The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the Navy over the Pacific Ocean’s whales, declaring that the Navy can continue its military exercises using high-powered sonar, despite environmentalists’ arguments that the sonar can harm whales’ ears or cause the panicked animals to beach themselves. The court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that national security needs override these concerns. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, stating: “Of course, military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question” [ABC News].
The lawsuit centered on 14 sonar exercises that the Navy wanted to conduct off the coast of Southern California to train seamen in detecting enemy submarines. In his opinion, Roberts stressed the military threat posed by modern subs. “Modern diesel-electric submarines . . . can operate almost silently, making them extremely difficult to detect and track.” America’s potential adversaries have at least 300 of these subs, he said. “The president — the commander in chief — has determined that the training with active sonar is ‘essential to the national security’” [Los Angeles Times].
The Supreme Court’s hearing of the case didn’t delve into the scientific arguments over whether or not sonar harms whales, instead it hinged on whether the federal government had the right to order the training exercises to go ahead without conducting an environmental review. The case began when the Natural Resources Defense Council challenged that assumption, and carried on as a district court judge and then an appeals court agreed that an environmental review was necessary. One judge’s order required the Navy to take a number of steps, including shutting down [high-powered] sonar when marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards [Bloomberg].
Now, the Supreme Court’s decision has overruled those previous judges and lifted the restrictions on sonar use, stating that those federal courts abused their discretion in imposing such conditions on the Navy. However, the ruling may have limited practical impact because the Navy has already completed 13 of its 14 planned exercises. The training is designed to prepare naval strike groups for deployment in the western Pacific and Middle East [Bloomberg].
Related Content:
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DISCOVER: Killing Whales With Sound
Image: Rialyn Rodrigo/U.S. Navy
November 12th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
This is as it should be. I’m all for saving the whales but national security trumps that.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
What doesn’t trump national security in that country?
November 13th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Yeah, in a time of war nuke the whales all you like – but just for testing purposes and they’re not willing to look around or move a little for the sake of some other sentient creatures? Dishonorable conduct!
“Hey, I’m in the Armed Forces and I need to practice shooting my gun. No time to look around to see if I might hit an innocent bystander.”
I feel a little hungry – or is that feeling in my stomach a growing disgust for humanity?
November 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
So, if this sonar is what I think it is, unless it’s something newer, I’ve worked with it myself while in the US Navy. It’s an awesome tool, and may give us the upper hand. I don’t like the idea of killing whales, or anything else just because it got in our way, but the potential that this type of sonar has would mean that our troops and sailors are safer against (subsurface) threats that don’t play by the same rules we do. When we’re at “war” with other countries, we’re most certainly the ones with the heavier restrictions on what we do to our fellow man.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Human life or a whales life? Is this really something to be worrying about? I would kill a whale if meant me living… Heck I’d kill two!
November 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
No, it’s Human’s practicing with technology versus the whales life.
The choice is being mischaracterized (is that a word?).
March 16th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Life is the only measure.