Obama Administration to Whales, Dolphins: You Go Deaf, We'll Get Oil

[G_j]

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2014/huffington-post-07-21-2014.html

The Huffington Post, July 22, 2014
Obama Administration to Whales, Dolphins: You Go Deaf, We'll Get Oil
By Miyoko Sakashita

Imagine this: Someone moves into your neighborhood and, every 10 seconds, fires off an airgun that's louder than a jet engine. And it goes on for weeks or months at a time. It's painful and debilitating, so loud that some of your neighbors go deaf, others die.
If you're a whale, dolphin or sea turtle living off the Atlantic Coast, the Obama administration has just made that nightmare a reality.

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opened up offshore waters from Delaware to Florida to oil and gas exploration. I'm sure that's good news for the oil and gas industry (which already gets more than $4 billion in tax credits and subsidies from the U.S. government) but thousands of marine animals will pay a very terrible price.

In approving this step in exploring for oil, the Obama administration greenlighted a controversial technique for conducting seismic surveys: blasting ultra-loud noiseguns that send sound waves through the water and help identify where the oil and gas might be. But there's a problem. These guns generate some of the loudest human sounds in the oceans short of explosives. They can reach more than 250 decibels (a jet engine is around 140 decibels), causing hearing loss in marine mammals like whales and dolphins and disrupting rich communities of wildlife under water, where sound is magnified. Such painful explosions of noise can disturb essential behaviors like feeding and breeding over vast distances, cause communication problems between individual whales and dolphins and even reduce catch rates of commercial fish.

Sometimes these super-loud noises are merely painful, other times they can cause animals to go deaf or even die.
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But for the moment, I find it hard to forgive the simple act of approving a plan setting in motion such a horrible and painful fate for so many sea creatures across so many miles.
Some neighbors we turned out to be.

Follow Miyoko Sakashita on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EndangeredOcean

[Sunlei]

1. yes, President Obama has always been a greenhorn, a city dude & he gets snookered by the oil Feds

Got snookered big time by the very friendly man with the big smile & cowboy hat. Those DOI, BLM, Wildlife Fed agency and Feds for oil 'good old boys', "military test animals"- never liked 'tree huggers' buttin' in their business.

At least he got rid of Salazar and I am very grateful President O accepted that resignation quickly.!!

That "good old boys club" is not interested in the welfare of any wildlife, land or sea! Especially if the wildlife can't be hunted or canned for dog food or 11 cents a pound- 'meat' to sneak into the cheap human food supply.'

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Dead cetaceans => Dead cetaceans.

When you find a lot of your food through echolocation, having your ears blown out means starving to death.

[Enrique]

3. and he didn't get anything for it

he supposedly has items on his agenda like jobs and unemployment and all the rest, and supposedly the GOP simply won't go along.

But he gives them stuff like this, for free.

[MoonRiver]

4. ...

[progressoid]

5. Energy independence! (But not oil independence)

We seem to be doubling down on oil.

[IDemo]

6. This is further evidence of the desperation in 21st Century energy policy

All of the happy talk about America regaining its position as a major oil producer ignores the underlying facts: the easy to find and drill crude is history and the tar sands, fracking and offshore stuff are the desperate attempts to keep the gas tank filled of our carbon-intensive economy long enough to allow the remaining public wealth to be shop-vacked into the wallets of the job creators.

They are not ignorant of the perils to the ecosphere, water supply and atmosphere of their pet projects. They frankly do not give a damn.

[FiveGoodMen]

13. Very well put!

I think you've nailed it precisely.

[joeybee12]

7. The environment is one thing Obama was never good on...

And he never got better in 6 years...he's tone-deaf on these issues...

[L0oniX]

8. I'll expecting the resulting victims to wash up on the beaches.

[conservaphobe]

9. Energy independence polls better.

That's the political reality.

Until "for the first time in years, whales and dolphins don't need hearing aids" gets more public approval than "for the first time in years, we're producing more oil here at home" then there's no reason for any politician to care.

I am all for weaning ourselves off oil, but I don't fault the President for expediency.

[Swede Atlanta]

10. These animals rely on sonar to find food and navigate.....

If you render them deaf you essentially kill them.

Good going Obama. I would much rather that Obama in the WH than any Republican but his record on the environment is very spotty. This is an area where someone needs to sit him down and explain how these animals live and what the real environmental cost for allowing this to be.

I would definitely not call him the environmental president.

[G_j]

12. I would venture his daughters could even educate him on this

[Octafish]

11. It's more precious than life itself.

It's how we make a killing.

[arcane1]

14. Gotta scrape that crack pipe!

Crack independence!

[napkinz]

15. Dr. Reese Halter was just on "The Ed Show" discussing this

He was pissed ... and rightly so.

[G_j]

16. For sure

there is no excuse for this..none..

[MoonRiver]

17. I heard it on my satellite radio

I'm really starting to think that Obama hates whales and dolphins. Not really, but there's much anecdotal evidence in his administration.

[G_j]

19. sad

wildlife in general doesn't seem to be a prioity. Look at his earlier appointment of Ken Salazar. It feels like they don't really care much.
...a great dissappointment.

[MoonRiver]

20. Yes, and animals and the environment are the most important issues for me.

I hope our next Democratic president does much better.

[G_j]

21. I cetainly hope so!

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." -Gandhi

[DirkGently]

18. K & Argh.

[napkinz]

22. kick

nt

[napkinz]

23. ...

[G_j]

24. trouble

is putting it mildly..