Marine mammals
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:
A dead humpback whale discovered off
San Francisco on November 3 and two more
found floating near the Farallon Islands o n
November 9 brought an early halt to the controversial
Scripps Institution of Oceanography experiment
in using low-frequency sound to measure ocean
temperature and, thereby, global warming. The
$35 million Accoustic Tomography of Ocean
Climate experiment wasn’t to begin until November
8, amid precautions to monitor the effect on marine
life including transmitter-equipped elephant seals, a
sonar assessment of krill movements, and four
whale-spotters in aircraft. However, the Scripps
team turned on the ATOC sonic equipment 13 times
in preliminary tests between October 28 and
November 4, violating the protocol reached earlier
with wildlife protection groups who sued to stop the
project, arguing that the sound waves would deafen
whales and seals. At deadline the National Marine
Fisheries Service was still trying to determine
whether ATOC had anything to do with the whale
deaths, which could also have been caused by a
toxic algal bloom reported circa Halloween by
recreational divers. Alarmed by the whale deaths,