That's a Whale of a Fish Tail

Mikaela says:
Gotta love it when science caves to military pressure.

Reference to Sonar Deleted in Whale-Beaching Report

By Marc Kaufman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A09

Documents released under a court order show that a government investigator studying the stranding of 37 whales on the North Carolina coast last year changed her draft report to eliminate all references to the possibility that naval sonar may have played a role in driving the whales ashore.

The issue of sonar's effects on whales is a sensitive topic for the U.S. Navy. It has clashed with environmentalists in several court suits seeking to limit use of the technology because of its possible effects on marine mammals and other sea creatures.

The January 2005 stranding occurred shortly after naval maneuvers in the area -- which is off North Carolina and in the region where the Pentagon wants to build a controversial underwater sonar training range.
...
She also noted that one of the injuries -- air bubbles in the liver of a pilot whale -- had been reported in mass strandings in the Bahamas and Canary Islands associated with sonar activity.
...
Air bubbles were found in the organs of several whales that stranded in the Canary Islands after a sonar exercise, leading some researchers to conclude that the animals swam to the surface too rapidly and suffered a version of the bends. If air bubbles were present in the whales that beached in North Carolina, it could suggest that sonar caused their stranding, as well.

Just picture how much pain SONAR must cause for these whales to buck all of their evolutionary training and surface too quickly, causing them to die. Shouldn't a report investigating their beaching explore that very horrifying possibility, even if it's just to rule it out?