Talk:Marine mammals and sonar

Verifiability
The section entitled "Naval sonar-linked incidents" contains a number of assertions with references. On searching the references, it becomes apparent that many of them do not come close to meeting the requirements of verifiability. At best the references make a tenuous link between naval activity and strandings. For example:


 * Row 1: 1963-05. The reference says "According to newspapers, the US Navy was in the area coincident with the 1963 strandings.  One stranding event involved more than 15 animals"
 * Row 15: 2006-01-26. One reference (an Animal Welfare Institute web page) states that "active sonar that was allegedly turned on for five minutes three days before the stranding"(!)
 * Row 16: 2008-06. The reference says it's being investigated, and among other things, reports a spokesman as saying "was “extremely unlikely” to have affected the dolphins". A more historical perspective is shown in the 2009 report into the event (Report on the mass stranding and rescue of common dolphins in Porth Creek, the Percuil River, Falmouth, SW England, June 2008, Compiled by Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network and British Divers Marine Life Rescue. May 2009), which concludes that, while the naval exercises were the most prominent event noted, "it is impossible to reach a definite conclusion on the basis of the information received to date".
 * Row 17 (since removed): The reference (a Planet Ark web page) simply states the facts of the stranding without mentioning the military at all, saying that "experts were studying whether an underwater quake had disoriented the animals or the pack of dolphins followed a sick leader"

Even without these problems, there are issues of accuracy. For example, in Row 2 (1988-11), the reference say "Cuvier's beaked whales (3), northern bottlenose whale (1), Pygmy sperm whales (2)", but the wikipedia text says "Cuvier’s beaked whale (12+) Gervais' beaked whale (1)"

I can't see how this meets the needs of the encyclopaedia, and I'm giving notice that I'll go through it with a fine-tooth comb, removing the unencyclopaedic material. I would suggest that for this stuff to remain, some form of link between naval sonar and marine mammal incidents needs to have been shown, beyond the fact that there was a marine mammal incident, and a naval vessel may have operated sonar in the area.

This is the time to shout me down - not after I've put in the leg work to verify this stuff! Shem (talk) 18:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A fair-minded table would list the various possible causes of the events. The present table does not do this - instead it states states that they are all linked to sonar use.


 * Reflection seismology is not that different from some types of active sonar, and is thought by some experts to be an important cause of strandings by marine mammals (see International Whaling Commission, Scientific Committee (IWC-SC) Report - Annex K: Report of the Standing Working Group on Environmental Concerns). Sometimes TV programmes on marine mammal strandings lump seismic surveys and military use of active sonar together.


 * International Whaling Commission, Scientific Committee (IWC-SC) Report - Annex K: Report of the Standing Working Group on Environmental Concerns said: "A report and database of strandings that have occurred in the Mediterranean Sea in the last 150 years will be submitted to IWC for publication in the monographic issue on beaked whales by the end of July [2004] (Podesta et al. In Press)." Could someone find this please.  What does it say?  Surely a properly-constructed, objective database would a more reliable source than what we have now.--Toddy1 (talk) 09:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Let me recommend reference to a report: Report of the Workshop on Acoustic Resonance as a Source of Tissue Trauma in Cetaceans. April 24 and 25, 2002, Silver Spring, MD. Disclosure: I was a participant. --Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 15:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions
Hi, I don't have specific knowledge on this subject but may have found a typo. If any of the original contributors see this and agree, perhaps one of them can make the correction. (Thanks/Cheers) IS: "Very little of low frequency acoustic energy is not converted into heat, so the signal can be detected for long ranges." SUGGESTED: "Very little of low frequency acoustic energy is lost as heat, so the signal can be detected for long ranges." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordhog (talk • contribs) 22:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

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Black Sea die off in the current Russian/Ukrainian war
This source with quotes and analysis from marine biologists could be of interest to improving the sonar/mammal information in this article. Apparently, the heavy Russian submarine sonar and missile firings in the current 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is having a deleterious effect on Black Sea dolphins. More than 5,000 dolphins die in Black Sea as a result of Russia’s war, Kyiv Independent, 20 July 2022. N2e (talk) 01:37, 21 July 2022 (UTC)