Navy training field could harm whales

Navy training field could harm whales

A controversial proposed sonar training range to be built off the North Carolina coast could be located somewhere else now. One place being looked at by the Navy is off the coast of Florida, where its sub-hunting helicopters are based.

North Carolina residents flooded the Navy with complaints about the range after the site was announced in 2005. Other sites in discussion were Florida and Virginia.

Endangered right whale and calf.

The switch to a site off the coast of Jacksonville may prove more troublesome. The edges of the proposed 625-square-mile range would be near the calving grounds of the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The critical habitat for right whales extends to about 20 miles off the coast of northern Florida. The range's westernmost boundary would be 50 miles offshore.

Experts believe fewer than 400 right whales remain in the North Atlantic. The population spends its summers off the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia, and in winter, pregnant females migrate to warmer southern waters off Georgia and Florida to give birth.

The range would include hundreds of underwater microphones placed on the ocean floor to record Naval exercises with ships, submarines and Seahawk helicopters.

At close range, blasts of mid-frequency, active sonar - the type Navy ships and helicopters use to detect enemy submarines - can injure dolphins and whales, which use sound to navigate and communicate. Scientists understand less about how marine mammals are affected by repeated or continual exposure to underwater noise.

Navy analysts concluded the effects of the sonar would be low-level, and not permanent.

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection has begun reviewing the Navy's analysis, but has not reached any conclusions.

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission is against the plan completely calling the location extremely inappropriate. In January 2006, the commission told the Navy that Florida's northern waters should not be considered for the training range - and in no case should the range be used between mid-October and mid-April, when right whale calves typically are born.