Mother nature to be the victim of the war on terrorism

Any war cannot be without victims, and to hope for the opposite would be absurd, because the sense of any war is the annihilation of one person by another. After many thousands of years, the human being has perfected his fighting skills. He is even proud of possessing them and equates them with art. . Of course, human nature cannot be changed, and human “games” usually cause victims. But what would you advise animals who often do not know whose victims they are, while being victims of war.

The US Department of Commerce, which occupies itself with protecting ocean resources, permitted the Amercian military fleet to a use powerful low-frequency sonar, which is potentially dangerous for whales. Sound radar sets, which are used for disclosure of enemy submarines, could have a deadly effect on sea mammals, according to specialists on the protection of nature.

The capacity of the acoustic waves radiated by the devices can be up to 236 decibels, while the ear-drums of whales, the scientist believe, can burst with noise over 180 decibels. In their reports to the US administration, ecologists present examples of the mass death of sea mammals, first of all, whales, during manoeuvres near to Bahamas in March of 2000, when low-frequency sonar submarines were searched for. At least 16 whales and 2 dolphins threw themselves out to the shore, and, dissection showed that they died of the breach of ear-drums and brain homorrhage. The reason of this sad end was the influence of the powerful sonar radiation. A similar episode took place during the Mediterranean manoeuvres of NATO naval forces near to Greek shore in 1996.

Dmitry Chirkin PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/16/44231.html