"Have you read the NY Times article yet?"

The title of this post is the question I have gotten at least seven or eight times today. The article is Watching Whales Watching Us. The article begins...

"On the afternoon of Sept. 25, 2002, a group of marine biologists vacationing on Isla San José, in Baja California Sur, Mexico, came upon a couple of whales stranded along the beach."

It goes on to talk about the whales, beaked whales, that had stranded on Isla San José and how SONAR can have quite the impact on our marine mammal friends. Fascinating stuff that is also quite controversial.

Unfortunately, dear friends, the answer to the title question is, "No, I have not read the article yet." I have been working with a truly amazing and dedicated team of volunteers at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. We have been working on putting together an online bone atlas for the skeleton of a transient orca that was filled with PCBs and DDTs. I think I only have room in my life for one stranded whale at a time! So, I do hope to get to the article soon, but for now, it will just have to remain bookmarked.

I just read...

...this press release regarding the recent sonar near Haro Strait...

...and this article about sonar causing temporary deafness in dolphins...

...and this blog from the Marine Mammal Center, reporting a dead orca calf near Monterey Bay...

...which reminds me of the recent death of T44, a known transient orca. I wonder how that necropsy is going? It's quite rare to get a chance to study a transient in such detail. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that T44 was chock-full of PCBs, DDTs, and other toxins. I wonder how that will compare with the levels of toxins found in other transients and residents?

Orcas on Hydrophones? Nope, Just Sonar.

Last night, on both Lime Kiln and Orcasound hydrophones, listeners were surprised to hear some peculiar sounds. Not the sounds of orcas, or the regular shipping traffic, but the sounds of human voices and mid-frequency sonar pings. I'm listening to the recordings made by Scott Veirs of Beam Reach now and it is quite clear that these sounds are not a part of the natural environment.

Jeanne Hyde of The Whale Museum contacted the Bellingham Coast Guard and confirmed that the Navy was doing exercises in Haro Strait. Scott Veirs recorded the sounds and created spectrograms of the human voices and sonar.

To listen to the recordings, go to the Lime Kiln or Orcasound hydrophone sites, scroll down through the archived sounds, and click on one of the most recent recordings with the words "voice" and "sonar" in the title.

Edited to add @ 4:15 pm: This story has now been covered by the San Juan Journal. Also, could the human voices be spies? Some folks, commenting Christopher Dunagan's blog, think that a numbers station could have been in use.