John Mosher: вЂњThese are skills that are not easy, they are perishable and can be lost over time, so continual training is an absolute necessity.вЂќД«ut Zak Smith, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, says the government could do a lot more to reduce the threat to whales. Mosher says that mission вЂ“ protecting the nation вЂ“ requires that sailors train and practice frequently. There are hundreds of people doing what I do, and thatвЂ™s ensuring weвЂ™re doing everything we can to protect the environment while we do that very important mission.вЂќ John Mosher: вЂњWeвЂ™re certainly not out there just blindly doing the training without any regard for the environment. Mosher says the Navy is very concerned about its impact on wildlife. If animals are spotted, sonar testing could be delayed till they left the area. John Mosher: вЂњTheir job is to look for marine life, and if any is detected, to notify those people on the ship who are operating those systems and operating the ship.вЂќ He says the plan is to have trained lookouts keep an eye out for whales. John Mosher is in charge of the NavyвЂ™s environmental review of the project. Now, as the Navy seeks to renew permits to train and test in the Northwest, itвЂ™s trying to minimize the harm to marine mammals. These incidents and others like them led to limitations on how and where the Navy can conduct sonar exercises. Ken Balcomb: вЂњSo I collected and froze heads and took them to Harvard Medical School and we CAT scanned them and showed they had hemorrhagic damage in the brain and ears.вЂќ Balcomb says he suspected the intense pressure of the sonar pulses played a role. Three years earlier, heвЂ™d studied a mass stranding of dolphins following a Navy sonar exercise in the Bahamas. Some frozen bodies were sent for analysis, but it couldnвЂ™t be conclusively determined if the sonar contributed to the deaths.ДЇor Ken Balcomb, it felt like deja vu. In the following days, at least ten harbor porpoises were found dead in the area, some with blood coming from their heads. ThatвЂ™s as loud as standing near a fighter jet during take-off. And then it looked as though they were going to strand on the beach at my house.вЂќДЄt the same time, a deafening sound was picked up by underwater microphones used by researchers to record killer whale vocalizations.ДЄ Navy destroyer, the USS Shoup, was using active sonar as part of an exercise in Haro Strait, generating pulses of 140 decibels or more. Ken Balcomb: вЂњ вЂ¦ came right up along the shoreline, directly in front of my house. Some of the local killer whales, he says вЂ¦ He says the animals looked like they were frantically trying to escape something. Ken Balcomb: вЂњAll the porpoises and the minke whales and the killer whales were fleeing the area.вЂќД«alcomb is senior scientist and director at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, Washington. On May 5th, 2003, Ken Balcomb noticed something very strange in Haro Strait, a body of water along the US-Canadian border in Washington State. The Navy says itвЂ™s taking precautions, but others say itвЂ™s not enough. Now, the Navy is seeking permission to continue using a huge swath of the Northwest coast вЂ“ from northern California to the Canadian border - for a wide range of naval training and practice, including sonar. But that same powerful underwater pulse of sound can harm or even kill whales and other marine mammals.

Active sonar is the NavyвЂ™s best weapon to detect the presence of hostile submarines.

Sonar 8 training