaches are only the tip of an iceberg and that many more are dying at sea," Jasny said.
NRDC's Press Release
The lawsuit was brought under the Freedom of Information Act by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national conservation group. It seeks thousands of pages of documents related to mass strandings and mortalities of marine mammals exposed to military sonar.
There is support among scientists that the sonar does cause harm.
A report concluding that the association between sonar and whale mortalities was "very convincing and appears overwhelming," was issued last year by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists.
And the effects of sonar are rather gruesome.
"Whales exposed to high-intensity sonar have been found bleeding from the eyes and ears, with lesions the size of golf balls in their organ tissue. Biologists are concerned that the whales we see dying on the beaches are only the tip of an iceberg and that many more are dying at sea," Jasny said.
NRDC's Press Release
